Now for this commercial break

We've been keenly reading all your comments here at the Tour de Francesite and on Twitter about the stage 15 ad-break and the Tour Trackercut-off, here's what happened, writes Philip Gomes.

Talk about bad timing. There we were at the most crucial part of the Tour de France to date - the 207.5km 15th stage which culminated in an 8.8 summit to Verbier that was sure to define the GC selection for the rest of the race.

And we went to an ad break.

You didn't miss Contador's eventual withering attack, nor did you miss the courageous response of Andy Schleck, seeing Cadel Evans in the hurt box and Lance Armstrong digging into his "suitcase of courage".

But you did miss the full narrative and context of the drama that was unfolding on the way to Verbier. You asked why. We figured we owed you an explanation.

Our on air prodcuers have informed us that the ad break was nothing more than a result of poor judgment,. No one regrets this more than we do.

We're flesh and blood here at SBS and I can tell you that a seriously dedicated sport-loving crew are working through the night to bring you the best viewing experience of the Tour de France we can both in broadcast and online.

With regard to the downtime in the online Tour Tracker from 1.30am (AEST), which cut the race off at the knees for those watching on laptops and PC's, that was owed to a technical issue with our streaming partner.

I'm sure you've all experienced technical gremlins of your own at home. We can only hope they don't visit us again.

We hope you'll agree we've succeeded in putting 14 stages to air without fault and revolutionised the way cycling is covered both on television and online through our Tour de France website

We value your input, and thank you for caring about the quality of sports events coverage as much as we do. Rest assured, we're listening, and always working to do the very best for our audience.