Notice to Readers...

Dear friends and fans of George around the world... We have terrible news. George was hit and killed by a truck while biking in South Carolina on Monday, April 22, 2024, 730:pm.

John Greenfield wrote a report of what we know at this time, combined with a memorial, linked with permission below.

Feel free to post comments. We will keep his blog online. We will miss George greatly. My condolences to us all... Jeff Potter

https://chi.streetsblog.org/2024/04/24/legendary-chicago-bicycle-traveler-and-writer-george-christensen-killed-by-truck-driver-in-south-carolina

Here is a repost of the article:

As a longtime bicycle courier, and one of Chicago's most adventurous bike riders and writers, George Christensen did extensive cycling trips in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. These included biking the length of three continents and one subcontinent, India. Starting in 2001, he eloquently documented his travels on his well-read blog, George the Cyclist.

But tragically, on Monday evening Christensen's life was cut short at age 73, when a truck driver fatally struck him as he rode through the southeastern United States.

On Tuesday morning sources notified Streetsblog that Christensen was the bike rider that a semi operator struck and killed Monday night near Ridgeway, South Carolina, a small town about 25 miles north of Columbia, the state capital. According to a report in The State by Noah Feit, on Monday, April 22, around 7:30 p.m. Christensen was cycling west on Highway 34, about three miles southeast of Ridgeway, near Autumn Drive. The sun would set a little after 8 p.m. that night.

Aerial view of the approximate crash location, marked with a red pin. Image: Google Maps

South Carolina Highway Patrol Master Trooper Gary Miller told The State that the driver of a westbound 2022 Mack truck with a trailer hit the back of Christensen's bike, killing him. The trucker was uninjured, and no other injuries were reported.

Highway 34 and Autumn Drive, looking west in August 2023. Image: Google Maps

Miller told The State that information about what caused the crash was not available yet, but the highway patrol was still investigating the case. There was no word on whether the trucker was issued charges or citations. Streetsblog has contacted the highway patrol to request an update on the case if it becomes available.

Wednesday morning, Fairfield County Coroner Chris Hill released the name the bicyclist killed in Monday's crash. "George Christensen, age 73, of Countryside, Illinois, was traveling west on Highway 34 in Ridgeway, SC when he was struck by a truck [driver] also traveling west on Highway 34," the coroner stated. "Mr. Christensen succumbed to his injuries on the scene of the [crash]. This incident continues to be investigated by Fairfield County Coroner’s Office and South Carolina Highway Patrol."

Christensen: "News of my Carnegie Library quest precedes me to Merom, Indiana." Photo: Facebook

Christensen often wrote blog entries while pursuing one of his many passions, visiting historic Carnegie libraries across the United States. That was the case on this trip. Entries from earlier this month state that he recently rode Amtrak from Chicago to Washington D.C., took another train route to Orlando, Florida, then biked north near the Atlantic coast, stopping at libraries along the way. Here's a rough approximation of his route based on his April posts.

A rough approximation of the route Christensen described in his April 2024 blog posts. Image: Google Maps

In the final entry of his blog on Sunday, April 21, Christensen, a hardcore cinephile, wrote that he traveled to Wilmington, North Carolina to visit old friends who are fellow Telluride Film Festival fans. After camping at their house, "I headed west out of town over the Cape Fear River once again towards South Carolina for six Carnegies [libraries] inland from the coast," he wrote.

Christensen blogged that after a few hours of cycling in 80-degree weather that day he stopped to buy a cold drink at a gas station mini mart. As he was sitting out front cooling off, the clerk came outside and offered him three boxes of chicken wings. "I see you’re biking," she said. "Here’s some chicken wings for you."

Christensen pedaled on into ominous weather. "Ninety minutes before dark clouds moved in and shortly there was thunder and lightning in the distance," he wrote in the last paragraph. "I was hoping the storm might bypass me, but when a few scattered drops of rain began to fall, I started looking for an easy access into the forest. I came upon a slightly overgrown path that led to an abandoned farmhouse, the first I had camped beside in these travels, setting up my tent having to only absorb a few drops of rain before it came down in earnest. I still had some chicken wings to mix in with my ramen." Fittingly, the last words of his blog highlighted the goodwill he often encountered from people he met on the road.

Christensen's longtime partner Janina Ciezadlo graciously shared some thoughts with Streetsblog. "I trust people who know George, or are just learning about him, know that he was a legendary touring cyclist traveling everywhere from Oman to Madagascar to Iceland. He was an inspiring, encouraging ambassador of the bike. He wanted everyone to ride. Needless to say, he kept my bike in working order."

Christensen at the Tour de France. Photo: Facebook

"He lived simply and devoted himself to cycling," she added. "He visited the Tour De France for almost 20 summers and followed the course [on bicycle]. He was an expert on its history and culture; He died with a plane reservation for this year’s Tour. Much of his touring life was centered on visiting and documenting all the Carnegie libraries in the world. Photographs of these beautiful early 20th century buildings can be found on his blog. He loved libraries."

"George had an extraordinary range of interests," Ciezadlo concluded. "As a volunteer he gave of his time at Facets Multimedia here in Chicago and at the Telluride Film Festival; he had a tremendous amount of knowledge about film and film festivals. He was a reader. Among other books, he recently had read all of Balzac and Zola, and of course watched every classic film adaption of those novels. Lately he had been volunteering in restoration projects in the Cook County Forest Preserves. Some people will know that he was an incurable dumpster diver and distributed recovered food to others." 

Christensen: "Presenting Greg LeMond with a hallowed Tour de France course marker at the Telluride Film Festival accompanying the documentary 'The Last Rider' about the 1989 Tour de France." Photo: Facebook

Elizabeth Adamczyk, organizer of the annual Chicago Ride of Silence and a longtime friend of Christensen, said they met through her work at Northwestern University, where he was an alumnus. "We both had a love of learning and a love of bicycling, and we became fast friends. George was integral to me becoming a year-round cyclist. He was a voracious reader, very knowledgeable about Carnegie libraries, pro cycling, his next bike adventure, and anything else that he decided to learn about."

"In recent years he got to know my mother and, helped her out with random household tasks," she added. "He was always there to lend a hand, and he loved to help."

According to Adamczyk, 2023 was the first year Christensen was in Chicago for the Ride of Silence, which honors fallen cyclists. "He was thrilled to participate in person." She said he will be honored and memorialized at this year's event on Wednesday, May 15. The location and other details will be announced soon and publicized by Streetsblog.

Christensen visiting the gravesite of Black bike racing champion Marshall "Major" Taylor in the Chicago suburb of Glenwood. "He was excited to have the memorial site of such a bike legend in our backyard," said Elizabeth Adamczyk, who took the photo. 

Just two weeks ago, when I was traveling by car in a location where year-round high winds make bicycle touring seem like a thankless task, I thought of George Christensen, an old bike messenger colleague of mine. I told my companion that, impressively, Christensen had done the same route on two wheels more than 20 years ago.

Hopefully it will be some comfort to George's loved ones to know that his life ended while he was doing something he obviously loved.

Read The State's report here.

Check out George Christensen's blog George the Cyclist here.

Read a 2006 profile of Christensen in the Chicago Reader here.

Read a guest post he contributed in 2012 to the pre-Streetsblog Chicago transportation news website Grid Chicago here.

Update 4/24/24, 11:45 AM: Bike and pedestrian injury attorney Michael Keating (a Streetsblog Chicago sponsor) provided this statement. "[Keating Law Offices has] been retained to represent the Estate of George Christensen for this tragic event and senseless loss of life. Like many Chicago cyclists, I remember George well and this is a very sad time. I have been in contact with the investigating trooper in South Carolina and George's family regarding what happened. We have already begun an investigation and are in the process of gathering more information."

Peachem, Vermont

 

I was delighted that my exit route from Vermont took me through the small town of Peachem, less than ten miles from New Hampshire, as it is the present home of Ian Boswell, former Tour de France rider and now one of the premier gravel riders in the world having won Unbound in Emporia, Kansas last year.  He also hosts a podcast, Breakfast with Bos, that I haven’t missed since he launched it during the 2018 Tour with his friend Marshall, who was following The Tour in his car.  

The two of them would record a chat every morning before each stage, recounting their previous day, Ian in the thick of the race and Marshall trying to follow it.  Ian is also a regular on the British podcast The Cycling Podcast and has joined the podcast crew the past two years in France to cover The Tour.  Though I’d never met Ian, I knew him well enough to consider him a friend.  I was hoping I could track him down in Peachem and thank him for the many hours of listening pleasure he had brought me.  Getting to meet him could well be one of the highlights of these travels.

 

I was on target to arrive in Peachem in the middle of the afternoon, but an excessive amount of climbing, some on dirt roads, delayed my arrival until 5:30, less than an hour before dark.  I felt reluctant to intrude on him at the dinner hour and was resigned to just gaining acquaintance with his out-of-the-way small town.  When I arrived at the main intersection across from its library and by a small inn, I paused at a stop sign wondering if I’d see anyone out and about.  There wasn’t a soul to be seen in this quiet town of 700 residents.  

Before I could even consider ducking into the inn to ask if Ian might live nearby an older guy on a mountain bike wearing a bright orange Arc’Teryx jacket appeared beside me as if he had been sent by a higher authority and asked where I was headed.  I told him Nova Scotia, then asked if he might know Ian.  He said he knew him well, and that he lived just down the road.  It was a little more complicated than that, as he needed to show me on my GPS his precise location two miles away on dirt roads in farm country.  He affirmed that Ian was as nice a guy as he comes across on his podcast, and it would be no imposition to drop in on him.  “Just say Greg sent you,” he said.

His isolated house with accompanying barn was just where Greg said it would be.  There was no indication that it was the residence of a world-class cyclist other than a bicycle wheel with a garland of flowers hanging on a wall to the left of the porch.  Ian’s wife Gretchen, who turns up on his podcast from time to time describing their breakfast that day, answered the door.  I apologized for coming by but said I just happened to be biking through and their friend Greg encouraged me to stop by to say hello and tell Ian how much I enjoyed his podcast.  She said he was in office and would get him.  A skinny, much taller, guy than I expected emerged, greeting me with his distinctive gentle voice and offered his hand.  

 

I told him I hadn’t missed a podcast and wondered if he had ever snagged a Tour course marker in the past two years when he’d been covering it as a journalist.  He said he hadn’t, as he was always ahead of the race, and it was, of course, taboo to grab one until the peloton had passed.  I told him I’d followed The Tour a few times as a touring cyclist and always brought home a few markers that I shared with friends and that I’d even given Greg LeMond one a year ago.  Ian said he’d love to have one and that I knew where to send it.

I told him I was from Chicago and had become friends with Christian Vande Velde and had given him a few markers over the years.  I added that I enjoyed his interview of Christian on his podcast this past year.  Ian immediately replied that he made a faux pas when he introduced Christian as having ridden The Tour “five or seven times,” as Christian corrected him to say he’d ridden it eleven times and had been back ten more times covering the race for NBC.   I was actually going to ask Ian about that, and was impressed that it had made such an impression on him, as it was a nagging embarrassment, that he brought it up himself.  Ian only rode it once, as his road career was curtailed due to concussion issues.  Few riders have done it in double figures, not even Eddie Merckx.

Ian had once used the term “Frenched” on one of his podcasts, the only time I’d heard it.  I knew all too well what it meant, as I feel as if I’m Frenched by over-zealous gendarmes prematurely ordering me off The Tour course.  Ian said it is a common term among American racers living in France coming up against the French bureaucracy and restaurants closing early and other inconveniences.  

His latest podcast was with Lucy Charles-Barclay and her husband.  She is one of the premier female triathletes in the world, finishing second four times at the premier event in Hawaii.  Her husband is a former triathlete who now devotes himself to his wife’s career.  They live in London and have to do a lot of training indoors in what they call their “pain cave.”  With the two of them sweating away in there for hours at a time day after day Ian asked the pertinent question that only a fellow athlete with a “pain cave” of his own would ask—what kind of smell did it have.  They said they have wooden floors and their “pain cave” has no detectable odor.  I congratulated Ian on the imaginative question.  He replied that Lucy had just won the triathlon in Hawaii this weekend, which she said would be the highlight of her career.

I could have talked and talked as I once did when I visited Christian at his house delivering a couple of course markers, but I didn’t want Ian to feel obligated to invite me for dinner or to pitch my tent on his property, so I said I needed to get going as I was hoping to make it to New Hampshire before dark.  As he led me back to my bike I asked if he flew in and out of Burlington for his extensive travels.  Usually he does, as it’s just an hour and fifteen minutes away, but he resorts to Boston from time to time as well. As he bid me farewell, he said he’d be looking for me at The Tour next year.  He’s as anxious as I am to see its route, which will be announced in a week or so.  We know it will start in Italy and end in Nice, not in Paris for the first time ever, so as not to conflict with the Olympics.  

Greg, who provided me the directions to Ian, wasn’t the only person to come to my assistance this day.  A couple hours earlier a white-haired lady was awaiting me at the top of a climb with a bottle of water and an orange.  She wanted to tell me about a rails-to-trails path up ahead and query me about my travels.  She was aghast that I had bicycled from Rochester, seven hundred miles away and that I was headed to Nova Scotia. I told her nothing of my previous travels, just that I was seeking out Carnegie libraries and the last one I had visited was in Northfield at Norwich College, though it was now Chaplin Hall housing the art and architecture department.  It faced a large quad surrounded by red brick buildings with none of the ornamentation of the Carnegie.

After a few minutes the woman introduced herself as George and asked my name.  After a few more minutes of conversation beside her car she excused herself and said she wanted to give me something more.  She ducked into the front seat and returned with another tangerine and a banana and several pieces of chocolate and $3.50 for a slice of pizza or something she said, while apologizing that was all she had to offer.  I didn’t know it at the time, but it is money I can earmark for the course marker I’ll be sending Ian. 

Vermont was living up to its reputation for friendliness.  It was no wonder that the roads on Saturday and Sunday were clogged with motorists from neighboring states.  Traffic was backed up for two miles just inching along into Stowe.  More than half the license plates were from out-of-state, one from as far as California and another from Utah, a Backroads van of the bicycle touring company with three bikes atop it.  Fortunately there was a wide shoulder so I could fly by them all. 

Traffic had been equally thick for miles between Burlington and Morristown, where I ventured for its classic Carnegie, complete with a plaque describing its architecture in detail.  

The small town, like most I’d passed through, had small shops catering to tourists.  Besides the signs advertising maple syrup, shops were packed with knickknacks of all sorts.

An Art Park (myearthwork.com) was among the attractions in the area on the road from the north into Stowe, a ski town that was the epicenter of it all.  The Art Park was full of Andy Goldsworthy inspired constructions of rocks.

The town was bulging with people, including a wedding party, despite the cold, dank weather.  A little sunlight would have enhanced the fall foliage, but it was still a pleasure to behold.

Stage Fifteen

 

Rather than lingering in Faverges after the caravan passed I skipped on watching the peloton zip by an hour later and had a nice bike ride down to Albertville fifteen miles away, a big, former winter Olympic city, where I knew there would be bars aplenty to watch the last hour or so of the stage.  It would also take me through Ugine, where I remembered from years past that the WC attached to the tourist office in an old train station had a shower, an extreme rarity, catering to all the outdoors people that pass through.

The shower was still in operation and even though the tourist office didn’t have Sunday hours, its Wi-Fi was in operation, unlike the tourist office in Faverges, enabling me to download all the daily cycling podcasts devoted to The Tour.  I heard a fair bit of English in Faverges from the tourists joining the locals lining the road awaiting the caravan.  
The town had such an air of affluence that the caravan was very parsimonious in giving out free stuff.  Most of the givers gave nothing, just passing by waving.  

Some of the tossers seemed to be on lunch break, munching on apples and sandwiches.  An older lady standing near me spat out the word “mange” (eat) with disgust.  It’s the first time in all my years I got nothing from the caravan, not even a bag of Hariboo candy, which is usually a certainty.  I had been all primed for the scramble for socks and hats and key chains, so couldn’t help but feel disappointed as all around me felt.

At least I had an exceptional day of cycling, first along Lake Anency on a very popular bicycle path, reason enough to vacation in the area.  It has a few beaches, though people go wading into it anywhere.

And the cycling was superlative too on a bike path to Ugine and then a lightly trafficked secondary road along a highway to Albertville.  Cyclists are very much catered to in this region.

As I ventured to the center of Albertville there wasn’t a soul to be seen it being a Sunday.  I went to the train station knowing there is invariably a bar nearby and there was but it’s television had Wimbledon on and though no one seemed to be watching it, the woman bartender didn’t care to put on The Tour.  I came upon another bar a few blocks down the road.  All its patrons were sitting outside and the television inside was turned off because the bartender said it was out of commission.

I circled back into the city and at last came upon a square with several cafe/bars mostly with outdoor seating.  The first I ducked into had the cycling on its television with an audience of three elderly, the usual demographic. The upper left hand corner of the screen had 57.4, the number of kilometers left in the stage and then across the top of the screen was the time the leaders had on a group of pursuers and then the time to the Yellow Jersey group.  Vingegaard and company were six minutes back, so it wasn’t likely he and Pogaçar would be vying for the stage victory and it’s bonus seconds.

Three strong riders were in the lead—the ever present Wout Van Aert of Vingegaard’s team, Marc Soler of Pogaçar’s team and another Wout, this one Poels, a former Sky rider now on Bahrain Victorious.  Poels managed to shed his companions and took the win.  As usual Vingegaard and Pogaçar whittled their group down to just themselves, with Yates the last to depart, who for awhile went on ahead threatening to move up to third overall, but he faltered.  Rodriguez, presently in third, joined them and was able to extend his lead on Hindley to over a minute, with Yates jumping ahead of him into fourth.  Once again Vingegaard was able to valiantly match Pogaçar’s accelerations and maintain his overall ten second advantage.  When they crossed the line together I thought they might give each other a pat of respect but they both sped directly to their awaiting handlers and a cold drink. 

With Vingegaard still in Yellow, as he was on the previous rest day, he will be obligated to meet the press, which he does with great reluctance.  He so much likes to keep to himself, he broke a long-standing tradition of the year’s previous winner of The Tour attending the much-publicized ceremony in October when the next year’s route is announced.  All the top riders generally attend, but no pressure from his team or The Tour could convince him to participate.

Tuesday’s time trial, the one and only this year, will be riveting and could well decide the race, since they both have been finding it within themselves to stick to the other when the road heads up and one tries to drop the other.  They are two heavyweights pounding each other without either flinching.

If it had been Wednesday, the day before Thursday’s 18th stage, when I left the bar and resumed riding I would have come upon a course marker, as the stage starting in Moutiers would be passing by Albertville on its way to Bourg-en-Bresse. I considered heading down to Moutiers fifteen miles away to ride the stage in its entirety, but I didn’t care to double back.  I was bypassing the time trial and the stage after, as they too would have required doubling back from another direction, plus there are two long transfers of forty and ninety miles after Stages eighteen and nineteen that I wanted to get a jump on so I wouldn’t miss my flight home.

With Stage Eighteen right there in Albertville I started in on it three plus days ahead of the peloton.  Since the next day was a rest day for the peloton I wouldn’t have to worry about adjusting my schedule to be in a town with a bar late in the afternoon and could just ride as whim struck me.  Maybe I’ll even come upon a mediatheque I can take advantage of.  

I will have no concern of team riders flying by me on their Rest Day ride, as happened to me on the first Rest Day.  If that is something I wanted, I needed only go to Passy, the start of the time trial, as all would be out previewing it.  But I’ve been to Passy in years past so didn’t have the curiosity of checking it out.  Instead I’ll have a pleasant day of cycling all to myself and not demanding too much of my legs.  As Geraint Thomas said on his podcast, everyone has tired legs at this point, two weeks into The Tour.  

Stage Fourteen

 

Sleeping under the canopy of a thick forest, the morning light didn’t wake me and I slept until 8:30, a much needed couple hours of extra sleep.  Thankfully I didn’t need to be on the road by seven, as has all too frequently been the case, as I wasn’t getting anywhere near today’s stage, starting in a corner of the Alps some eighty miles away.  

The route wasn’t coming my way, so I didn’t need to be in a rush to try to intersect with it.  It would be a day off The Tour route until later in the day after I watched the end of the stage in a bar in Annecy and would then pick up the next day’s route a few miles out of town and have the company of course markers as evening came on.

It was just thirty-five miles to Annecy and its spectacular lake, but I had a steep five-mile climb over a ridge to get there and then some more climbing after dipping into a valley.  I was caught by a downpour halfway up the climb and pulled over under some trees joined by a couple of cyclists and a motorcyclist.  The cyclists were just out for a morning ride and had no rain gear, as it was one of those surprise mountain storms that come and go.  This one went in less than half an hour.

As I approached Annecy the traffic thickened considerably.  It is a large tourist town that is a very popular getaway, especially in the month of July.  Most of the patrons at the bar I selected were sitting outside and were of many nationalities—German, Chinese, Dutch.  The bartender could have been Parisian.  When I requested a menthe á l’eau he told me to take a seat and give my order to his waiter.  It was no surprise that the cost was double what I’d been accustomed to paying in small towns.  I was relieved it was no more than that.

The stage in the Alps was once again the Pogaçar/Vingegaard show though they were surprised by the Spanish Ineos rider Carlos Rodriguez on the descent of the Beyond Category climb seven miles from the finish who took the win and thanks to the ten second bonus slipped into third place by a mere second over Hindley, who wore the Yellow Jersey a day.  Pogaçar’s teammate, Adam Yates, who wore the Yellow Jersey the first few stages, moved up to fifth, just thirty-six seconds from third.  It’s turning into a barn-burner for third as well as first.  Ineos had the best rider last year too after the two top dogs, when Geraint Thomas took third.  It is a small consolation for a team that won The Tour seven times with Wiggins, Froome, Thomas and Bernal.  

After the Ineos stage win yesterday the retired American pro Ian Boswell, contributing to the  British Cycling Podcast, asked the Ineos director Rod Ellingsworth how many Tour stage wins that was for his team since it was founded as Team Sky thirteen years ago.  He didn’t know, as overall wins is the only thing he really keeps track of.  He thought maybe ten.  It was actually twenty, and today was number twenty-one. The Ineos riders all have a yellow number on their back as the leading team, and they’ll extend their lead after today.

Vingegaard reversed his dwindling lead and added a second to it today thanks to a time bonus on the final climb putting him ten seconds ahead of Pogaçar.  He sprinted past Pogaçar as they neared the summit and earned eight seconds, while Pogaçar earned five.  Pogaçar gained back two seconds of it at the finish line when he nipped Vingegaard earning a six second bonus for finishing second behind Rodriguez, while Vingegaard earned a four second bonus for finishing third.  It couldn’t be more nick and tuck.

Pogaçar tested Vingegaard on the final climb taking off earlier than usual 3.6 kilometers from the summit.  Vingegaard clawed his way back and regained him after two kilometers.  They rode together until just before the summit when Vingegaard was the first to go and had the superior sprint this time.  Tomorrow’s stage ends with another Beyond Category climb.  The next day is a rest day, so they won’t be holding back.

The traffic continued to be relentless leaving Annecy and no less so even when I came upon a course marker after a two-mile climb, the worst traffic since Paris.  And it didnt let up even after dark past my tent off in a clump of trees.  Out in rural France there is virtually no traffic after the dinner hour.

Rummaging through my panniers I discovered I still have some Cheerios I brought from home that I’d put in a zip loc bag and had been snacking on early in the trip.  It’s not the only food I’ve been carrying for over fifteen hundred miles.  I brought two jars of peanut butter and have only finished one, rationing it out.  I also still have some powdered Gatorade that I’d just been using on the really hot days.  It’s nice to know I can lighten my load, or at least compensate for the caravan loot I’ve been gathering, by powering through them.  Tomorrow will be another caravan day and then a break for a few days, as I won’t bother with Tuesday”s short time trial, choosing instead to get out of the Alps and on to flatter terrain.

The mountainous terrain has done in two more of the top sprinters—Ewan and Jakobsen.  Philipson isn’t going to have much competition on the final two sprint stages.   Lance will be sorry to see Ewan go as the number on his back, 181, has special significance to him, giving him a jolt of pleasure whenever he sees it, as he mentioned in a podcast after Ewan finished second on a stage. That is the number he pinned on his jersey before every stage of his first Tour win in 1999.  The next six years it was number 1 as the defending champion.

Stage Thirteen

 

I didn’t have that rare good fortune of once again coming upon a town on The Tour route with a screen mounted for all to gather around to watch the day’s action, but my day was highlighted by several other rare pleasures that more than made up for it.  

One was coming upon two UAE water bottles of Poçachar’s team laying along the road on a stretch that hadn’t attracted any fans.  I go years without finding a water bottle, as they are a more prized item than a course marker and don’t require pliers to pry them loose.  They are always pounced upon immediately with greater fervor than anything tossed by the caravan. The bottles were both full of water and perspiring from the cold water within.   

Evidently a domestique had gone back to the team car to load up on bottles to spread among his teammates and not all needed them, so these extras were tossed aside.  There were slight abrasions on both, but they were otherwise bright and new, fresh out of the box.  I’ll now make them two of the three bottles I have mounted on my bike and become a genuine Pogaçar supporter.

Almost equally exciting was landing a pair of socks with the Tour de France logo.  Those were the socks I was vying to get from the caravan.  I failed again, but a woman accompanied by her husband and young son who struck up a conversation thanks to my loaded bike, was clutching a pair, the first time I’d gotten a close look at them and realized they were a more prized item than I realized.  When I expressed admiration for them, she said I could have them.  I was so delighted I didn’t think to offer her one of the course markers I had garnered. I was regretting that oversight for miles, as I could have replaced it multiple times over.  That won’t take any of the joy though from wearing socks with a Tour de France logo.

Not only did I fail on the socks, I failed on the bicycle key chain, but I did snatch the key chain with mini-screwdrivers.  I also failed on both of the canned drinks being handed out, but nabbed several packs of crackers and cookies along with some candy and the mini-sausages, that I immediately added to the small plastic bag in my handlebar bag with madeleines.  I also scored another pack of detergent and a sturdy plastic shopping bag, my beat haul yet.

During the hour lull between the caravan and the peloton I ventured over to a nearby train station and took advantage of its Wi-Fi to get a FaceTime report from Janina on the tornado that hit our suburb the evening before.  Janina had been clearing out the overflow in the pantry that blocks the door to our crawl space beneath the house when the tornado struck.  It passed by so quickly, she didn’t have time to go below.  It blew the mass of magnets off our refrigerator and a Tour de France poster over the stove off the wall,  but it otherwise spared the house.  Two willows in the back were toppled and a couple of smaller trees.  Janina was still shook up by the experience as she gave me a tour of the damage.

Our conversation went on so long I all of a sudden noticed a helicopter overhead signaling the arrival of the peloton.  By the time I got back to the race course the spectators were all coming towards me, the peloton having come and gone.  The peloton had a tailwind and had been a few minutes ahead of schedule.  All was forgotten when I came upon those water bottles a few minutes later.

And then an hour later I stopped in the town of Saint-Rambert-en-Bugy in a gorge to watch the final hour of the stage which concluded with an eleven mile Beyond Category climb up the Col de Colombiere.  There were no bars so I had to settle for a pizza parlor, which was just fine except that it didn’t offer menthe â l’eau, just soft drinks.  A bunch of rowdy guys were sitting out front screaming “Pinot, Pinot” when ever a cyclist passed.  Turns out I was in the hometown of  the French favorite Thibaut Pinot.  He lives nearby, 2,000 meters from from the pizza parlor one guy said, and frequents the parlor.  He lives on a farm with goats, who were featured on the recent Netflix series on the Tour de France.  

When the peloton reached the climb three UAE riders with the same red water bottles now in my possession took the lead with Pogaçar and Vinegaard just behind.  They were four minutes behind the Polish 2014 world champion Michal Kwiakowski riding for Ineos who had a one minute lead on three others.  They couldn’t catch him, but Pogaçar managed to pass all but one other, able to gain the third place four second time bonus, after he blasted off with an all-out sprint less than a kilometer from the finish with Vingegaard dangling four seconds behind.  So Pogaçar chips another eight seconds off Vingegaard’s lead, now down to nine seconds.

When it was over I had the best riding of the day ahead of me for three hours on through the gorge with the Alps looming in the distance.  Off the main road were occasional side roads leading up over passes that made made Pinot the rider he is.  I camped in a forest for the first time in a while, which meant the Bastille Day fireworks I could hear going off were blocked to me.

Stage Five

 

Time trials are known as the “race of truth,” but the mountains reveal truths as well. Today’s first foray into the mountains answered the question hovering over The Tour of who is the stronger of the past two winners and overwhelming favorites to repeat.  

Last year’s winner, Vingegaard, took a whopping minute out of the winner of the previous two Tours, Pogaçar, riding away from him a kilometer from the summit of a Category One climb eleven miles before the finish and held him off to the finish. He didn’t win the stage nor gain the Yellow Jersey just yet,   both went to Aussie Jai Hindley, who joined a breakaway group of podium threats that Pogaçar and Vingegaard inadvisably let get several minutes up the road, as Hindley, a former Giro winner, was considered the strongest rider in the peloton after the top two and was the oddsmaker’s favorite to finish third.  

His two prime rivals weren’t showing him a great amount of respect to let him off the leash.  Vingegaard brought back much of his advantage finishing only forty-six seconds behind, which he could easily overcome on any long climb, unless Hindley is invigorated by the Yellow Jersey and can stick with his attacks, which so far no one has been able to do.  

Suddenly The Tour has another storyline, though it could go poof on tomorrow’s second day in the Pyrenees with a finish up a Category One climb after dealing with the Beyond Category Tourmalet.  It will be must viewing.

I had the pleasure of watching today’s action in a bar with two other patrons who were already riveted to the television when I arrived with ninety minutes left in the stage.  The bar had Wi-Fi, so I could supplement the French commentary with updates from the Tour de France website and the cyclingnews website.  

It would have been a perfect setting if only there’d been a L’Équipe newspaper laying around with its multiple pages of Tour coverage. It would have been nice too if  the bar hadn’t been infested with flies that were nipping at my ankles.  At least there were easily accessible electric outlets so I could do some charging, though it wasn’t a great necessity as I had spent two hours earlier in the day in a mediatheque (library) taking my first prolonged break of this ride.  

For the first time in two weeks I wasn’t pressed to be getting down the road as I was bypassing the Pyrenees and was starting on Stage Seven to Bordeaux, two stages ahead of the peloton.  It would make for stress free riding for a couple of days simply enjoying the glorious French countryside.  I made no demands on the legs letting them soft pedal and have a recovery day.  My present short-term goal is to get to the Stage Eight start by Friday morning just as the course markers are being mounted and before whatever groups there might be here this year riding a day ahead of the peloton.  

The past few years there has been a group of women doing it, but with the brutal first three days of this year’s Tour such groups may have opted out, as they wouldn’t be able to ease into the demands of riding over one hundred miles a day for three weeks with relatively flat days as is the customary start to The Tout.  They could have been done in after a day or two of this year’s two killer opening stages.

Ralph, who I’ve yet to cross paths with since he stays at hotels and eats in restaurants and resorts to trains like an otherwise civilized human being, rode a day ahead on the Dax stage a couple days ago and reported only one encounter with two guys who said they were riding a day ahead with a “Pedal for Purpose” group.  I hope to find out more on Friday, riding a day ahead myself before letting the peloton catch up to me on Saturday.

Today I was actually riding two days ahead, something I rarely do as the course markers wouldn’t be mounted until the next day.  The route often revealed itself with fresh pavement and barriers stacked up waiting to be put in place and crews out cleaning the road and trimming trees and signs advising locals the hours the road would be closed.   Plus there were many decorations already in place.  Surprisingly there was a camper van already parked with a course marker in its window choosing to avoid the strain of the torturous Pyrenean climbs.

I patronized a Carrefour supermarket for the first time this year.  I had been sticking to the Intermarché, as it is a co-sponsor of a team, and E.Leclerc, as it sponsors the climbing jersey, which Carrefour used to do.  At the two stores I’d been sticking to I’d been asked at checkout every single time if I wanted a receipt (“ticket” as they call it), a move to cut down on wasted paper.  Carrefour has not instituted such a policy, so it’s not government mandated, as is not providing plastic or paper bags.  Everyone has been trained for years to bring their own.  

Another environmentally friendly policy is doing away with plastic straws.  I’ve sometimes been buying a six-pack of mini-cartons of chocolate milk, each with their own straw.  The straws are cardboard and after a single use have lost their strength to puncture the hole into the carton.  Since I drink two or three at a time I have to unwrap a new straw for each carton, unable to use the one I’ve just drunk from unless I puncture the hole with my pen, which I sometimes have to do if a fresh straw has gone astray.  Surprisingly the six-packs are sometimes cheaper than the liter bottles and provide an extra 200 milliliters.  Since they don’t have to be refrigerated, I can have chocolate milk first thing in the morning in my tent, always a good way to start the day.

Stage Four

 I have been keeping my eyes peeled for UK license plates on the camping vans parked along the route since Lance had mentioned on his daily Tour podcast that the parents of the Yates twins were following The Tour.  I glance at them anyway to see the many nationalities represented as well as the range of French départements, as the last two digits on the French license plates are the clue as to where they are from.  Flags and banners and signs supporting riders are a good clue as well.  

The parents of Yates were said to be as reserved as their sons, so it wasn’t likely they’d be brandishing large signs drawing attention to themselves.  But I figured I’d weeded them out when I came around a bend and saw an older couple mounting a sign reading “Yates You Can” across the road from a large camper with UK license plates.  “Are you the parents?” I asked.  

“No, that’s them over there,” the woman responded, nodding towards a gentleman seated at a table in front of a second camper parked just ahead of theirs.

I glided over to him and said, “You must have been going crazy on that final climb on stage one when your sons were ahead of everyone else.”

“We were actually in the camper driving over to Stage Two.  We had stopped and were watching the finish on our phone.  It was exciting.”

I asked if they had followed The Tour before.  It was their third, while the friends accompanying them were on their seventh after having done segments of others before they started doing it from start to finish. They were full-fledged devotee's.  It would have been nice to plop down and watch the peloton pass with them, but that was hours away.  It was only 8:30 and I was intent to get to the stage finish nearly fifty miles away.

When I started the day, signs warned that the route at that point would be closed at ten am.  I had  gotten far enough down the route that the signs now said 10:30, giving me enough breathing room that I dashed into a supermarket for the day’s provisions and a hit of chocolate milk.  I intended to leave the route hopefully by ten at the forty-mile mark and take a shortcut to the finish.  I started seeing gendarmes posted at all the intersecting roads at 8:45, looking fairly relaxed at that point and posed no threat to evicting me.

There hadn’t been much Tour traffic on the road other than a trio of yellow vans of the course marker crew making sure all the markers were still in tact. The most activity was in towns with people mounting last minute decorations, always a fascinating spectacle as they try to get them just right.

This was the first stage entirely in France.  Tributes to The Tour flourished everywhere.

Residents almost feel it is a civic duty to acknowledge The Tour in some manner.

It is truly a non-stop tribute to the bike.

The bike becomes a totem and most revered object.  

I timed my arrival in Nogaro for two pm when the tourist office and the Orange telecom office would reopen after lunch.  On the outskirts of the town a sign acknowledged that 1973 Tour winner Luis Ocana had lived there pointing towards his former vineyard.  I couldn’t ask about it at the tourist office as it was closed for The Tour giving precedence to attending it rather than assisting tourists such as me.  Just bout every shop was closed too. It was over a mile from the town center to the finish line of the stage at a large motor sport racing circuit.  While I sat outside the tourist office using its Wi-Fi a couple of older gentleman asked me what time the peloton was due.  They weren’t residents but rather Jehovah Winesses.  They gave me a card inscribed with JW.org and Les Témoins  de Jéhovah.

A stream of people were headed to the track.  The Giant Screen was very visible and easily accessible.  There was plenty of grass to sit on.  Luckily it was a cool, cloudy day, as there was no shade.  I took out my sleeping pad that converts into a chair and plopped down, happy to have a couple of hours off the bike with non-stop biking action to watch.  It actually extended into three hours with not that much action until the end as the peloton wasn’t pushing the pace, recovering from three hard days in Spain with a monstrous ten thousand, nine thousand and eight thousand feet of climbing with two even more demanding days in the Pyrenees awaiting them starting the next day.  

There wasn’t even a token breakaway until well into the stage for the peloton to chase.  They were riding at times eight abreast across the road.  Near the front for a while was the American Quinn Simmons with the longest hair in the peloton wearing the Stars and Stripes jersey of the American national champion as if to acknowledge the July 4th celebrations going on back home.  The screen cut from time to time to interviews with riders at the day’s start, including one with 94-year old André Darrigade, whose statue graced the route.

This was my first full dose of the caravan, as it had been somewhat reduced in Spain.  There were two sponsors dispensing cans of drink, maybe juice, that one had to be ready for as they were handed to outstretched hands rather than tossed as everything else is.  I will now know to be prepared for that in the future, quick to grab what is extended out.  There were several caps and what appeared to be socks along with key chains and pencils and candy and other snacks.  All I was able to snatch was a spiffy red, white and blue cycling cap of the French FDJ team adorned with bikes and a heavy duty plastic shopping bag with the Tour logo that Janina will be happy to put to use. Surprisingly, Vittel, the bottled water sponsor, was absent, which used to delight the crowds and send them scattering as it sprayed those along the route to cool them down.

This was the first stage finish in a small town after three in urban centers, so it wasn’t so mobbed and the vibe was much more laid back.  There was no hint of whatever ruckus is going on in the large urban centers of the country.  

The gendarmes were as much at ease as the civilians, one even putting his cap on a little girl for a photograph.  When the peloton finally arrived a little before six everyone turned to watch them enter the far end of the track before coming around to us.

Philipson won for the second day in a row after a roaring lead out by Pou Pou’s grandson van der Poel, just nipping the Australia Ewan by a fragment of a wheel.  Behind were a couple of crashes that fortunately didn’t take down more than a couple riders each, two of whom had to abandon, both with broken collarbones, the first since the two on Stage One.  Cavendish was up there in fifth, one better than yesterday, but the strength of the others makes it look bleak for him getting his record-breaking win in this his final Tour.  

Since I wasn’t headed to Pau for the next stage start I had a quiet, leisurely ride heading in the opposite direction freed of The Tour entourage rushing to their hotels.  After half an hour I replenished my water bottles at a cemetery and could begin looking for a place to camp, enjoying that I didn’t need to push on as far as possible.  Once again I ended up in a grassy field on the fringe of a cornfield.  No complaints whatsoever.

Stage Three

 

From the very beginning of the day I was passing small enclaves of camping vans parked along the road, many with picnic tables already set up with couples having breakfast oblivious to the traffic passing by.  They were living the Tour de France experience and would have it no other way.  

As I closed to within twenty miles of the stage finish in Bayonne I came upon a van parked alone, a smaller version of the more popular home on wheels that most preferred.  And then my eye caught its markings.  It was the vehicle of the German superfan Didi, known as the Devil, who is almost as synonymous with The Tour as the Yellow Jersey.  The driver’s side window was open.  

I slowed to see if Didi could be seen.  And there he was in all his glory sitting behind the wheel peering at his phone.  He immediately recognized me and gave me a hearty greeting.  He grew up in Eastern Germany so had no background in English and has never picked it up, nor French, so there was no communicating other than the good cheer of seeing a fellow devotee of The Tour.  He used to shout “musée” when I past him, as he knew I had visited his museum near Berlin of the many different bikes he has concocted, some in the Guinness book.  He wasn’t at the museum at the time of my visit, so I picked up a brochure and dropped it by him when I passed him at The Tour later that year, giving him much delight.

Not long afterwards reuniting with Didi  I spotted a two euro coin on the road, well worth stopping for.  It was like finding a stack of ten quarters.  It was actually the second one I had come upon, the previous just before I entered Spain.  It made me wonder if there could possibly be a counterfeiting ring in the vicinity.  I had already passed the first and upon close examination this seemed perfectly legit.  One doesn’t hear anything about counterfeiting these days, but it could be going on.  

It brought to mind the two-bit, quasi-mafiosa types who force mini-French flags on fans for a euro during The Tour, giving them something to wave when the peloton passes.  These sleazy, nefarious characters would be likely suspects of passing, if not manufacturing, counterfeit coins.  And not long after they came to mind I came upon the first of this repugnant bunch clutching a handful of the flags besieging a row of parked vans.  Those guys are a blight on The Tour.  The very sight of them turns my stomach, not only that they sucker so many people into buying these cheap tokens of fandom, but that so many people fall prey to their sheningans, and fork over a euro or two if only to appease them. 

The thirty miles of the days route I followed into Bayonne was away from the coast and through small villages.  I kept hoping a supermarket would turn up, as I was down to madeleines and nuts, as no supermarkets had been open on Sunday in Spain the day before.  I was eager for some chocolate milk and a quiche and bread and sandwich fixings.  I was growing hungry, and was forced to wait until Bayonne to eat.  I was counting on at least a supermarket on the run-in to this big city, but there was none. They were all on the other side of the city. 

I was hungry enough to not even seek out the Giant Television screen at the finish nor to see if Credit Lyonnaise had started passing out yellow hats.  Plus I didn’t want to be tempted by an idyllic grassy setting with shade to come back and await the peloton, which hadn’t even set out from Spain yet.  I didn’t care to delay the thirty-one mile transfer to the next stage start in Dax until after the stage finish when it would be a mad rush by many of the Tour followers to get to Dax.  

I would put off my first Giant Screen viewing experience of this year’s Tour until Nogano, the next day, when I’d be in no rush to be on my way after the stage, as I didn’t intend to plunge into the Pyrenees for stage five and six, but rather make a leisurely ride towards Bordeaux, where stage seven would conclude.  I had seen Tour starts in Pau and Tarbes, where five and six would be commencing, a few times over the years and had no need to renew acquaintances, though they both have their charms. 

Once again I was thwarted in finding a bar or cafe with a television to watch the finish.  I had been thwarted too in getting a SIM card for my iPad In Bayonne to have access to internet anywhere, as the outlet of the French provider, Orange, wasn’t still closed undergoing renovation as it had been last week when I passed through on my way to Spain.  So I had to wait until I reached Dax an hour after the stage had visited for WI-FI.  An English couple was peering into the closed tourist office when I arrived.  I asked, “Did Cav win?”  They replied, “No, he finished sixth.  Hopefully he can do better tomorrow.”

The favorite for the Green Jersey, who won two sprint stages last year including the all-important final stage on the Champs in Paris, the Belgian Jasper Philipson took the stage thanks in part to a superb lead out by van der Poel.  Cav was right there so there is still hope he’ll yet win a stage and surpass Merckx for the most Tour stage wins.  Sagan came in 23rd demonstrating he will be a non-factor after dominating the Green Jersey competition for years, winning it six times. 

My next order of business was to find the course markers for the next day’s stage.  A crew was already setting up barriers and loads of locals were watching the huge operation.  A course marker was nearby and I was on my way, knowing it would lead to the André Darrigade statue I had checked out last week. It was looking more prominent than ever adorned with a course marker, though the variety with black stripes on its bottom indicating this was the neutralized zone and the racing had yet to commence.  

I had to go a mile further past several roundabouts when the road became clear of impediments and the fury of the opening kilometers could commence with riders attempting to form a breakaway. The hammer goes down when the peloton comes upon two course markers mounted one on top of the other.

I proceeded ten miles before slipping off the road to camp in a field behind a tree farm and beside a corn field, another marvelous sight marred only by the barking of a deer shortly after I had set up.