All good things come to an end, and my days of Tour tech coverage are now but a pleasant memory. I just got back to VeloNews headquarters this morning and had to follow today's time trial the way everyone else does – via www.velonews.com and OLN.

I’ve received a ton of questions regarding the time-trial bikes used this year. While access was tight (but possible) with the "daily driver" bikes of the peloton, team mechanics were downright militant about refusing to show their riders' TT bikes. Perhaps the teams didn't want to lose any last-minute tech advantage to the competition, or maybe they simply didn't want any unauthorized eyes pursuing their handiwork. In any case, most of the teams kept their TT bikes well out of sight in their team trucks. Questions directed at TT technology were always answered vaguely and the subject changed soon thereafter. Of all of the technology I saw at this year's Tour, none was more closely guarded as TT developments.

Happily, when it came to tire choice, the experts were a little more forthcoming. Michael Cook of Shreveport, Louisiana, wrote us to ask whether any teams were riding clinchers, and whether extra steps were being taken to ensure that tubulars were thoroughly glued onto the rims.

Michael, in my estimation, about 90 percent of the peloton uses tubular tires in competition. CSC mechanic Craig Geater told me that his team mostly trains on clinchers, but races on tubulars.

With 34 Zipp wheels for regular stages, 21 for time trials, seven more specifically for hill climbing, five extras and six sets as back-up back-ups, gluing up these tires can be quite time-consuming.

"Bjarne (Riis) won't allow us to pre-stretch the tires, so after a day of gluing up we get pretty tired wrestling with super-tight tires," said Geater.

Even more interesting was the number of teams using tubular tires bearing brands of companies that don't make tubular tires. Although it's never done in public, some tire manufacturers (and saddle makers as well) have portable hot-patch machines that roll their logos onto a competitor’s blacked-out tires. For example, Hutchinson doesn't make a tubular, but Hutchinson-supported teams all sported "Hutchinson" tires – even though most of the tires I saw were Vittoria Pro CXs.

This is not exactly cycling technology, but one thing I noticed at the Tour was the armada of helicopters used to cover the race. In every departure and arrival town a mini-airport was set up to support the 10 or so helicopters used by the ASO officials and media.

During the race, the four or more television choppers that film the action fly between 20 and 2000 feet above the peloton (their downdraft could oftentimes be felt), while a second squadron hovers higher still, safely out of the airspace of the first group, to relay video signals from the motorcycles and lower helicopters back to TV trucks at the arrival town – which is often 200km away. Still more helicopters are used to shuttle VIPs around (the ASO was using three in stage 10).

At hundreds of dollars a minute in fuel and maintenance upkeep, keeping these birds in the sky is no cheap feat. The Tour is certainly a sporting event on a level of its own.