I used be a recreational cyclist, and I used to be big into cycling in the early 2000s, the era of Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich. I loved watching the Tour de France. I loved listening to Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin call the race. They’d sometimes hand the commentary over to Bob Roll, who was still young and rowdy in those days, and he was reliable for entertainment.

July was always an exciting month because the Tour was on. We’d watch the teamwork of professional cyclists in the dance of pulling and protecting their leader in a moving caravan of 150-200 men riding shoulder to shoulder at high speeds, with only a layer of lycra for protection against the pavement they often crash and slide along. We’d watch the chaos of bunch sprints where riders propel themselves at 40+ mph under the power of their own legs. We’d watch the brutality of climbing mountains for more than 10 miles at grades that average over 7.5%, and then attacking with huge bursts of power in the middle of those climbs. We’d watch time trials where the riders don’t get the help of their teammates, it’s just each cyclist alone with himself, riding against the clock. And we’d watch the team time trials that are just beautiful to behold in their fluidity.

When I was pregnant with our son 20 years ago, my husband and I were visiting a friend in Marseille on a year that the Tour happened to come through. We got to see the peloton come screaming into town. We saw the yellow jersey of Lance Armstrong streak by and heard the whir of 150 high performance bicycle chains turning over cogs.

Then all the ugliness started to come out. The doping. All the cycling heroes lying through their teeth about the doping. I wasn’t surprised but I was disappointed, and I lost interest. It was hard to find decent coverage of the Tour in the days before streaming services anyway, and I stopped watching. After a while, I didn’t know any of the riders anymore. Until this year, I hadn’t watched a Tour probably since 2005.

Last week, my sister-in-law visited. She’s also into cycling, and she used to race. She was on the UGA cycling team, and we used to ride together and work out together when we were in town at the same time. We also used to watch the Tour together. When she visited last week, she told us that the same people who produced the Formula One Drive to Survive show on Netflix did a Tour de France Unchained show for the 2022 Tour. She said that she had also lost touch with the Tour, and especially who all the riders are now, and the show caught her up on who’s who and what’s what now.

I felt a surge of excitement about the prospect of getting into the Tour again. I was surprised by how excited I got. My husband and I binged the whole Netflix show in three nights, starting on July 1, the day the Tour began. We signed up for Peacock to stream the Tour and have been watching every day. Paul Sherwin passed away a few years ago, but Phil Liggett and Bob Roll are still calling the race. The first time I heard Phil’s voice this week, I was struck by a deep nostalgia, and I remembered the joy that bicycle racing brings me.

I’m super excited about the Tour again, and about all these young fresh riders. I’m already attached to a few of them, like the current King of the Mountain, Neilson Powless, from the hot pink EF Education-Easy Post team of misfits, as they were described on the Unchained show. I’m attached also to team Jumbo-Visma’s Jonas Vingegaard who won last year’s Tour. I want to see Fabio Jakobsen do well, too, and you’ll see why if you watch the Netflix show.

I don’t love extreme heat — I don’t know how I survived however so many years living in Florida — but I do love summer for my flowers, for the abundance of fresh produce, and for the sports I like, which I realize now still include cycling.