Bike Forums - Shares/Opinions on Media Coverage of this Year's tour?

Check out Samuel Abt's Reporting: Many of you may enjoy this fellow Sam Abt who has been reporting on the Tour de France for the International Herald Tribune for the last 30 years. In the days before the internet and in years when cable tv coverage was sparse (or I didn't have cable) his articles were also published in the New York Times. He has also written some great books. Here is an example from today's story: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/24/sports/BIKE.php. Interesting scoop about Floyd, a comment made by Dave Z that I haven't seen anywhere else. Typical - he always seems to get the inside story in an insightful way that gets at the essence of the race. Now I wish I had followed the race with his reports a bit more - perhaps next year.

I also found ESPN online's coverage to be very good, with Andrew Hood at the wheel and Bobby Julich providing some insider perspective. Too bad he turned into just another observer after Stage Eight. Still, his comments about letting Pereiro back into the race turned out to be correct, despite all the flack he took for it, he was right.

I've kind of moved on from Velonews, which I cut my teeth on, and read cyclingnews dot com now more than anything else. They do so well with tech articles and other bike geek stuff that I really enjoy. Also you can look at their page without any spoilers, unlike Velonews. Still, I'll probably buy the Tour issue that Velonews puts out, as a keepsake of this Tour. Too bad Winning Magazine doesn't produce that glossy oversize Tour issue like it used to, that thing was even better for that purpose. Winning is long gone...too bad it didn't survive until cycling reached critical mass.