I have trouble motivating to go out and ride when Le Tour is on TV every morning. I try to ride my stationary bike in front of the TV, but I can't keep that up nearly as long as I can on a real ride.

Any advice?

I record the tour on a dvr and go ride, then watch it in the evening. That lets me fast forward past commercials and boring parts.

+1 on that!

Its the opposite for me. July is always my biggest month. Super motivated by watching the Tour every night (night being key word), I end up doing great training. I watch the 8PM primetime if possible, but if I did a hard/long training ride after work and miss the 8PM start, I will watch it online with the TdF Live that I bought at the start of the Tour so I can fast forward/skip, etc as well, basically the same as dvr'ing like the guys above.

TdF should be helping, not hurting! Get out there and ride!