I don’t know exactly when or where, but at some point in the last few years I do vaguely recall saying, “I wish someone would pay me to watch the Tour de France.”  Sal and I probably had a good laugh, rushed out the door together, and moved onto more important parts of life.

Who would pay me to sit in front of the television and obsess over the Big Yellow French Race?  Ridiculous.

And yet, the impossible has become reality.  Sure, I have to put together a few coherent sentences afterward, but holy hot damn – they’re paying me to watch the tour!

So, for the next 23 days I’ll wake up at 5am, turn on the big TV that I have claimed to hate 100 million times, and watch as the big boys of cycling duke it out over the most epic roads in Europe.  Then I’ll sweat over my laptop for 2 or 3 hours, dispatch results to Columbia retail stores throughout the country, and syndicate the content to GreatOutdoors.com as part of a sponsorship/partnership between the two.

Mad thanks to the people who helped make this happen – I’m excited, elated, stoked and otherwise enthused.

And the Tour?  Well, the Tour has got me all nervous and flustered and bothered.  And that can only be good.

Check out the Columbia-HTC team preview here and the course overview here.

The fireworks start tomorrow. Are you ready?

Possibly related (automatically generated) posts:

1. How to Track Every Second of the 2009 Tour de France I asked the Twitterverse yesterday how they would be following...
2. TDF Stage Two: Yes, this is a spoiler. Don’t read this if you haven’t seen the stage coverage...
3. Allez! Tour Spoiler Ahead. Last week in my column for the Oregonian, I went...
4. Frischkorn is my New Boyfriend: A Breakaway Sticks! Don’t tell Sal, ok? I know I’m a stage or...
5. The little problem with Big George I guess now I know what soap-addicted housewives feel like...