In all the excitement of the World Cup, it's easy to miss the other major world sports event that's going on right now: the historic Tour de France. Just yesterday, UK cyclist Mark Cavendish of the Columbia-HTC team took the tricky fifth stage of the tour.

"It was hard this year," said Cavendish in an emotional interview on French television.  "Things didn't go our way yesterday. I let [the team] down massively, and it would have been easy for them to say, 'He hasn't got it,' like other people did."

He still trails Switzerland's Fabian Cancellara, of the Saxo Bank team, who currently wears the coveted yellow jersey.

Here's a video of Lance Armstrong as he talks about his Tour de France 2010 expectations:

The grace, the beauty, the balance. 

Two wheels are just more fun!  

So all you cyclists should love this!  For the rest of you maybe you will understand a bit more of the obsession that many of us have for two wheeled adrenaline.

(for viewing quality, be sure to select 480p)

Now if you don't want to go cycling, there's something wrong with you!

You know what to do.  Put your butt on a bike and ride, ride to work!

San Franciscans, show your local San Francisco Bike Coalition support and stop by one of their 27 Energizer Stations.  The nice folks at REI will  be located at the station by Kearny and Washington in Chinatown from 5pm-7pm with a certified bike technician to make simple nut and bolt adjustments to your bike-for free!

Did you know? Biking is a universal form of transportation and exercise...of course you did!

From Silicon Valley's retro wheels at the Googleplex:

to the flashy fixies in urban NYC streets:

to modest ones seen along the Tibetan plateau:

show off your low carbon footprint by sharing your ride on Skimble.