Stage One

 

When I emerged from a thick forest this morning on to a narrow side road that was so narrow I thought it might be a private driveway, I could see just up the road a man walking towards me with his two dogs in the drizzle.  I thought, “Uh oh, I hope I didn’t trespass on his property and how is he going to react.”  He didn’t reach for a phone to call the gendarmes. Instead he greeted me with a smile and “Bon courage.”  This was France after all, where the touring cyclist is a figure to respect if not envy.

It was the first of several ‘Bon courage’s” on the day, as when I began riding the Stage Two route to Mur de Bretagne thirty miles later, other cyclists riding a day head of the peloton and others along the road responded to me with that salutation and all the others—Bravo, Chapeau, Allez, Tres Bien.  A little girl even gave me a rare “cou-cou” (hi).  France is most certainly a touring cyclist’s paradise, especially on The Tour de France route when cycling consciousness is at peak level and cycling euphoria reigns.  There is no greater place to be riding one’s bike than in France in July on The Tour route.

Bike decorations had sprouted all along the route from the gargantuan—a potato head,

and the traditional over-sized bike, 

to the modest.

One community erected a selection of photos celebrating The Tour.

When I picked up the Stage Two route around 1:30, about an hour after the peloton had set out from Brest on Stage One, I was greatly looking forward to that moment when I would be greeted by a course marker.  I tried to contain my expectations, but it wasn’t easy.  I could see from a little ways away a bale of hay protecting a protruding object along the road and also some metal barriers to the side that would be placed in front of the road I was entering from, obvious indications that I had reached The Tour route, but there was no course marker to be seen, nor any just ahead.   It was a great  disappointment that the guys marking the course hadn’t reached this point yet, so I could be guided the final forty miles of the stage to Mur de Bretagne.  Usually they set out early in the morning a day ahead of the peloton marking the next day’s stage.  Evidently they got a late start.  That meant I might catch them in the act of erecting the markers, which I’ve only managed once in my previous seventeen Tours. That would be a worthy consolation.  

But when one hour passed and then another, I began to be concerned that The Tour might be going without markers this year, thinking that GPS devices and route apps are so common, that they are no longer necessary.  That would be a monumental travesty, even worse than the UCI banning riders from discarding water bottles.  Tour markers and water bottles are cycling’s two greatest souvenirs.  To do away with both in the same year would be devastating.  Twice without the markers to guide me I sent astray and lost a few minutes, adding to my aggravation. 

Finally, at 4:30, just a few miles from the stage finish the pair of brightly decorated vans with flashing lights carrying the crew that mounts the markers sped past me.  It was on a long straight stretch where they didn’t have to place any markers, so I was out of luck catching them in the act.  But it was still a thrill to see that first marker, albeit three hours after I had hoped to spot my first.  And it has a slightly different design this year, with The Tour logo in two corners, rather than just one. 

It was another cold, drizzly day with the temperature in the 50s, colder than the day before.  I had to add a sweater to my layers.  But that didn’t deter the hard men of Brittany from riding their bikes.  Even before I reached The Tour route I passed more than a few out getting their miles in and not a one was wearing a rain coat as I was.  It was more of a heavy mist, than a rain, with the road dry under trees, but I was still dripping wet and couldn’t imagine letting the rain soak through my garments. 

Bernard Hinault, from the area, is an iconic figure.  His image is on permanent display on a building in Yfinnac, about ten miles before I reached  this year’s route.  

I stopped at a hypermarché there for the day’s provisions—a loaf of bread, 300 grams of pâté, a yogurt drink and a can of cassoulet.  The price on the stew had skyrocketed.  In years past an 850 gram can could be had for less than a euro.  In the two stores I’ve checked on it so far it is fifty cents more.  

As I was making a couple of pâté sandwiches in the privacy of a corner outside the store beside my bike, a young boy interrupted me with a “bonjour” and then placed a euro coin beside me as his father stood a few feet away with his shopping cart.  It is the first time in eighteen years of coming to France that anyone has given me money, which has become common back home.  I suspect his father took me for a pilgrim on the way to Compastello in Spain, a not uncommon undertaking.

With the hilly terrain I was getting nervous about making it to Mur de Bretagne by five before the end of the day’s stage to watch it on television.  I had to try three bars before I found one with a television. I could hear the announcer’s excited jabber and saw a cluster of men standing.  I ducked in quick, not even bringing in my iPad for some much needed charging, to see how much time remained in the stage.  The screen showed 4.5 kilometers to the finish.  I had cut it perilously close.  There was no break to be caught, just a pack of contenders coming up on a decisive climb to the finish.

All the chairs were taken in the small bar, so I joined the guys standing, most without masks, the first public space I’d been in here where faces weren’t covered.  In short order the French hero Julian Alaphilippe wearing the World Champion’s Jersey darted clear to the cheers of all.  They encouraged him to hold off the chasers with a chorus of “Allez’s.”  And they succeeded.  He’d be in Yellow tomorrow, as he has been in Tour’s past. It was more wonderful than ever to be in France fully experiencing The Tour.

There were quite a few groups riding the stage, including the group of women who have made it a tradition.  They and others had lead and following cars.  One group of men stopped at the top of a hill for a mass pipi rustique.

After the stage finish I headed to the next Ville Étape, Pontivy, just ten miles away.  But it wasn’t the Ville Départ for Stage Three, but rather the Ville Arrivée, meaning the peloton and those riding the course had a long transfer to Lorien.  Since I’m not committed to riding every mile of every stage, I could ride just a few miles of this stage and head over to Stage Four.  

I have to cut corners as there is a massive transfer of 85 miles from the Stage Five Time Trial to the Stage Six start in Tours.  Since I hope to visit Florence and Rachid in Tours as I manage most years, I have to get more than a day ahead of the peloton.  And I must start Stage Six the evening before as I’m meeting up with Yvon around the halfway point of the stage for our annual rendezvous  at The Tour, always a highlight.