Stage Seven

Pierrette and Yvon epitomized the thousands of couples I’ve passed over the years seated along The Tour road, all smiles, enjoying their time out in pastoral France awaiting the caravan and peloton.  Yvon was the consummate fan wearing a hat dispensed by the caravan and reading the daily newspaper. They differed from many such couples not having grandchildren about them, just me, and not sitting behind a table complete with snacks and either a board game or a magazine of crossword puzzles. 

We drove for over an hour to reach our vantage point at the fifteen-mile point in today’s stage just outside L’Isle-sur-Doubs, where I could catch a train to Lyon once The Tour entourage had passed.  My bike was all loaded and ready to go after two days of just short, unburdened rides to where Yvon and I had watched the day’s proceedings. 

We had a moment of panic when I began reassmbling my bike after the caravan had done its duty when one of the nuts on my front wheel turned up missing.  We had taken the wheel off to attach the fork to a rack for two bikes inside Yvon’s van.  We searched high and low inside the van to no avail. As I began rummaging in my two containers of tools and spare parts for a replacement, Yvon found a cone that would screw on tomthe axle and hold the wheel in place, though it was tricky grabbing hold of it with my wrench. As a struggled to make it work Yvon finally discovered the missing nut under a strip of carpet.  This could have been a disaster, forcing me to miss the train if we had  had to seek out a bike or hardware store, but after the initial jolt of panic I knew we would figure out something and was curious what it would be.  

With the three of us standing on opposite sides of the road and the fans thinly spread out along this early stretch of the route we scored a few useful items from the caravan that Yvon and I had previously failed to gather—a two-pack of Bic pens and a hypotonic drink mix with magnesium and potassium that I can add to a liter of water.  It is something that is truly useful for me. I’ve been vying to get it, but since it is not some cheap the throwaway item, the caravan hasn’t been as generous in dispensing it as it does candy and key chains, which I have way too many of.

While we waited for the racers we traded sections of the newspaper. The big news in France, besides The Tour, was the death of a man in his thirties who had been on life-support for eleven years with litigation going on for years about whether to keep him alive or not.  Among the many Tour stories was one about a 75-year old man who had suffered cardiac arrest the day before after riding up the Ballon D’Alsace.  A helicopter rescue failed to save him.  There was another story about a 15-year old boy who fell ill riding up another of the day’s climbs.  A photo of Pinot’s parents beside a team car accompanied a story about their pre-Stage visit with their son.  Two mechanics for a French team were profiled. 

When the peloton finally arrived a little after noon, three minutes behind the breakaway, it was riding casually enough that we could see riders engaged in conversation on this the year’s longest stage of 144 miles.  Both Bobby Julich and Lance Armstrong, former racers who are attentive to such things, pointed out on their podcasts that it was preceded by a nine kilometer neutralized zone,  fining the stage to nearly 150 miles.  Lance in particular railed how much he hated the neutralized zones.  The length and the relaxed pace meant I might get a chance to see the finish on television in Lyon after my train arrived at 5:40

At the rear of the peloton was Van Garderen between two teammates, his jersey shredded after taking a fall seven kilometers into the stage when he wasn’t paying attention and hit a meridian.  He survived the stage finishing 158th three minutes back,  it x-rays revealed a broken thumb, so he is out of The Race, a blow to his team and fans.

This quiet stretch was woefully over staffed with gendarmes feeling the need to justify their presence.  One reprimanded me for reaching into the gutter for a keychain tellling me I needed to pay attention to the fast approaching caravan vehicles.  I pretended I didn’t understand her so she summoned a cohort who spoke some English.  The ever-friendly Yvon had already chatted them up, so when they later saw I was with him, they didn’t make me wait to begin riding after the Broom Wagon had passed, as some gendarmes like to do.  The English-speaker even called out, “Be careful,” as I resumed my riding of The Tour route.  I was hoping for a marker or two as I pedaled through town to the train station, but they’d already been appropriated.

I had to purchase my train ticket from a vending machine.  With the glare of the sun on the screen I had difficulty figuring out the process.  Luckily another purchaser came along and he easily completed the process for me.  The next difficulty was getting my bike to the other side of the tracks.  I had no desire to lug it up the walkway over the tracks, so instead went to the end of the platform where it tapered off and pushed my bike down, then over the two sets of tracks and then up the slight rise to the platform, an act a gendarme would have arrested me for if one were around.  My train wasn’t due for an hour.  After half an hour, a small screen on the platform reported it would be five minutes late.

When the train arrived there were no bicycle indicators on the side of any of the cars, as there usually are.  A conductor told me to go to the first car.  It was three steps up a narrow staircase to a large holding area for bikes.  There were six others, two with panniers.  I was disappointed this local train didn’t have WiFi or even outlets to charge my iPad, but at least it didn’t charge for bikes.  We flew through the glorious French countryside.  It was nowhere near as beautiful as from a bike seat, but still very, very nice.

The peloton didn’t lag as much as I thought they might, so they had completed their day by the time I arrived in Lyon, so I didn’t get to see Dylan Groenewegen, the favorite for the first stage who crashed preceding the sprint, finally get a win. Alaphilppe did nothing to overcome the six seconds that separated him from the Yellow Jersey.

I spent half an hour in the station adding some juice to my iPad and downloading a bunch of cycling podcasts I had fallen behind on while with Yvon.  Just before I was wrapping up a heavily armed soldier on security detail took me as a suspicious character and wanted to know if I had a ticket.  At least he was able to give me some advice on getting out of Lyon.  I had a slight familiarity with the station having arrived at it a year ago coming from Brittany during The Tour.

I had to cross the Rhône River then climb out of the valley and then continue climbing.  The legs were good and fresh and happy to be going at it.  I rode until nine and got within eight miles of the next day’s stage.