I am at the Tour de France for another year with telemetry and working for the Versus network. The team at Versus and Woods TV make the trip so easy and enjoyable. We just need to make sure the systems are set up and we have the riders that will race with the SRM's. This year we are glad to have some riders from Team Columbia, Gerolsteiner, Milram and CSC.

My first task was catching up with Robbie Ventura, it's also nice to hear about his coaching business Vision Quest and each of our thoughts on who will win the Tour this year! The first days I was staying in a place called Roscoff on the northern part of Brittany. Great seafood and a nice place to start off the tour.

Just to explain, every year at the Tour de France, SRM picks out a number of teams and asks them that they allow one of their riders to use an SRM on their bike and to allow us to show the data live using telemetry. We try to collect the power output, cadence, speed and heart rate. Then the data can be displayed during each stage and Versus can take that data and display it live on television. It's good for SRM to collect some data but it's really good to demonstrate how hard these guys are really working.

First I have to say thank you to Uwe and Jenny who have worked very hard on the telemetry project year after year. This year, Jenny arrived a few days before Uwe and I to make sure the riders were set up, the mechanics had all of the SRM's and that everything was tested and prepared. Both have spent weeks testing and retesting all of the equipment. Well this makes my job easy as I just have to arrive at the start and help get the bikes set up. Then we send the rider list to our different media outlets, for me, it's Versus. Then I'm off to the finish so we can collect everything from each stage.

Normally the finish is the most stressful, we have about 5 minutes to collect all of the equipment from all of the bikes. Add 20 buses and spread them out over several hundred meters, throw in a bunch of spectators and some very tired cyclists and it gets interesting quickly. If we miss a rider, that means we have to find their hotel and could add 2 hours to the night so it's always crucial to collect the equipment.

The layout of this year's Tour de France is excellent. It's so nice to have short transfers! If you watched the Giro di Italia this year, one of the biggest complaints by the riders and teams were the long transfers. Nothing like finishing a five hour race and then driving three or four hours to your next hotel! Well this year, the Start of every stage is very close to the finish of the previous stage. This keeps the driving at a minimum and allows the riders some additional time to rest. Normally this also puts us at the hotel and having dinner at a reasonable hour.

So far it has been a great Tour for collecting data, there are so many different stages and analyzing these files really helps us determine the different types of power outputs and how the riders can benefit with this information. Often riders want to just race and not have the distraction of using the SRM but as you can see with Team Columbia, they really value the data that is collected from each stage. It's fun to see the reaction of the riders after each stage when they look at their average power data and the kilojoules.

This is my third complete Tour de France from start to finish and my fourth Tour de France. The first year, I went for the first week, then traveled to Austria to help out at a training camp with Team CSC and then traveled back to Paris to watch Lance win his 7^th Tour.

This is the first time though that I have been in this region of France and I have to say the Dordogne is one of the most beautiful parts of France that I have visited. Very scenic and fun to drive, I struggle every year because I'm just wishing I had a bicycle and was riding instead of watching all of the others cyclists riding! France is such a nice country and there are so many places to ride, I always collect the brochures from the nice hotels and B & B's that we often stay in and hope someday I can come back and just ride my bike! I don't think I will be putting out the same watts as these guys though!

Well I don't want to sound like I'm advertising for B & B's but we stayed in a B & B that was near the start of Figeac. It was located on this hilltop just off the race course along the river Aveyron. There was a British couple that owned the place and they made us a fantastic meal from the surrounding farms and a wonderful breakfast. The wine was also from the region, I wanted to spend a few extra days there but not this time....I will definitely return.

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