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Peter Lynch said that "if you stay half-alert, you can pick the spectacular performers right from your place of business or out of the neighbourhood shopping mall, and long before Wall Street discovers them."

Lynch (LGL - news) 's philosophy holds that you can sometimes spot a good investment just by seeing which shops had a lot of customers. After noting what products his daughters were buying, Lynch discovered one of his "tenbaggers", Body Shop, which is now owned by the French firm, L'Oreal (Paris: FR0000120321 - news) .

This idea is mirrored in one of the baseball philosopher Yogi Berra's famous quotes, "you can observe a lot just by watching." True enough, one of my best investment ideas arrived when I was watching the first Spider-Man film (who owns the rights to the character?).

Another source of information to bring businesses to your attention as possible investments is seeing who is sponsoring sports teams and events. There is a side benefit as well, when your better half complains about you watching the sport you can claim that you're doing some investment research!. After all, when watching the Magners league rugby do you think that the cider maker, C&C Group (Dublin: GCC.IR - news) (LSE: CCR) is a potential investment?

Walking billboards

This weekend, on American Independence Day, the Principality of Monaco hosts the first stage of the Tour de France, the world's toughest endurance race. Fans of Formula One will see much that they recognise as the 15 kilometre route includes most of the Grand Prix circuit.

Le Tour is not just a race nor an embodiment of everything French; it is also an advertisement for a large number of companies that provides them with exposure which is impossible to get elsewhere. The Tour owes its existence to commerce, having been founded by Henri Desgrange in 1903 for the purpose of selling his newspaper!

Having cyclists in the race gets sponsoring firms advertising worth millions. British Olympic gold medallist Bradley Wiggins spent several hours on his own out front during stage six of the 2007 Tour, getting exposure for his team's sponsor, Cofidis, that "money could not buy" as one commentator put it. So when a cyclist tries to break away from the front of the peloton it isn't necessarily that he wants to try and get an edge on everyone else; pro cyclists are walking advertisements and team tactics have been known to include getting their riders into a breakaway group primarily to get their sponsors on TV!

Major European businesses such as Credit Agricole (Paris: FR0000045072 - news) and Bouygues Telecom sponsor both teams and Tour competitions. In addition, a massive parade of vehicles travels some two hours ahead of the Tour, dispensing numerous freebies to spectators along the route, making the commercialisation of many other sports events seem somewhat low-key.

Brits en Tour

British commercial involvement in the Tour de France is relatively small mostly due to cycling's relatively low profile in Britain. The major British interest is Mark Cavendish who has been installed by the high street bookies as the odds-on favourite to win the points competition, following up on his four stage wins in the 2008 Tour.

Sky Television (LSE: BSY) is setting up a top class professional cycling team, Team Sky, in 2010. Given Sky's expertise in marketing their sports coverage, this would dramatically raise the profile of cycling which in turn should benefit most businesses that are involved with cycling. Halfords (LSE: HFD) is Britain's largest cycle retailer and is the sponsor of the Halfords Bikehut team. Expect them to benefit from this.

ITV (LSE: ITV.L - news) (LSE: ITV) broadcasts the tour on ITV4 and has been doing so for several years to consistently increasing viewing figures (those with satellite dishes can also get the Tour on Eurosport).

Bookmakers such as Ladbrokes (LSE: LAD.L - news) (LSE: LAD) and William Hill (LSE: WMH.L - news) (LSE: WMH) in recent years have been taking much larger amounts on the Tour and this is likely to continue to grow.

The Prawn sandwich brigade

Corporate sponsorship isn't just there to provide freebies for Roy Keane's "prawn sandwich brigade." Companies get a lot of exposure through sports which is usually good for the bottom line. Citigroup (NYSE: C - news) pays the New York Mets $20 million per year just for the stadium's "naming rights" and should you fancy sponsoring a top level pro cycling team expect to get little change out of £5 million a year.

Sometimes a sponsor becomes so closely identified with the competition that it almost transcends the event. A good example of this is that, almost thirty years after their sponsorship ended, many people still refer to English cricket's limited over competition as the Gillette Cup.

The Race

Enough about business and investment! The Tour de France is a three-week long race that has been called Hell on Wheels. Its founder believed that the perfect Tour would be one where the winner was the only man to finish. This year's race should be something really special; cycling legend Lance Armstrong has come out of retirement to try for his eighth Tour win and is up against his teammate and race favourite, Alberto Contador, the 2007 Tour winner. Expect major fireworks!