Le Tour

This year I have the Vs. channel so I get anywhere between 3-6 hours of coverage of Le Tour every day. The route chosen this year definitely ranks up there as one of the most picturesque and also the most physically demanding I have ever seen. I cannot convey to you in words how much these riders are absolute beasts. They are so far above and beyond the level of even the serious club rider that it's ridiculous.

Take yesterday's stage for example from Cuneo to Jausiers in the Alps. Just in case the first mountain wasn't enough, they finish on the Col de la Bonette, the highest pass in Europe at over 2800 metres. When you watch these crazy bastards go up the mountains, take a note of what gear they are spinning in, and how long they spin it for. Yesterday the final stages of the Col looked like gutwrenching, agonising pain until you notice they are still going up at about 15 mph on a 10% gradient after climbing solidly for the past 90 minutes. Then you realise that agonising pain doesn't even cut it and that if the laws of nature were to be obeyed these people should have been pronounced clinically dead 20 minutes ago.

Un. real. Un. bloody. real. Yes, scandals. Yes, EPO doping. Yes disgraced certain riders and teams. But come on this shit is for real. I don't know any other sport which day after day brutalises the human body in such a fashion. At least, I was trying to think of one and couldn't..