There's a void in our lives right now. An aching chasm of inconsolable emptiness. Le Tour is over for another year.

After three weeks of daily exposure, we had just started to accept the joy of televised cycling as a part of daily life, and voila, it's gone. Like the first weekend after the NFL season ends (not counting the unwatchable Pro Bowl), there is an emptiness. Where once the goofy honk of European car horns, the shouts of the crazed, orange-shirted Basque fans, and the voices of Phil and Paul filled the house, now there is just the melancholy ticking of a clock somewhere in a darkened room.

Well, it might not be that bad, but we're already asking, when's the Vuelta start?

The closest we're going to come to seeing cycling on TV for a while.