Monday, June 27th, 2016, 11:12am. Seated at the airport right now, about to board a flight that will connect to Paris. I'm headed to the first few days of the 2016 Tour de France. Always exciting to head to a place that I love, northern France. My first time to France was in the Brittany region and I'll be nearby in Normandy for the next week. It'll be good to flex my linguistic muscles again, eat some good cheese, drink some bad coffee and reconnect with the circus of professional bike racing.

The energy of the Tour de France is a double-edged sword. It's hard to keep up with that much activity, especially when trying to capture some of it for consumption by online fans of the race. Much of race journalism is distillation. Comprehensively covering an event as massive as the Tour is virtually impossible, but we do our best. Check out Bikeradar.com for my work.

Upon my return from the Tour, I'll head out on a tour of my own. Thankfully I'll be with my adventurous wife, bikepacking from Wyoming, through a bit of Idaho and then into Montana. After 550 miles of northbound travel along the Adventure Cycling Association's incredible Great Divide Mountain Bike Route we'll leave the route in Ovando and head to Missoula for the 40th Anniversary of the Adventure Cycling Association and BikeCentennial.

It'll be fantastic to unplug after the chaos of the Tour and doing so with my partner in life/crime is an amazing added bonus. Can't wait for both the Tour and my tour. Ride on!