This is the best way to watch the Tour de France from the US that we know of

If you're a cycling fan and it's July that means it's time for the Tour de France, which this year runs July 4-26.

The Tour is the world's largest annual sporting event and one of the most grueling physical and mental endurance tests for the fittest athletes on the planet.

The 102nd edition of the race takes 198 of the world's best cyclists over 2,000 miles. They'll race from Utrecht, the Netherlands, around France, and then finish in Paris three weeks later.

The best way we know of to watch the Tour de France is on NBC Sports' live stream.

Note, we don't have cable TV - we're "cord cutters" - so we're watching the Tour on a laptop.

We just bought the "Full Tour Access" option for $29.99.

That gives you every stage of the race live in HD on your computer. It's for US residents only, the website says.

If you don't want to buy the entire Tour access, you can buy stage-only access for $4.99.

To sign up, you go to tourdefrance.nbcsports.com, where you see this screen:

We chose "Web Access Only" and then got this screen:

We signed up for full access, and right away we were able to start watching the Tour. There is commentary in English.

If you know of another good way to watch the Tour live in US, share it in the comments.

So far so good. We're seeing a nice, clean, crisp stream with no buffering.

We'll update this post if anything changes with our NBC Sports stream.