I didn't realize what had been stolen from me. I was stunned to hear, a couple of days ago, that Chris Froome had just won his third Tour de France riding for Team Sky, which has won four of the last five. Stunned not by the achievements so much — although they are pretty impressive — but rather the fact that another Tour had come and gone and I had hardly noticed. There was a time, not that long ago, when my years were marked by the annual rite of July which involved spending untold hours in front of the TV watching the rolling chess game play out over... Listen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. A version of this essay previously appeared on Medium (https://medium.com) on this date in 2016. In 2017, Chris Froome and Team Sky won the Tour de France again, making the totals in the article a little out of date. Thanks so much for listening. (header photo: Arrivée de la 2e étape du Tour de France 1969. CC BY-SA 3.0 NL (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/nl/deed.en))