The Tour finished today, and I'm bereft for another year. It's hard to explain how much it means to me, especially since I don't watch any other sport on TV, with the exception of the occasional equestrian event and sometimes the Olympics, or the occasional Welsh rugby match.

The Tour is particularly fascinating since it works so well on so many levels. Visually, it's a feast. Gorgeous French countryside for a start. Imagine chateaux, mountains, fields of sunflowers, lavender, ancient hill towns, alps, then into that throw nearly 200 riders all wearing the most colourful and photogenic team strips with a further layer of complexity added by the national colours worn by champions.

Now add sheer athleticism. The hardest sporting event on the planet. Three solid weeks of racing at rarified levels of intensity. Imagine Usain Bolt sprinting, but doing so after running a marathon. Picture athletes with body fat levels below 5%. When they smile, you don't see dimples - you see that tuck or fold in the cheek that tells you there's not enough meat on the bones for a dimple.

Then talk about danger. This year was particularly bloody. Racers compete with nothing but Lycra between them and the road, at speeds of up to 70 mph downhill on a mountain stage (Thor Hushovd was clocked at 69 mph this year) and routinely 40 mph for sprints and other fast stages. Crashes happen frequently and result in concussion, broken bones, skin removal, even coma and death. And that's without the fact that many accidents occur on high Alpine roads where there are no guards between you and a drop down the valley. This year there were particularly memorable incidents with a French media car and another with a motorbike, leaving riders dragged along and flung into ditches, tossed into the road and bounced into a barbed wire fence, missing a concrete post by inches. Astonishingly, after these incidents, the riders get back on and ride to the line. Even when Vino crashed down a mountain and his team mates were having to scramble to drag his broken body (fractured pelvis) back up to the road and the paramedics, you could see the question - was he getting back on? Completing a stage with a broken collar bone is normal - riders will routinely pretend an injury is minor when they have broken bones, fractures and concussion.

Then there's the strategy and tactics - now this I love. The Tour is not a single race with a single winner (well in one sense it is) but rather it is an interlocking series of 21 different stages, with fierce competition for different elements of it. Look at Mark Cavendish the British sprinter. Cav will finish well down the overall rankings yet is widely regarded as one of the best riders in the world because of his particular talent at sprint finishes, leading to record numbers of stage wins, a green jersey and huge amounts of respect. There are team tactics with clever blocking moves, subtle strategems to manoeuvre key riders into the right spots, and opportunities in the breakaway to get your team some all important coverage from the TV cameras. There are mountain specialists, big beefy sprinters, faithful domestiques who will go for years wiht no individual glory, yet will faithfully support their team leader into the right place for team and stage glory.

And finally there's the drama - the sheer wacky unpredictability of it. One year, someone was shooting at spectators. Sometimes the weather plays an important role (snow on the Alps, baking heat, unpredictable rain and slipperiness), the colourful, costume wearing, flag waving spectators, The Devil - a key Tour fixture on every stage waving his trident, his beard now grey, unexpected bike breakdowns, wardrobe malfunctions, illnesses, practical jokes, drugs (aah, drugs, that's a story in itself), personal rivalries and enmities, French politics, the podium girls - it's all there, adding layers of complexity and unexpectedness to every single Stage.

Now it's over for another year and I'm suffering withdrawal symptoms.