Tour de France (July 5-27)

The Tour de France begins July 5.

I covered the event daily, 1997-2006, for several dailies, Miami Herald to Sacramento Bee, and a few web sites. I co-wrote the book Tour de France For Dummies in 2005.

A few years ago (with an editor's insight) I realized writing "ahead" is a good thing at the Tour de France. It's six hours ahead to East Coast dailies, nine hours to West Coast, obviously. Daily stories are old by the time folks pick it up the paper from their porch or look at the web at work.

I look ahead each day. Is the field going to a famous or infamous mountaintop? Is the next day's city significant historically or from some epic occurrence in race history? Is there a good human-interest angle?

The wires and major papers cover the daily grind, but often don't have an update on American competitors or look ahead.

I write a nice 400 words or so each day that looks at the next stage. Add an advance and feature or two, and it's a 25-piece package to spruce up the obligatory gamer. It's good content for something different for online editions, too.

Here are examples from 2007:

http://www.byjamesraia.com/categories/Tour-de-France%2C-2007/

More examples:

www.byjamesraia.com

Reasonably priced package deal or selected feature coverage.

James Raia
e-mail: James@ByJamesRaia.com
Tel. (916) 508-5122