Tour Fever

-by Cathy Mehl

I’m pretty sure I’m coming down with something. The symptoms have been coming on for a few weeks now and — sure enough — day by day, they seem to be building:

  • I constantly glance at my huge desk calendar to make sure I haven’t scheduled meetings for….well, actually for three weeks in July.

  • I’ve become obsessed with the color yellow and have asked the florist to send only yellow flowers for my weekly delivery from hubby dearest; no other color is acceptable.

  • I’ve hit the local travel store, frantically searching for a big map of France. I am obsessed about hanging it on the wall in my living room and sticking in colored push pins and using highlighters outlining various routes that I might never travel in a country I’ve visited exactly once.

  • I’ve erected a miniature Eiffel Tower on my front lawn. The neighbors wonder what’s up with that?

  • I’ve taken to wearing a beret. In California. In the summertime. And I walk around saying Bon jour all day.

  • I’m looking into buying a poodle and I don’t even consider that a real dog.

Tour Fever: that’s what’s ailing me. I’ve got it bad now and I seem to get it every July. All of my closest friends seem to come down with a big case of it, too. I’m preparing myself for the full break-out, which will hit around July 7th. At that point my entire being will revolve around the Tour de France. I will set my alarm and get up to watch television every morning at the crack of dawn on the west coast of California, usually around 5:30 a.m.

Heck, I’ve gotten up as early as 3:30 to watch a stage and YEAH, I know it’s re-aired time and time again at more reasonable hours throughout the day. But I have TF, and TF sufferers need it live – need to see it while it’s unfolding. There are no TIVOs for true TF sufferers. Sure, those afflicted will go to the DVR to review an entire 5-hour stage later, but I myself see no advantages in risking missing a single live stage. And I don’t want to hear the results or details about it from others. No, thank you.

My kids have looked me in the eye with disbelief in previous Tours when they have wanted to watch something in the evening and I’ve said, “No, we’re watching the Tour.”

“MOM!” they’ve exclaimed at me in incredulous tones, “You’ve already seen it today.”

“Yes, yes, that’s true,” I say confidently to them as though I just made that exact point. I offer up no other explanation. In my head I say to myself that I might have missed something or Versus might be editing it with some new information not available in the live broadcast. I can’t miss it, I have to see it, over and over, all month. By week two, TF has a stranglehold on my routine. It’s happened before…

I inadvertently woke up my kids in the early hours of a July morning in 2003 when I screamed at the TV as a musset brought Lance Armstrong down to the ground. My kids hopped out of their beds and came running out of their rooms screaming, “What happened to Lance?!” Because they knew a scream with that much emotion behind it had to mean something had happened to Lance. They knew because they’ve had to deal with Tour Fever for years and years now. They knew because their mom is a little crazy in July.

Tour Fever. It makes me happy to get up early every morning in July. It’s when I get inexplicable urges for fine French food, Cotes du Rhone, croissants and cheese. It turns my life upside down for a full three weeks while I watch the greatest sporting event in the history of mankind. The competition, the human drama, the strategy, the failures: it all plays out on the roads of France for my personal enjoyment.

I watch the Tour every morning with my friends—on line. These are friends that I have daily contact with during the month of July, but people I rarely if ever see the rest of the year. In fact I’ve never met some of them in person. We’re a Tour Posse. Wherever each person is we all tune to the Tour on TV, then log on to a chatroom and “watch” together throughout every stage of the Tour. We comment on the race, we share information we’ve read about the cyclists, we predict what will happen. We admire the amazing athletes. I learn things from these cycling-savvy friends as we watch the greatest race in the world unfold before our eyes.

Then when the stage is over I write up my report for the Paceline and go to work at my “real” job. All day I think about that day’s stage, about the winners and non-winners. I think about the teams making their transfers to the next town and resting as I go about my work day. It’s a good thing I’m self-employed because I’m quite sure my productivity level in July hovers around sea level. Any boss with an ounce of sense would fire me.

But hey, it’s July and I have Tour Fever. Don’t you?