This year’s Tour de France is the most competitive (and hence, most interesting) it’s been in years. I admit to being obsessed with this year’s tour (it has nothing to do with large groups of men in skin tight suits pumping up huge hills. I swear.), especially with my main man, Alejandro Valverde and his team Caisse d’Epargne. Valverde and Caisse d’Epargne have both taken some hits this Tour: Valverde began the Tour with a huge crash and Caisse d’Epargne just lost one of it’s strongest members (Oscar Pereiro) to a horrible crash. But Valverde has vowed to fight on. And in yesterday’s stage, he did exactly that, fighting through the uphill climbs in the Alps to move up into 9th place from 14th. The best part was when Tour announcers breathlessly proclaimed Valverde was “biking like the true Spanish King of the Mountain he is.”

I love anybody who can be proclaimed a ‘true’ King of the Mountain. Mhm.