One of the events that signals that summer is officially here, for me, is the opening of le Tour de France. So I just had to post a quick reminder here that the Tour de France bike race begins this Saturday, June 29th (tomorrow) and runs through Sunday, July 21st.

This is also the 100th year that cyclists have competed in le Tour de France. Yes, this is the centennial edition of this historical bike race. The first Tour de France was actually in 1903 but there were 10 years that the race was not held due to WW1 and WW2.

This years race will be 3,404 kilometers or 2,115 miles (for those of us on the west side of the pond). So this would seem like a nice little cycling vacation in Europe… except for the intense competition, the mountains and pace of the rides :-). Yea, it is incredible how intense this race is and I am always impressed by the condition of the riders that are in it.

I am not a racer myself but I think that anyone that enjoys cycling can easily get into this event. I enjoy the competition of the race but there is really a lot more to it than just that. I also really like the scenery of the race, as it winds through France, the beautiful mountain ranges and into the other bordering countries.

I am hoping that the good old USA can win some jerseys this year but now that Lance has been disqualified we have only ever had one American to win the Yellow Jersey (Greg LeMond, of course).

I am not going to get into all of the race history and details here since you can find that info on so many other websites. I just wanted to post a reminder that le Tour starts tomorrow (Saturday, June 29th). So check your local TV listings and check in on it occasionally. I know I’ll be watching and I think many of you new comers may find this race pretty interesting and exciting.

One final note, I just discovered that Proform has come out with a new version of the popular Proform TDF Indoor Cycle to coincide with the start of the 2013 Tour de France race. Proform introduced it’s original high tech TDF indoor cycle at the start of the 2011 Tour de France and has been improving on it since then. This years model is called the TDF Centennial and you can find out what is new with this bike on our Proform TDF Review page. I will be doing a little more research on this model and posting a separate blog post on it at a later date.

For now… check those TV listings and enjoy this year’s Tour de France!