TDF Travel Day - more from the tour!

Due to internet troubles in the Alps we were unable to post up from
the days near L'Alp d'huez. Now I am in Colorado with no internet
access, but some time to sit down and put down a few of the highlights.

On Monday we got up early for breakfast and finished off our packing -
it was the day we would leave Provence and travel to Bourg d'oisans to
see some of the mountain stages. This was a good day for a break as
the riders of the Tour were taking a rest day as well. On our way to
our next bed we would stop and pick up Tim from the TGV station.
Before we could pick up Tim we had to buy a bike rack for our van as
we calculated that there was no chance of getting all of our bikes and
boxes inside that thing.

Dave and I set off for Auvingnon to a sports store we had noticed
previously as a good possibility for a rack purchase. We found our
way to the store after about 10 roundabouts and finally got inside.
Decathelon turned out to have about everything but what we needed. We
then drove by a bike shop - closed, a store kinda like Target - nope,
then when we were trying to get out of the parking lot of the Mall we
drove by some guys installing a rack on top of their car. I asked
where they got it and they pointed to the car parts store behind us.
Turns out the car parts place is Rack Central. We had a ton of
options and picked one we thought would work - and it did after about
an hour of installation. Bikes, boxes, luggage and bodies were
finally put in the van and we took off.

We hooked up with Tim and were on our way to Grenoble and then down to
d'Oisans. The Alps were huge and impressive. About 5 we arrived in
d'Oisons and it was like entering bike Mecca - there were bikes and
riders and bike shops everywhere. Half of the people we saw were
decked out in some kind of kit - in this town wearing jeans and a
shirt looked stranger than wearing spandex shorts. We stopped for
some dinner - the usual ham and cheese, then headed for our hotel - a
place called a Gite. It is a place where hikers and travelers can
stop in as they traverse the Alps and get dinner and breakfast and
then head to the next Gite. We were a little concerned because we
had only let the owner know we were bringing three people and we
didn't want to get rejected so we went in with some fear. Only two of
us went in to check out the situation.

Turns out the owner greeted me and said - we are so glad you are here,
we weren't sure when you were arriving. Do you have 3 or 4? Are you
ready for dinner? Would you like something to drink? .....so it all
turned out OK.

A second dinner with four courses was on the table for us in a few
minutes and soon we were eating with about 10 new friends. This Ten
was a group of from a running club in Marseille. We had some good
laughs and we spent a couple of hours together. They were hiking 15
to 20 mile days through the Alps and staying at Gites (which is what
we were in) overnight. At dinner we aslo learned that the chef was
from Oklahoma! She had grown up somewhere near Tim, which probably
wasn't hard because in the 50s there were only two or three towns
inhabited by caucasians in the whole state. Tim didn't know her but
they were probably related. Anyway, she had definitely learned to
cook somewhere special because the food was outstanding. When we made
the booking we thought we might get breakfast with our stay so this
was a huge bonus to the trip.

After dinner our host showed us our room which was in the far end of
the Gite. It was like a rustic apartment with two bedrooms upstairs.
We felt like kids because our room was like a treehouse - all wood
with big beams going across the room at strange angles. We moved our
stuff in and got a good nights sleep.

Last Day in the Alps

Our day was focused on two things - seeing the start of the race in
Bourg D'oisans and then getting a good ride in before heading back to
eat and pack up for the trip to Paris and then home.

Yves stuck with us as Philip and Paul were on their way back to the UK.

The start was at 11 or so and we made our way out about 8:30.
D'oisans was about 4 miles away and we got their pretty quickly.
Hordes of people were heading into the center of town to see the
start. We had no idea where to go and just had to make some guesses.
On the way in we locked up our bikes and started walking. Again - it
was like a bad day at six flags.
As we walked along one of the roads we were suddenly waved aside by
Tour staff and several team cars and busses came by slowly. We saw a
bunch of racers - Cadel Evans and I were face to face for a minute.
Fabian Cancellara had the window down and was all smiles - that guy
has a lot of personality. The Columbia bus had 5 Lions adorning the
front window of their bus - little did they know they would add
another to it that afternoon.

We couldn't tell from the cars where we should go so we just kept
moving toward the center of town. Our first stop was against a
barrier that was protecting a big open area near the start. I went up
and found us a spot about 10 feet from the start line and we decided
to move up there. Hard to know if it was a good decision at first -
the riders all gathered and chatted down by our first location while
they were being interviewed. In the mean-time we saw Christian
Prudhomme (sp) and Bernard Hinault and Laurent Jalabert which was
pretty cool. Start time approached and the riders made their way up.
Erik Zabel rolled by a couple of times and then the leaders came
forward. Cancellara rolled up and acted like he was lunging for the
line in a sprint. The riders sat there for about 15 minutes before
the race and we were able to pick out a bunch of the biggies -
Hincapie was close and several others.

After the start the busses and team cars all came through and we made
our way back to our bikes. After we were riding we spotted a couple
of Garmin/ Chipotle vehicles and Tim noticed that the team director -
Jonathan Vaughters - was still there packing things up. Tim asked for
a pic and Vaughters was glad to give it. I guess he figured he would
have time to catch up with the peloton.

Our next move was to ride up into the mountains again - this time
toward the Col De La Croix du Fer. (on the day before the racers had
climbed all the mountains we would climb in three days - Lauteret,
Galibier, Croix du Fer, and L'Alp D'huez. We were doing this climb
the opposite way the racers did it and it was tough - very steep and
consistent. Again, we passes several cool towns and this road had
almost no cars on it - even though the tour had started just below.
We rode up for a couple of hours and at about 3 put an end to it at a
little cafe where they had spaghetti. David was hungry and you just
don't stop that train.

The descent was a blast and we got a chance to see our big belgian
friend at work - he happened to be 6'7 just like me, but 15 yrs
younger and with a lot more power. We had a good ride down to town
and caught the end of the Tour on TV at a cafe back in D'oisans. Then
it was time for dinner!

Back at the Gite we had one last dinner and a good visit with Yves and
a couple who were staying the night. Dave and I decided to work on
our language skills with them and it went pretty well for a while. We
asked the them to avoid using english and to try to help us get a bit
stronger in our french. The wheels fell off when David was getting
tired and lapsed into something he probably saw on cartoons when he
told her that American's 'no-likey' something. It wasn't exactly
french or english. We laughed until we couldn't any more. I wasn't
doing much better. Steve was trying to describe the finer points of
Texas Chip-seal road surfaces to the Chek dudes - which wasn't going
to well either. It was a good ending to the day. All of us were
tired and we had a bunch of work to do in order to be ready to get
David to the airport the next day.

A little later that evening David looked a little more closely at his
ticket and realized that it had been revised and that he needed to be
in Paris at about 9 AM the next morning. It was about 11PM and Paris
is six hours away... We had some quick thinking to do.

We all agreed that the first thing to do was to put Travel-Super-Star
Tim B on the project. (fortunately the internet was working that
night because most of his powers are tied to the digital medium.)
After a few false starts with the web site and the credit card Tim was
able to book David on a 4 AM Supertrain ride from Grenoble - about an
hour away - to Charles De Gaul. We loaded up David and his stuff and
I jumped in the drivers seat and took him up to Grenoble. The train
station was closed for several more hours and I had to leave him in a
dark and scary place to wait for the opening and the 4 AM train.
David insisted that I leave him, but it was tough. I was trying to
figure out how I would explain to Tina that it seemed OK to leave him
there with his new Apple Laptop, a $10K bike and a bunch of cash. I
am real glad I couldn't read the huge and creepy grafitti or
understand what the dangerous looking loiterers were mumbling when we
were unloading. I comforted myself in knowing that Dave had been
studying martial arts for a long time and if he got to knock out a few
knife wielding french hooligans it would make for good stories back in
the states.

After leaving David I proceeded to get completely lost in Grenoble -
with no map I ended up looping around in the down town several times.
Finally I found my way out and rolled back towards the Gite. It
turned out to be a good time to call my family and catch up a little.
About 3 I crawled into bed and passed out pretty quick. Turns out
Dave made it safely. He only had to do a couple of Martial poses to
scare off some of the local ruffians. The sad thing was that the
internet ticket machine was broken and he had to pay for the ticket
again.

The next day Steve, Tim, and I finished packing up and said goodbye to
our friends and made our way back to Paris. We were going to make an
easy drive of it and hit the old part of town for a little while
before going to the airport and our hotel for our flight the following
day.

After about $60 in tolls and $200 in gas ($10 a gallon) we made it to
the center of paris. One thing we will definitely get for the next
international trip is a GPS - it would have saved us a LOT of time.
We were pretty much forced to go 17th century and find our way by
watching the angle of the sun. Eventually we got to the Seine and
parked in a garage near the government buildings. A short walk away
and we were at Notre Dame. We walked around and saw a few memorials
that Napoleon built about 200 years ago. Then we found a good deal at
an Italian Cafe where we had pizza and watched the people and recapped
our trip. We even had a pretty interesting conversation with our
waiter about American politics. He wasn't fond of George W, but he
wasn't impressed with the 'Candidate for Change' either. No comment
on the republican candidate at all.

After dinner we walked back to our car and drove out to the hotel near
the airport. We had some serious trouble getting there, but
eventually we did it. Again - GPS would have been helpful. The next
morning we made it to our gate after a few miscues and after a couple
of trips through the xray machine we were at our gate. Dave had an
AWESOME time in the French airport as well. He traveled at least 24
hours straight - probably more. But we got home and the consensus was
that the trip was outstanding.

For a guys only trip this would be hard to top.

If you are reading this and the 100 pics on picasa aren't enough - we
have about 1000 more that we would be glad to bore you with!

L'Alp D'Huez

Another beautiful morning!
Traditional breakfast with a few boiled eggs.

Then we were packing up our stuff to go up to the famous climb.
We had discussed how to see the Tour that day with a LOT of people.
What would be the best location. How could we see as much as
possible? We decided to get as close to the top as we could and find
a clear area where we could see several turns.

The Chef made us some lunches. And they were Awesome. However, later
we found that the price was AWESOME, too.

We rode out toward Bourg d'Oisans - which is the town at the base of
D'Huez. It would be the starting town the next day.
The traffic was pretty heavy, but we were able to ride through the
crowds and cars and start our ride up the climb. All of us were
really looking forward to the experience. We couldn't have gone up
too fast even if it were possible because of the crowds. It was like
riding through the games area at the Texas State Fair on Dallas Public
School Fair day for 14 K. Except this was fun. The crowds were a
lot of fun - the highlight was probably the Dutch corner - which is at
about switchback 10 or so. It is about 200 yards of nothing but
orange outfits and people who have been partying for hours (and the
Tour was still 5 hours away). At some point there was a set of blue
wizards that gave me a good long push - I guess I looked kinda tired.

After switchback 4 - very close to the top - we were forced to get off
of our bikes and walk - the road was closed to all but official
vehicles. We decided to lock up our bikes and walk to a big open area
at turn 3 and wait. We ate the food that was packed for us - so
good. I fell asleep on the grass and we just waited. About two hours
passed and finally the caravan started to come by. What a show. Then
another long wait before the motorcycles started to roll by preceding
the racers.

We had heard there was a break at some point at the bottom of the
climb, but didn't know more than that. Eventually we heard the sound
of the helicopters climbing the mountain - that really gets things
exciting - and soon 3 or 4 were swirling around above us with
cameras. Then after hours of waiting we could see the lead group of
motos and the red car of the Tour officials. Soon a lone rider came
into view and we heard it was Sastre on his second attack on the lead
group. The crowd roared as he came towards us - we were standing on
the apex of the 3rd corner and as he went around we could see and hear
his intensity - impressive. Several minutes later the other leaders
came by with Andy Schleck looking fresh as ever. Yves took a bunch of
pics with his SLR and we just waited as the rest of the riders came
by. It took at least an hour for everyone to pass. Seeing all the
pros working that hard was cool - we were all ready to ride as soon as
the road was cleared.

We hurried back down to our bikes and happened to meet up with our
friends from the UK - Philip and Paul. The 7 of us rode up to the top
Huez and cruised through the finishing straight. Our main goal at
that point was to look for the team trucks and mechanics and see some
of the cool gear that the pros were riding. Soon, though, it was time
to return so that we wouldn't miss that dinner thing at the Gite. The
meal that night was supposed to be a home run.

It took quite a long time to ride down the mountain. There were
thousands of people going down - including the entire Caravan which
seems to be an innumerable quantity of vehicles. We zipped in and out
to get down as fast as possible. David had two flats on the way.
Probably cause he was using Italian tubes on french soil or
something. We regrouped at the bottom and made our way through the
people and cars and worked our way back up to La Danchere.

All 7 of us regrouped at dinner and shared our stories - we also met
up with a couple of guys staying at the Gite from the Chech Republic
who could speak a little english. After another incredible dinner -
shrimp, steak, and chicken that we grilled at the table - we loaded
our pictures, Yves pics, and the pics the English guys had and watched
a long slide show on Dave's mac at the dinner table. It was fun to
see in stills what we had only glimpsed as the riders passed us during
the day.

By ten or eleven we were all whipped and headed for bed. A great day.

Climbing the Galibier

Fyi - writing this in the car and I can barely see the screen so their
may be a ton of errors.

We got up early on Tuesday for breakfast and our first big ride in the
Alps. Breakfast was the usual French event - croissants, french
bread, and jelly. Our cook added some eggs and yogurt to make us feel
at home. Dave was getting pretty desperate for
'his kind of breakfast' which he said always included Barnyard
Animals. Apparently the French don't believe in Barnyard Animal
breakfasts.

We had a good visit with our friends from Marseille and took some
pictures with them before they set out on their hike. We all felt
like that group would have made a good subject for a reality TV show.
They had every possible personality.

This day our goal was to ride two of the big and famous passes of the
Tour. The Tour riders themselves were in Italy and riding across the
border into France and we were going to see them the next day.

We got our bikes all prepped and the water bottles filled up. This was
a day we had been waiting for for a long time. What would it really
feel like to climb the big ones? We rolled out of our little hamlet
of La Danchere and rolled down to the main road. Or what we thought
was the main road. (I had spent a lot of time studying the maps so
that i would have a good idea of where we were and what would be best
for us to take on - but sometimes my memory wasn't perfect) We took a
right and headed East towards the high alps. The road was beautiful -
just two lanes twisting through the mountains and along a beautiful
river. We passed several little towns and hamlets and some of the
climbing was pretty intense. David and Steve rolled up ahead of Tim
and I as usual - those guys have a lot of natural horsepower despite
their advanced ages. Tim and I are pretty sure that alot of thier
power was due to the fact that they had triples on their bikes that
they didn't mention. (that isn't true, but I wish it was).

After about 45 minutes the climbing started in earnest - we were going
straight up a steep mountainside via a bunch of sheer switchbacks. It
was pretty amazing. At some point on the climb I mentioned to Tim
that i felt like the road was a LOT shorter than I thought it would be
and that there was far less traffic, etc. Well, we found out the
reason for all that in a few more minutes - we were on the wrong
road. We had turned right too early and had ridden about an hour and
a half out of our way. I tried to remind the guys that a warm-up was
always a good idea and that it was a pretty road after all. There was
no physical mutiny so that was nice. We then turned around and
smoked down the valley, past the La Danchere turnoff and to the actual
highway that would take us to the Galibier. We turned right and
started the climbing in earnest.

it was about 10 AM by now and the sun was up, but the temps were
cool. We set a good tempo and again David and Steve rolled up ahead a
bit. Tim and I got in a groove and started ticking off the
kilometers. We went through some amazing scenery - huge mountains,
lakes, rivers, long and dark tunnels, ancient towns and churches.
Dave would pull over occasionally and we would regroup. There were
riders everywhere. Going up and coming down - just a ton of cyclists
- and the cars were all sharing the road without complaint. We didn't
get the wrath of even one big Wylie dodge pickup with huge diesel
exhaust pipes that felt he needed more of the road than he already had.

We made our first significant stop in at famous ski and mountaineering
town of La Grave - narrow streets and some of the most fantastic
views we had ever seen. We grabbed some water from a little
restaurant and had a quick break and then started the next part of the
climb. (In our false start we had climbed about 400 meters or just
1200 feet and we were going to climb 1700 meters to the top of the
Galibier) It was 8k more to the Col du Lauteret. The Tour would be
passing Lauteret the next day so when we arrived the roads were
covered with people and campers. The landscape was kinda lunar - no
trees - just high alpine grass and giant peaks with a ribbon of white
campers streching up and down the road as far as you could see. We
stopped for pictures and met a few folks doing the same thing. People
were very friendly every place we went.

The next stage was the steepest - a hard 8k up to the top - twisting
through the roads and dodging the people and campers and riders.
Apparently these people just enjoy camping at high altitude - it is
like a state park got moved up onto the roadside. The highway was
closed and there were no cars moving on the road. The big change we
felt was the temperature. It was getting really cold. When I finally
caught Steve and David at the top they were beginning to succumb to
hypothermia. The wind was howling and there was a line of people
waiting to take a picture by the sign proving the pass had been
reached. We took our place in line and got the pics. It took me
about four seconds to put my camera in my pocket and in that amount of
time David had jumped the Tour barrier and was speeding back to the
restaurant about 1k below the top to get some warmth We stood inside
the shop for about 15 minutes trying to get the blood flowing back to
our fingers and finally decided we needed to get going. The descent
was VERY cold, but every kilometer brought us closer to the warmth and
soon we were comfortable again.

We met up at the Lauteret and then started our drop down to La Grave
where we had decided to have a late lunch. The decent was a thrill -
the roads were wider and and grade perfect for going fast, but staying
in control. There is a certain kind of excitement that you feel when
you fly into a pitch black tunnel at 45 - 50 and have to look at the
headlights ahead to know if you are in the right spot. While this
might not seem to be the safest thing I can pint to two facts that
indicate it wasn't a truly bad idea: everybody else was doing it and
we made it through safe.

We were starving by the time we got to a cafe for lunch. I am
surprised that we didn't take food off of the other patrons tables.
Tim and I were somewhat awed at the number of calories that Steve and
David could put away and stay so skinny. They were kinda like
squirrels (without the puffy cheeks full of food) - both had vast
caches of food in their luggage. Dave was also rather impressive in
his use of the french language. He was working hard on it with his
computer program at night and then using it during the day. Most of
the time the nationals didn't understand, but he was determined. We
sat in shadow of some beautiful peaks - probably the most scenic stuff
we saw.

Soon it was time to hit the road again - we were determined to get
back to our Gite for a shower and our next four course meal!
The descent was really fun - We had a great highspeed chase for about
the last 5 k. Going up I am not so fast, but m 190 lbs helps get the
speed up. Before ling we were on the short climb to our home away
from home and resting up for dinner.

Weeks before the cook had planned to do a Texas style meal of Fajitas
for dinner so we were pumped. When we came down to hang out on the
deck she was grilling the chicken and peppers over the fire. Dinner
turned out to be great bur for more reasons that the food. We met
some great people. One that I may not have mentioned yet is the 100
year old matron who had lived near La Danchere and Grenoble most of
her life. She was a fireball. Fun and opinionated. Not sure what
she thought about us, but I do know that she was disappointed that we
were eating American style food while we were in France. She was not
a fan of fajitas. We tried to extract some WWII stories from her
wiith marginal success - she had escaped to LaDanchere from Grenoble
during both wars - the Germans had never made it too far into the
mountains because of the light populations and difficulty of travel.

We also met some new friends from the UK - Philip and Paul - They
were from the Cotswalds. Really interesting guys - just al ittle
younger than us. A late comer to dinner was our future riding partner
Yves. Philip worked for a big bike shop and was Paul's dealer.
Apparently Paul had a serious addiction to bikes and Philip helped to
perpetuate that addiction. They both had a great sense of humor and
we laughed a lot. Yves is a 29 year old Belgian who spoke good French
and English. For a long while it was the older lady, Yves, Philip,
Paull, and us sitting around the table - it was pretty funny to try to
communicate. After a while the matron left and we turned our
discussion purely to bikes. All of us were looking forward to riding
up L'alp d'huez the next day.
We invited them to join us and Yves took us up on it - the other guys
had a early morning plan.
After a long conversation that night we went on up to bed and went to
sleep.
A good day in France.