That July bicycle madness is back — the Tour de France. Lance Armstrong is going for an unprecedented 6th win. In a row, no less. Three stages down and 18 to go. Lance had a strong showing in the Prologue, which was an individual time trial. It shows he is still a force but there is some very serious racing between now and the finish in Paris on July 25. The early stages are flat and favor the sprinters. It isn't until the peleton hits the mountains that the leaders make themselves known. The first mountain stage won't be until Stage 10 on the 14th. Until then the sprinters play while the big boys bide their time. There will be two interesting stages before then. Tomorrow, Stage 3, will be raced on cobblestones. Lance needs to stay upright and hope that he doesn't have any equipment failures. Stage 4 will be the Team Time Trial. That will measure the strength of the teams. We will see then how Lance's team, US Postal, measures up. They usually measure pretty well.

Here are two sites and a blog for following this greatest of sporting events.

Velonews 2004 Tour de France

BBC Sport — Cycling

Tour de France 2004

Lance is currently in fourth, 18 seconds behind the leader. His main rival (at this point) is Jan Ullrich. He's in 17th place, 33 seconds behind the leader.