It’s Tour de France time, and in our house, that means all bikes, all the time. Sir Monkeypants was a bit of a bike rider back in the day, and as such he loves to watch the Tour. Watching the Tour is actually the reason why we got cable TV in the first place, because you can only get daily coverage on OLN (possibly called “Versus” now, but that is a stupid name, OLN). The first year we got cable, we watched hours of Tour coverage every single day, and it’s been no different in the years since.

When Captain Jelly Belly and Gal Smiley were little babies, I got to watch all the Tour coverage I wanted because they were either napping, or unable to complain about the choice of TV show. I love to watch the live Tour coverage every morning because the commentators are the legendary Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin. Those two know everything there is to know about every rider on the tour; their comments are insightful and detailed and fascinating.

This year I can’t watch the Tour coverage during the day very much because the Captain and the Gal think that bikes are boooooooring, and if Mommy has the time to watch a booooooring bike show, doesn’t she have time to play Candyland? Again? So instead, I’ve been watching some of the evening coverage, which isn’t nearly as good. OLN replays the same video footage, but replaces the Phil/Paul commentary with more “American friendly” commentators (Phil and Paul have English accents), and the American dudes just do not measure up. They’re often blabbing on about meaningless stuff and they never seem to have a firm grasp on who we are seeing on the screen, and what the impact is of this particular stage. Still, Tour coverage is Tour coverage, I guess.

I’d tape the morning coverage to watch in the evenings but our PVR is awfully busy keeping up with In The Night Garden and Backyardigans. But now that they’ve entered the mountains, I may tell the kids to LUMP IT.

The big Tour news this year, at least for us, is that there is a Canadian in there. Ryder Hesjedal, from Victoria, rides for the American team Garmin-Chipotle. It’s the first time in more than a decade — since before we got cable — that a Canadian has ridden in the tour. Usually, you get a handful of Americans (there are four of them this year), maybe a few Australians and a South African, and the rest are all European. I’m pretty excited to have a home boy to cheer for. I think this could really sway the Captain, too, into being on my side when it comes to vote on what the TV will be showing. He likes sports in general but he LOVES sports when there is a Canadian person or team to cheer for. We can turn it into a whole flag-waving event!

Do you think Ryder’s parents knew he’d want to be a biker when they gave him that name? It really seems too incredibly awesome a coincidence.

Ryder, by the way, will also be racing at the Olympics, which seems like a pretty busy year for him. I’m getting to be a huge fan already. Rock on with your bad self, Ryder!

Now I must run, because Phil and Paul are on.