With only 2 days until the start of the Tour de France 2015 on July 4, it is time to get serious about the apps and other tools you need to watch every stage. I need multiple platforms and options for tracking, since I am going to be in Portland, Oregon and riding RAGBRAI (Iowa) for half the stages.
First I need a way to stay on top of the Tour when I am riding my bike, so I need an app for my Android. Cycling News Tour Tracker. The basic app is free but they are asking for a small donation of $1.99 to GoPro and get more features to help cover the cost of building the app. I am willing to do this for $1.99. I opened the app and it defaults to the info page and already I am getting psyched: “Utrecht Individual Time Trial Starts at Saturday, July 4, 5:00 a.m. Welcome to our live mobile coverage of the 2015 Tour de France. While we await the start of the race, you can find previews of each stage…”
Teams will be introduced in a ceremony tonight. Let’s see if Utrecht can do as good a job as Yorkshire in making the teams feel welcome. I’ll check back with Cycling News Tour Tracker and see how quickly they load the names of the riders.
Next up is my iPad. I could download the official Tour de France app from NBC Sports on my Android for $19.99 but if I am going to spend that kind of money I want to be able to view it on a larger platform. I again have the option of the Cycling News Tour Tracker for free or GoPro and a couple of other options that are free. None, including Cycling News, of the others are rated yet. NBC Sports has 3.5 stars with 9 reviews. When you open the app, the splash page is the official logo of the Tour de France, which entitles them to the camera feeds from Tour helicopters and motorbikes.
Everyone once in a while I see a snarky comment from a cycling fan who tracks the Tour from a European channel with different announcers. I discussed this with fellow avid fan Brian Lovell and we both agree that Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett are the voice of the Tour and we cannot imagine a July without their commentary. It is like the attachment you get to the home team baseball announcer for your favorite team. Once I heard them criticize Paul for giving us so much information about the French chateaus. Guess what? If you watch the race in Norwegian or French you get those too. I am pretty certain that the Tour organization requires it as part of their boost for tourism. I meant to ask when I met them but forgot in the excitement.
Finally, I do not own a television. I have Comcast but refuse to figure out how to watch television on my computer because I really do not want the temptation to watch more programming than I already do on websites like Comedy Central, PBS and Netflix. Still I want to be able to get up early in California and watch as much of each stage as possible. Even if it means my morning ride starts a little later and I catch more heat.
The web application costs $29,99 for the Full Tour Access. Single Day Access is $4,99. I am opting for Full Tour Access, which allows me to watch all 21 stages for the entire distance of 3,360 kilometers. I used this method 2 years ago when I was not watching the Tour in person and my only disappointment is that you do not get the color commentary with Bob Roll and others. This year NBC is adding Jens Voigt to the team. So I will check out Capitol Dime bar, although you can never hear what the announcers are saying in a sports bar. Or hang out at my daughter’s house to watch a couple of stages. When I am in Iowa I will have to use my hot spot and watch it on my computer or find it on in a bar?!
Back in the day when the Tour was on Versus cable channel, I used to watch it 3 times a day!
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