Tong Family

On TV, undoubtedly, those of you in Comcast territory should kiss the earth. They now have Video on Demand and if you are smart, you can find 20 minute Tour de France highlights in their VOD section. Of course, good luck finding it. Here’s how:
* “Comcast On Demand”:http://comcast.m0.net/m/p/com/mic/Sports.asp?email=&cmp=&custom=. Hit Menu and select Video on Demand. Then select Sports and Entertainment, select Outdoor Life Network and Tour de France is there.
* “OLN”:http://www.olntv.com/tdf/article/view/758/?ss=tv&tf=Body.tpl. Otherwise you diehards you get up early in America or who have a Tivo, pray you get OLN on Satellite or on your Cable system.
* “Eurosport”:http://www.eurosport.com/tourdefrance2005/. Eurosport carries the whole thing if you are in Europe. Their site like OLNs does have video clips that sometimes work depending on network traffic. Also their web commentary isn’t bad with regular refreshes and they have an audio feed as well.
Unlike last year, OLN isn’t broadcasting the audio on the internet. How sad. Instead, here are the top feeds I use in order:
* “Cyclingnews”:http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2005/tour05/05index.php. My first read. They are actually quite good. The “live”:http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2005/tour05/?id=live/tour0514 feeds work well on a Blackberry. Main issue is that URLs keep churning every stage. They should really just have Live be the latest stage up. Quite hillarious ex
pressions as this is a non-US site. Kind of like Phil Ligget on the web.
* “Velonews”:http://www.velonews.com/tour2005/live.html. The second best coverage I’ve found. The site is busier so doesn’t work as well on a mobile phone.
* “Outdoor Life”:http://www.olntv.com/tdf/article/view/741/?ss=reports&tf=Body.tpl. I actually don’t like their most recent information as much, but their reports are terrific as it has Phil Liggett, Bob Roll and Chris Carmichael doing commentary.
* “Official Site”:http://www.letour.fr/2005/TDF/LIVE/us/1500/index.html. Not much commentary here, but a nice graphic for who is in front. ESPN has a similar thing, but it completely blows up Firefox so I don’t use that.
After the day, I like to read the various news reports:
* “Cyclingnews”:http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2005//tour05/?id=news. They have the best organized. Google-like news reports all in one place.
* “Velonews”:http://www.velonews.com/tour2005/news/. Also a nice site with the news reports all in one place and most important “Jan Ullrich”:http://www.velonews.com/tour2005/diaries/ has his diary there.
* “OLN”:http://www.olntv.com/tdf/article/view/741/?ss=reports&tf=Body.tpl. The Liggett and other guys are a good short read. Chris Carmichael is a reliable Pro-Lance view. Most of the rest of the coverage is about how he is losing, so its nice to see both sides.
Finally, I like to look at the photos and videos:
* “OLN”:http://www.olntv.com/tdf/article/category/87/?tf=articlecat_video.tpl&sm=5&CatLimit=1&cc=1&ArtLimit=100&ac=1&cat=&mt=&CatUserDef=true&ss=video. They have the best list of videos and the most reliable media servers.
* “Cyclingnews”:http://www.cyclingnews.com/road/2005//tour05/?id=photos. Again the winner for easiest to find photos suitable for wallpapering your PC.