Tour de France is a full-contact sport

Viewer alert: The Tour de Carnage is on every morning, one of the most insane, frightening and compelling sporting events of the year.

July is considered the slow time in sports. But for those of us who wake up early enough, it’s one of the most fascinating times on the sports calendar.

Coming into our screens from across the pond is the legendary, dignified spectacle of Wimbledon, which has delivered remarkable entertainment this year. Simultaneously, the Tour de France, which — for reasons of beauty, grit and danger — is addictive watching.

A lot of casual American fans gave up on the Tour after the retirement and postracing embarrassment of doper Lance Armstrong. They, rightfully, felt they were duped into watching Fake Sports. Sad!

But the Tour de France continues to deliver. Deathdefying thrills that rival any car race. Much prettier scenery than you’ll find at a NASCAR track. And athletes still pushing the limits of human endurance (and still getting some illegal help as evidenced by Andre Carduso’s prerace positive test for EPO).

This year’s Tour is, again, a war of attrition. Several of the top cyclists, and fan favorites, were out quickly. In Stage 4, Mark Cavendish crashed into the barriers and fell into the path of two oncoming cyclists, one of whom ran right over his head. His shoulder was broken. In a controversial move, Peter Sagan was kicked out of the race for elbowing Cavendish and causing the crash.

That mayhem was caused by cyclists. The drama in Stage 11 may have been caused by the Tour organizers. After a day of insane climbing, equal to scaling half of Mount Everest, there was a brutal crash on a descent. On an extremely narrow, wet road, one of the favorites, Australian Richie Port, went off the road at 45 mph. He cartwheeled across the pavement, breaking his pelvis and shoulder. Horrifying.

The danger of descents has long been discussed in the Tour de France. The talk only gets louder. There’s a theory that as post-doping (if there is such a thing) times have declined, cyclists take more risks on descents, at a time when they’re more exhausted. And possibly, as post-doping viewing audiences have declined, organizers like that risk.

It’s frightening. Crazy. But it makes for compelling viewing.