After struggling for years to get a good viewing of the Tour de France, I finally broke down and got DSL internet. Why are Spanish climbers so good, and why are French riders so mediocre? It's not that Spain is the only country in Europe that has mountains. (Perhaps it has more roads at higher altitude.)

They make the poor devils race in afternoon heat and thunderstorms. Is that just to pick up a morning audience in North America? It doesn't seem like there would be that many cycling fans in NASCAR nation.

The view from the helicopter cameras is nonpareil. They probably make it look better than it really is, just as MJ does to the San Juan mountains in Colorado. The camera pulls away from the race to view medieval chateaus and cathedrals. I like the traffic roundabouts they have in France.

Maybe it's just an impression but there seems to be fewer houses in the rural areas of France. In the USA you seldom feel that you've really escaped from town; so-called rural areas are really just low-density suburbs. Perhaps the cheap gasoline in the USA encourages it.

Spectators are just plain scary when they almost block the paths of the racers, waving their stupid national flags. But it is one of the charms of bicycle racing that the fans can get close to the athletes. Try that at an NFL game.

Flag waving detracts from the international nature of bicycle racing, although it's understandable to stick for, say, a rider from the Frisian Islands who promises to become the best climber. Everybody sticks for the Jamaican bobsled team. But from an anthropological point of view, sports have always been mock battle. Perhaps it's even healthy.

At least they've improved the podium girls this year. It must be irksome to female beauty queens and models to look fat in public. A couple years ago the girls' legs always looked chubby compared to the winner of the day. At le Tour the podium girls give kisses as faux and tripartite as Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite.

At any rate, the French podium girls are second rate compared to the podium girls of Italy's Giro d'Italia. The latter are more stylish and even give real kisses, one to each cheek of the winner, at the same time. (blush)

The innovation this year was to do a stage without the radios that normally keep racers in contact with the manager. It didn't go over well but I like the idea that racers are called on to be all-around cyclists rather than just pedaling machines.

Besides innovation in the rules, it would help if there were some new corporate sponsors. So many of them seem ridiculous. What does Agritubel have to do with bicycle racing? And it's not properly socialist and statist, as you would expect from Europe. Perhaps teams need to be sponsored by noble causes. For instance if a Global Warming team was co-sponsored by the BBC it could free-up 15 minutes of every hour in their programming.

It made sense that the US Postal Service used to sponsor Lance Armstrong; it helped give them a speedy image, something they badly needed.

I'm surprised that Goldman Sachs doesn't have its own team, shadow-funded by the US government of course. If their team could stay free of doping charges, it might help to resuscitate Wall Street's image.

Or it could backfire. Recall the history of the now disbanded Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac team. They were plagued with flat tires, especially at high altitudes. Then the team car would pull up and out would jump a chubby mechanic with a white beard who would over-inflate the tires to the point of bursting.