Like most cycling fans, your day is not complete until you have had your daily dose of what's what and who's who in the world of cycling. In my case, it deals mostly with the world of professional cycling. Therefore, I always make sure I am caught up with the latest news and rumors floating across the pond or Stateside as opposed to catching up on the latest writings about the sport in general (like other blog posts). Though, I do do that quite often as well. Since this is the off season, not too much news gets generated and I don't want to bore you with another Lance Armstrong post, I will give you the lowdown on how I receive my daily dose of cycling news.

This process is actually quite simplistic. I have a set of bookmarks in my web browser (Firefox) under the folder labeled "cycling". Within that folder lists my top websites in alphabetical order. My daily dose revolves around clicking on most of these sites multiple times throughout the day. The list is as follows:

Amgen Tour of California, Astana Cycling Team, Bike Radar, Cycle To, Cyclingnews.com, Cycling TV, Daily Peloton, Eurosport, Graham Watson, High Road Sports, LanceArmstrong.com, On Tour With Lance, PezCycling News, Podium Cafe, Team CSC, and Velonews.

Follow up:

Pretty impressive, huh? I'm sure not. This list actually has grown recently for no good reason. I really don't click every one of these as I know some of the sites don't update as often. I regularly visit (multiple times a day for all of the following sites) the Astana website so I can catch the updates as they get posted. I visit Bike Radar to catch the latest news before I flip over to cyclingnews.com, where I'll read the exact same articles and then some. Afterwards, I click to the Daily Peloton to only find the same old postings from a few days ago. Frustrated, I go to the Eurosport website to check out their cycling section. But by this time I'm pissed that cricket is more popular of a sport then cycling! For some fun, I'm usually eager to head over for a Pez sighting. If the new posts aren't up, I'll just browse through the Daily Distractions, um, I mean the Pelo-Pics. And finally, the last website of the round starts with a "V". That would be the home of Casey Gibson and Neal Rogers, Velonews. In my opinion, this is the most professional of all of the websites, or at least the most aesthetically appealing. It's very easy to read and to navigate. I give the new web design an A+!

Of course, I can't neglect the other websites. The TofC site is on there because it gives easy access to the "live" section during the race and I think the website is nicely designed. Cycle To was added recently because they have some interesting videos that's a great break from just reading and reading and reading. Cycling TV, well, you know. It's there for when it does work while Graham Watson is there so I can enjoy his great pics during the season. Has anyone bought from him? Who does he think he is? Ansel Adams? Lower the price Graham! High Road Sports is on there purely because it's an American Team. Actually, not true. It's been there ever since the old T-Mobile days. Yep, I liked browsing the T-Mobile Team's website back in the hay day. Both Lance websites are there because he's Lance while the Podium Cafe is important for if I want to find out gossip that is not yet posted on one of the "main stream" cycling news outlets.

Of course I have other cycling related bookmarks like some of the popular blogs floating around, a few of which I have links to from this site. It starts with Bike Snob NYC and continues all the way to Velocity Nation and the Virtual Musette. And never forget the news feeds like AP for great photos. Their captions are not always correct like this one that caused a stir on the Podium Cafe, but the pictures are usually very good.

So am I obsessed? I think not. Although my daily dose of cycling is very methodical, it doesn't get out of hand. Yes, I do click through my bookmarks multiple times a day and yes I do feel a bit weird if I don't read Pez by 3pm but once I do all of that, I'm okay. I'll then be off to the next thing and then on to tomorrow's news.

What's your daily dose?