Day Eleven Le Tour

Friends: For the third time in the first ten stages I was able to get a full 24-hour head start on the peloton with yesterday being a rest day relieving me of any pressure to beat the peloton to the finish line in Carmaux. It helped too that the stage was only 99 miles, considerably shorter than the average of 125 miles.

Now that The Tour has crossed into the southern half of France the temperatures have warmed up. For the first time I overheated enough early in the evening last night on a category three climb that I shed my shirt. I was not alone as just about every male sitting in a camp chair besides his camper van along the route was also shirtless. I though was the exception in not having an over sized gut hanging over my belt.

As seems to be the theme this year, there was more exceptional hay-bale art along the way, perhaps inspired by this year's poster which is "Tous Fous Le Tour" spelled out in a field of hay. Rather than just piling up rectangular and circular bales of hay into some bicycle figure, many farmers have been sculpting hay into figures with arms and legs and facial features. Three deer on bikes whose wheels were giant rolls of hay were today's standout. They could well end up on television as there was also a huge sign written out facing skyward for the helicopters. It was 25 miles from the finish, so has a good chance of making the broadcast unlike art in the first half of the course before the telecast begins.

French producers don't go out of their way though to show such human-interest angles of The Race. Evidently they know their audience craves non-stop bicycle action and steams up when they divert their cameras to show the beautiful and exceptional sites along the route as do the American producers.

Vying for the most original piece of art of this year's Tour is a mannequin of The Devil complete with pitchfork chasing a mannequin on a bicycle wearing the red polka dot jersey. I didn't have my German translator with me today when I passed The Devil to ask him if he had seen it. I saw him on a bicycle for the first time, as it was mid-morning and there wasn't much going on. He had his pitchfork in one hand and was delighting a handful of villagers.

Even those off The Tour route on the roads linking a stage finish to the next day's start get in on the act of celebrating The Tour with bike art. On the way to Aurillac yesterday on N122 I passed a bicycle on a ridge above the road with twelve empty tin cans evenly spaced attached to its rear wheel. The rear wheel was slightly elevated and was slowly spinning as a hose filled a can with the weight of the water moving it downward.

Two miles from today's finish a cyclist in the US Postal Service uniform of ten years ago flew by me. He shouted out "Garmin" as he passed. We had spoken briefly several days ago at the Chataueroux finish line as we watched the big screen. He was a Norwegian of about my vintage following The Tour for the first time. We reconnected in the town plaza here in Carmaux before heading over to the town's cyberbase. He had ridden all of today's route as well and hadn't seen any of the other touring cyclists who I've had contact with earlier in The Race. Evidently they've all dropped out as usually happens.

The Norwegian is riding a carbon fiber Trek without any racks, just wearing a small pack on his back and staying at hotels. As we talked a woman wearing a shirt of the Norwegian flag and carrying two Norwegian flags walked by. She is part of a bus tour of Norwegians. Interest in bicycle racing is exploding in popularity in Norway with the Garmin rider Thor Hushovd having won the world championship last year and the green jersey in The Tour in previous years.

Now its over to the Giant Screen to watch the final two hour's of today's stage. It being so short the peloton set out at 1:30 this afternoon and are expected here by five. There were four categorized climbs, but just threes and fours, so it ought to end up with a sprint finish. Then it's just a ten mile transfer to Blaye-les-Mines for the start of tomorrow's stage, the shortest transfer of this year's Tour.

Tomorrow's stage has only one small climb, so Voeckler will be able to keep the yellow jersey until Thursday, Bastille day, when The Tour heads to the Pyrenees and its first of four mountain top finishes. Then we will see who is for real, if Evans has truly improved his form to be able to ride with Schleck and Contador and if the Schleck brothers have it in them to keep up with Contador and if Christian and his teammate Danielson can be factors as well. Its been a great Tour and it will only get better.

Later, George

Day Ten Le Tour

Friends: As I was half-way up a five mile climb at 9:15 last night on N122 to Aurillac, the next stage start, a 50-year old French cyclist on a racing bike with a pack on his back caught up to me. He was the rare French cyclist who was fluent in English. I figured he must have been exultant with the French cyclist Tom Voeckler having taken over the yellow jersey just hours before. After eight stages the French hadn't won a stage yet and the sports pages were full of fretting stories about their poor performance, especially compared to last year when the French won six stages. 

 "All of France must be thrilled with Voeckler in yellow," I commented. 

 "Not me," he replied. "My favorite rider is Cyril Dessel, and he doesn't get along with Voeckler."

 "I've read that Voeckler is the most disliked rider in the peloton." 

 "That's true." 

 "But he's the favorite of all the French housewives." 

 It’s been seven years since Voeckler had a ten-day stint in yellow and won the favor of all of France. He hasn't been in yellow since, though he's won a few stages of The Tour and won the French national championship and assorted other significant races. And he's made two stabs at winning stages already this year in breakaways, so no one can complain about his aggressiveness and efforts to bring attention to the new sponsor of his team, Europcar. He'd been the highest placed French rider in the race at 19th going into the stage and the only French rider to do anything of significance in the first week of The Race. 

 After fifteen minutes of conversation we reached the summit of the climb. Patrick had been telling me that he would also be at the Friday L'Alpe d'Huez stage at the end of The Race, as he does whenever The Tour visits it. Its been three years, when ordinarily it visits it every other year. He intends to spend the weekend after the stage in the vicinity climbing cols (passes) that he hasn't climbed. He hopes to reach 500 cols by the end of this year. 

 One can get a certificate for climbing one hundred of France's cols in one's lifetime, so Patrick was a true fanatic. Not as much as someone he knows who has climbed 10,000 of them. France has about 8,000, of which 2,500 are on paved roads, the rest on dirt. He has friends who've been to America to add to their list of cols. 

 As we neared the summit Patrick warned that we might have to continue on up to a ski resort, as he thought bicyclists were prohibited from the tunnel that cuts through the top of the mountain. There wasn't an initial “no bicycles” sign at the side road, but a little further on, just before the entrance to the tunnel, was that dreaded sign. He suggested we ignore it as it was nearing dark and there wasn't much traffic. The tunnel was well-lit, and he had a flashing red light on the back of his bike. It was a great decision, saving us half an hour and considerable effort as the tunnel went on for two miles and began the long descent. When we parted several minutes later we arranged to try to meet at L'Alpe d'Huez where he will be arriving the night before the peloton staying with a bunch of friends half-way up the mountain just beyond the raucous Dutch corner. 

 I was on my own, as Vincent elected to pull the pin on his efforts earlier in the day at Issoire at the start of Stage Nine. He had never done much climbing in all his years of cycling and, the day before, as The Tour entered the Massif Central, there had been a lot. His legs were kaput. He persevered tenaciously though like his gritty compatriot Cadel. Holding on for eight stages continued his progression of doubling the number of stages he's ridden year by year. The first year he did two. Last year four. It will be tough for him to get to sixteen though next year and endure the real mountains, the Alps and the Pyrenees. 

 We lost David and his kitten the day before shortly after taking a two-hour break along The Race Route watching the peloton pass at about the eighty kilometer point in the stage. We weren't as far along as I would have liked as we were greatly delayed the night before. A half hour break at seven p.m. in the town of Aigurande, the start of Stage Eight, turned into two hours what with David needing to appease his twin addictions of coffee and nicotine. It took ten minutes just to find a store that sold the tobacco he prefers for rolling his cigarettes. 

 And then ten minutes out of town his kitten started meowing with fervor as she had shit in her nest. It took half an hour along the road to clean it up and give the kitten some time out of the bag she is imprisoned in, but along came Skippy while we waited for David to take care of the kitten. He said he would stop about ten miles up the road so we could all camp together. David had used up all his water cleaning his kitten's mess. When we saw a camper with German license plates he stopped to ask for water. It turned out to be an Australian couple with two young children who had rented the camper in Germany. They had water to spare. 

 All the time lost put us twenty-five miles short of where we needed to be if we were to reach the finish in St. Fleur on Sunday, our next meeting point with the assorted cyclists we've met along The Route. But that allowed Vincent and I to witness all the hoopla of a Stage start with all the riders coming up on a stage to sign in and get a brief introduction from Tour voice Daniel Mangeas who keeps up a truly awesome breathless non-stop ninety minute monologue. 

 Thousands of people from miles around mob the start village and first couple of kilometers of The Race route through the city. We should have been one hundred or more kilometers down The Race route at this point, but it was nice to enjoy all these festivities as well. As were were talking, I heard a shout of Pou-Pou in the distance, knowing for once it was not directed at me. And there a little ways away was the man himself, 70-year old Raymond Poulidor walking on the other side of the barricade just before the official starting line with an escort of four guys all in matching yellow shirts. 

 I was able to get in a brief greeting with Christian Vande Velde after his introduction as he took his place in line among the 185 racers still in The Race just prior to setting out. He was in excellent spirits, sitting in the top twenty-five poised to move into the top ten and higher once The Race reaches the Pyrenees in several days where his climbing legs can take full effect. His team has held the Yellow Jersey for a week and has won two stages. Things could hardly be better for Garmin. 

Contador and Evans and Hushovd were among the last to take their place in line, trying to limit their time in the public eye as they know they would be mobbed by journalists with huge cameras. Even though they were all just an arm's length from Vincent and I, we couldn't get a picture ourselves as there was nothing to see except microphones and bulky cameras on guy's shoulders. 

 After saying farewell to Vincent I was on my way, now down to a gang of one after a group at one point for two days of four of us. I nabbed the only two course markers that hadn't been appropriated yet. Fortunately The Route wasn't complicated at this point and I didn't need them to stay on course until stopping at three to watch the final two-and-a-half hours of The Stage, the first with quite a few passes to climb, though no category ones or Beyond Category. It was a welcome relief not to be under any pressure to find a bar with a television with loads of time before the Stage concluded. 

The last three days it had been a frantic rush, a hard sprint almost equivalent to that of the peloton closing in on the finish line, to find a bar. The day before Vincent and I reached a television just three kilometers before the end of The Stage as the peloton began its climb up to the ski resort of Super Bessy. We had to peer at a television through a doorway into the personal apartment of the proprietors of a restaurant/hotel. 

For some reason the man watching the action didn't care to invite us in to join him for the final few minutes of The Stage. But it made for a most memorable viewing experience for the dramatics of this stage with a Spanish breakaway rider holding off the peloton and Vinokourouv in the middle chasing him down. Vincent's man Cadel finished third and appeared to have gapped Hushovd in the yellow, overcoming his one second deficit to take the Yellow Jersey himself. 

We didn't learn until ten minutes later when we went into the local supermarket that also sold televisions, five of which were tuned to the post-Tour coverage, that Hushovd hadn't been gapped, and even though he finished several places down to Cadel he was given his same time and retained Yellow. We also learned that earlier in the stage the rookie American Tejay Van Garderen riding for the HTC-High Road team was the first rider over the first category-two climb of The Race and had taken over the red polka-dot jersey for the best climber in The Race. He may be the first American to wear it. He was on cloud nine as he was interviewed after the stage by the French announcer who had to ask him how to pronounce his name and then wanted his life story, wondering also if LeMond and Armstrong had been his heroes. 

The two previous stages we had been able to watch the end of the race in actual bars, but both times we cut it real close, eight and six kilometers to the finish. But I kept my record intact of having missed only one stage finish these past eight years of over 150 stages. There was considerable carnage in yesterday's stage with Vinokouvov crashing out and the Belgain Van Den Broeck, both team leaders and contenders, joining earlier crash victims Horner and Wiggins and Brajovic, all potential Top Ten finishers. 

The craziest crash of the day was a Eurosport car sideswiping two riders in the five-man breakaway that Voeckler was a part of. There was no waiting up for them to rejoin. One of the riders from the Dutch team Vacansoleil struggled to finish the race. I would have felt a lot more sympathy for his tragedy if the driver of his team bus that he was riding in on the way to the stage start hadn't nearly blown Vincent and I off the road. He passed within inches of both of us, holding his line on the narrow road without a shoulder, even though there was no oncoming traffic. It was the closest call I've had in all my years of following The Tour. And the three team cars with all the team bikes on their roofs passed us nearly as closely as well. I couldn't blame it on my Garmin jersey as I had on my rain jacket. We actually saw the team bus and the driver pull into the area where all the teams congregate before The Stage start and could have given him a piece of our minds if we wished, but we let it go. 

Later, George

Day Seven Le Tour

Friends: It was just Vincent and me partaking of all the day-before preparations along the Stage Seven route from Le Mans to Chateauroux yesterday as we rode the first eighty miles of the course, as Dave the Australian did not make our noon rendezvous point at the start of the course, nor did he come charging up from behind us as we expected at any moment. 

 But David the German did meet up with us less than fifteen miles from the finish just a couple hours ago. He had a mighty surprise for us, something he had hidden in his front basket that he wanted both of us to see at the same time, the most incredible thing imaginable, he said. He being a professional bird watcher I figured it might be some feathered creature.  It was indeed a creature, but rather a meowing one, a young kitten. He found her at a rest area two days ago and has been traveling with her since. She was loving it, nestled up in David's travel bag he carries in his wire mesh handlebar basket. 

David carried on about how smart and affectionate she was, as if he were a proud father. She could well be the first kitten to travel The Tour by bicycle. David said he had become so preoccupied by her that he nearly went a whole day without smoking a cigarette. He thought, at last, he would be able to quit. But he had another this morning, and he said it was absolutely divine. 

 We reached the finish of today's route just after two, having to ride the last mile along the sidewalk rather than on the course. No Dave at the big screen, but we encountered a young Scottish touring cyclist who had just joined up with The Tour and plans to bike as much of the route from here as he can. So we might have a new recruit. Its his first Tour and had lots of questions, wondering if he'd be able to ride the mountain passes on the day of the race and where the best place to watch the stages was and on and on. 

 Its great to be reunited with David, as besides being a very energetic and frolicsome traveling companion shouting out "Bon Tour" and "Bon Appetite" to the throngs along the road as they greet us, he buys "L'Equipe" every day. He and the nation were deprived on Monday and Tuesday though, as the drivers who deliver "L'Equipe" went on strike. It was a near national catastrophe, timed of course when people most crave this national sporting newspaper that devotes up to eight pages each issue to The Tour. 

 David had been so preoccupied with his kitten that he hadn't been able to find a bar to watch the last two stage finishes. Vincent and I were lucky yesterday to find a television in the first bar we tried about an hour before the stage finish, unlike the previous two days when we had to try at least six or seven and were getting quite desperate. Two days ago a woman helped us out and led us as she drove her car to a bar. 

Yesterday, since we were on The Tour route, it was a snap. When we came to the town center of Montoire-sur-le-Loir there was a bar right at the corner with a "Vive Le Tour" banner. We didn't even have to ask to turn the television to The Tour as we had to do the day before. The bar was plastered with all the team rosters and the route and the course profile of the mountain stages.  As with all but the first stage, the winner came from an English speaking team, Team Sky, joining Garmin and HTC-Highroad. 

 Earlier in the day we had stopped for lunch in one of those typical small quiet French towns. Vincent asked," How long would it take before you were bored shitless living here. It might be nice for a month, but I don't think I could last much longer." Vincent once owned a bakery back in Australia. He would like to introduce meat pies to France. He may miss them more than Vegemite. He drives a taxi one day a week back in Melbourne and it is easy for him to stop and grab a meat pie from any number of outlets that have them in a warming box on a counter. 

While we were keeping our eyes peeled for Dave, a car pulled up and two young men hopped out with boxes of small flags and began ringing doorbells. I'd seen such an operation along the Tour route before, but they had always preyed upon fans along the course or people in cars. This year they are much more aggressive. They have always been the scourge of The Tour, charging up to people, thrusting the small cellophane French flags into their hands.  The initial reaction of the recipients is that these guys are affiliated with the Tour caravan and this is a giveaway. But they want a euro for their flags. And they are surprising successful, especially when they get a flag into the hands of a small child and he starts waving it. 

 This year there are several bands of these entrepreneurs/con artists. Some are wearing reflective vests and stand in the road stopping traffic. The two Vincent and I were watching had cards dangling around their neck, as if they were official credentials, and bright yellow Tour wrist bands. Many people know the scam and immediately send them on their way. But these guys aren't deterred. They are hustlers of the highest order. They just sprint on to the next prospect. 

I've nearly been knocked off my bike as they swerve in front of me to park and then fling open their car doors, sometimes with three or four guys flying out and then sprinting to fans along the route. It is always a delight to see the flag handed back to them. Occasionally the gendarmes will run them off, but they are always back the next day in the next region where there is a fresh crops of gendarmes and potential victims. 

 Skippy too is more infuriated than ever by how blatant they are this year. When he's driving his car he just blasts his horn and charges them. Skippy is campaigning to have something done about this blight on The Tour. You can read about his strong feelings at http://tourdafrance.blogspot.com 

He came along in his car after we'd been on the road for two hours this morning and said he'd pull over up ahead for a chat, as we'd missed each other the past few days. When we arrived he had his cooker out and was boiling water for coffee or tea. He said he had spoken to a three star general in the police force about the flag-sellers and hoped he might take some action. 

Its a good thing there is no market value for the course markers, otherwise these slime-balls would strip the course of them in the night, such is their character. Now its back to the Giant Screen for today's most likely sprint finish. Hopefully Dave will have joined us and we'll be up to five in our touring cyclist entourage. 

 Later, George

Day Six Le Tour

Friends: Day Six of The Tour and Vincent and I are right on schedule, in fact a bit ahead, allowing me time for the Internet. We've arrived in Le Mans, the start of tomorrow's Stage Seven, awaiting Dave the Australian. We had arranged to meet at the start of the stage at noon today and then set out, trying to get at least 75 miles down the course, leaving us 60 miles to get to the finish by two tomorrow. 

 Dave left us at the end of stage four in Mur de Bretagne, as he'd reserved a hotel ahead of time nearby and he wanted to ride some of stage five to Cape Frehel. He's got the legs for the extra miles, as he modestly let slip the other day that he finished ninth at the latest 24 hour mountain bike world championships. He is an elite endurance athlete who can gobble up the miles and ride for hours and hours. He might have finished even higher at the world championships but he had to curtail his riding with 45 minutes to go when he started hallucinating. 

 David the German accompanied Vincent and I until noon yesterday when he decided to take a more direct route to tomorrow's stage finish and give his legs a rest, though he too has strong legs despite riding in sandals and taking regular cigarette breaks. After the bicycle, his two favorite things are coffee and cigarettes, the title of a most entertaining Jim Jarmusch movie. He knew the movie and very much likes Jarmusch, but generally doesn't like movies, so hasn't seen it. 

David can't remember the last movie he saw and says that he walks out on at least half that the does go to see. Such behaviour does not sit well with girl friends, but he is a very strong-minded individual with very strong opinions who is fairly set in his ways. He makes for a very entertaining travel companion. Dogs particularly irk him, as he says they have a Hitler-complex, all wanting a leader. He prefers cats and their independent ways. 

We hope to be rendezvousing with David at two tomorrow under the jumbo screen at the finish line in Chateauroux. Vincent and I were disappointed not to see the finish of stage four, even though we arrived at it four hours ahead of the peloton. It was drizzling, so instead of finding cover and lingering, we pushed on and had to watch Cadel Evans, Vincent's fellow Australian, just barely nip Contador at the line in a bar.

 It was a steep one mile climb to the finish that was as dramatic as could be with all the strongmen up there fighting it out. Vincent is even more of an Evans fan after meeting him last Thursday at the team introductions thanks to Skippy. Vincent heard from friends back home that their handshake was caught on Australian television, making Vincent even more of a celebrity among his mates. 

 Vincent and I might have opted for the short cut that David is taking along the Loire River, but a strong westerly wind picked up with Tuesday's rain, blowing directly towards Le Mans. Back to back days of 105 and 112 days didn't take much effort. Now we're about to head due south for the next 250 miles. It is cloudy and cool and we've had to put on our rain jackets a couple times already today. 

 I was particularly disappointed to have to wear my rain jacket hiding my Garmin jersey riding the final ten miles of stage four past the hundreds of fans, as the day before Garmin's sprinter Tyler Farrar took his first career Tour de France win in Redon. I was there at the finish line and was immediately getting many hand claps and bravos as I rode past all the fans after the race. 

I've only seen a couple of other fans wearing the Garmin jersey, and those seem to be Thor Hushovd fans wearing this year's jersey, which is distinctly different. I get extra respect for being a veteran fan wearing last year's team jersey. I always get some response from fans riding my loaded bike, so now I don't know if the cheers are for me as a touring cyclist or me representing the Garmin team. 

The Le Mans start is right along side the famed car racing track where the 24 Hour race is held. Vincent is presently there awaiting Dave. The course markers are already in place and some barriers are up, but otherwise none of the construction of the many many buildings of the Tour Départ Village have gone up. They are still in place over 100 miles away in Dinan where today's stage is about to start. 

 Later, George

Stage Two

Friends: And now we are four. A couple hours after the scintillating team trial which Vincent, David and I watched on the jumbo screen just 200 meters from the finish line won by Garmin putting the Garmin rider Thor Hushovd from Norway into the yellow jersey, as the three of us were riding the Stage Three route we were passed by a hard-riding young cyclist with rear panniers. We latched onto his wheel and quickly learned he was an Australian also intending to ride the entire route.

Two years ago I met Vincent trying to do the same and then David last year, so I was wondering who it might be this year. In year's past I usually happen upon some rookie trying to ride the course before stage one or on stage one. I was concerned there would be no one new this year, so we were all delighted to have a new recruit for our touring team.

He is another David, though we'll distinguish him from David the German by calling him Dave. He is a quite gung-ho 21-year old thrilled to be at The Tour. He races back in Australia so is plenty fit. He has shaved legs and a few bruises from crashes that haven't entirely healed. He immediately won our favor when he said he sold his car so he could afford this trip. David was just slightly disappoint that instead of selling his car he hadn't put a torch to it. David has never owned a car in his 42 years and is easily irritated by the exhaust they spew and the noise they make and the hurry they are in and the toots they give us. He was particularly appalled when a camper in The Tour entourage passed us pulling a car. Vincent commented, "You know how it is David, most people can't have enough cars."

Dave is riding a carbon fiber bike and carrying four water bottles, two behind his saddle and two on his frame. Like David he only has rear panniers, while Vincent and I have our gear spread out over front and rear bags. Dave is still learning the in the ways of France. He inadvertently ended up on an expressway his first day out of Paris and was pulled over by the police with a few minutes. Rather than a warning, they put him and his bike in the car and took him to the police station to collect a 22 euro fine. He didn't know that most grocery stores are closed on Sundays in France so had to leave the time trial before it ended to go to a larger city twelve miles away to get food. If he hadn't had to make that detour we might not have met.

We galloped along at nearly twenty miles per hour alternating between being a four man pace line and riding two abreast to chat until ten p.m. camping in a freshly cut field of hay, perfect for Dave as he didn't bring along a sleeping pad. "Anybody have a rake?" he asked. I offered one of the PMU green hands I had picked up from the caravan to help gather the hay for a mattress; He easily had his best sleep of his ten days so far in France. But he hadn't bought enough food for dinner.

Us three vets had food to spare, Vincent a pack of potato soup, David some noodles that he just cooked up and me some corn flakes and three packs of candy from the caravan that I had planned on tossing out to people along the route the next day. , But I had plenty of other stuff, even after a gave Vincent five of the red polka dots hats I nabbed and one to Dave, his first. David likewise had a good haul of caravan goodies. Initially he scorned all the useless junk they give away, but when I told him how much satisfaction we give to people along the route ahead of the caravan dispersing goodies ahead of time, he became as exuberant as anyone in trying to grab stuff. He has a perfect set up with a wire basket on the front of his classic Bianchi racing bike. He says these baskets have become popular among messengers in his home down of Bremen. He worked as a messenger himself for a couple of year before he became a professional bird-watcher in 2003.

Twenty miles into our sixty mile ride to today's Stage Three finish in Redon we managed to lose Dave. We waited for 20 minutes on the huge bridge over the Loire waiting for him, but to no avail. The bridge rose high enough over the river to qualify as a category four climb for the riders. But we met up at the stage finish under the giant screen, as was our backup. The biggest loss in getting separated was that Dave missed out on meeting The Devil. David got the opportunity for the first time and was able to do some translating, as The Devil only speaks German. He warmly greeted me saying "musée, musée" as he identifies me as one of the rare people following The Tour to have visited his museum of bikes he has built and all his memorabilia in a small town south of Berlin.

Now we have a couple hours of enjoyment of watching Garmin on the front of the pack defending the yellow jersey. With luck they ought to keep it for five or six stages. People today along the route were responding to my Garmin jersey shouting out "Garmeen." Once today's stage is done we will try to match last night's 50 post-race miles heading to the Stage Four finish in Mur de Bretange. If its as nice as last night we'll feel as if we could go all the way to the finish.

Later, George

Stage One

Friends: It was just David and I riding Stage One as Vincent headed straight to the end of the stage to join us there. David was awaiting me precisely at the appointed picnic table a kilometer from the Passage de Gois well ahead of our noon starting time. We began our Tour almost 24 hours ahead of the peloton, riding until ten p.m. getting 75 miles into stage one. Though there weren't many fans yet occupying their spots along the route there was a fair amount of road graffiti already, most of it cheering on the Europcar Team and its leader Thomas Voeckler, who are from this Vendée region. The other most prominent writing on the road was directed at Contador and not encouraging him other than to leave the race. Someone gave him the red card (the soccer symbol for ejection from a game) not only writing it out in French but also painting a large red block on the road. There were other Contador writings with a syringe periodically along the road. The headline on the front page of the local newspaper was that he had been booed the day before at the team presentation. As feared, his lingering drug case is becoming an all too dominant story. He has a fragile temperament and said he had been considering dropping out of the race except for the encouragement from his fans and teammates and fellow riders in the peloton. David is typically German in having no tolerance for drug use in the peloton and is unequivocal in his opinion that Contador is guilty and should not be allowed to race. The further we got into the course and the later in the evening it got the more campers we began to see parked along the route. We knew we could park out tents anywhere and need not be discreet about it. We chose a grassy area with a handful of trees that already had one camper parked nearby. As we were setting up our tents a French gentleman came over to greet us. He said he lived 60 kilometers away but was thrilled to spend the night in his camper and secure his preferred spot along the course. We were back on our bikes by eight the next morning for the final 45 miles of the Stage. We finished it off by noon, plenty, plenty early, five and a half hours before the peloton was due. And there at the finish line Vincent was awaiting us along with five English cyclists he'd met who were all staying at the campground where he was. They were already all great friends, one of whom was riding Skippy's 1998 Tour de France bike. All but one of them had attended previous tours. But no Skippy as he was off riding the course having ridden from Les Essarts to the start and then riding the course until Les Herbiers, almost 300 kilometers, a normal day for Skippy . They all were devoted fans of the big screen for watching the race, so we headed over to it for the next four hours. We were lucky to find a sliver of shade. There was an inconsequential three man breakaway until the final 30 kilometers and then the racing started. A crash caught Contador and quite a few others throwing havoc into the final placings. Gilbert, the Belgian, won as expected on the steep two-kilometer finishing climb, beating Evans by three seconds and Garmin's Husovd. It places Hushovd in great position to take the yellow jersey today if the Garmin team can win the team time trial. They will be riding with vengeance as its three hopes, Vande Velde, Hesjedal and Danielson were all caught behind the crash and lost nearly two minutes, but only thirty seconds to Contador. It is now four hours until the start of the time trail. The town is swarming and alive with great enthusiasm. Once again this is the ultimate place to be today. Now I turn the computer in the tourist office over to Skippy for his report: http://www.tourdafrance.blogspot.com Later, George

On the Route

Friends: Tom Danielson, riding The Tour for the first time at the age of 33 for the Garmin team, commented after previewing the first stage after a training ride with his team that he was amazed by all the decorated bikes along the route. He's ridden the Tour of Italy and the Tour of Spain, the two other major three-week races, as well as the week-long Tour of Switzerland and countless others races in Europe and America, and he's never seen anything like it.

Welcome to THE Tour Tom.. It truly is in a class until itself beyond anything one can describe. It has to be experienced to believed. And he ain't seen nothing yet. Wait until he sees the throngs along the road and their fervor with signs and flags and road graffiti and cheers. They've already been parking their campers along Sunday's time trial course four days ahead of time. I passed several dozen of them in the six mile segment I biked last night on my way back to the Stage One start after watching the team presentations on a large screen at the Tour Village of sponsors in Les Herbiers, finish of Stage One.

There were throngs there as well. It seemed as if everyone in the vicinity and their poodle were milling around the vast area of sponsors in a large hall and outside it. I encountered Skippy an hour and a half before the presentation was to start. He suggested we head over to Tour central and see if we might find someone who could get us into the presentation at the Puy du Fou park seven miles away. He noticed Christian Prudhomme's car parked outside, the director of the festival who Skippy knows. After half an hour waiting for him to come out we learned that he had already gone in another vehicle. Then we tried the press center near by. Though Skippy knew quite a few of the journalists and others, none could help us.

So it was back to the large screen at the Sponsor's Village. That was a fine enough setting for me sharing the experience with dozens of others. It was held in the replica Roman Coliseum with the teams ushered out with gladiators in costume and some in chariots. The big story was Contador being booed, not once but twice. His Spanish teammates took such offense to the booing they refused to wave to the crowd when they were introduced, unlike the other 190 plus racers. On the telecast afterwards former racers Jacky Durand and Richard Virenque said it was terrible and a shame. It will be interesting to see if that is the story throughout the three weeks of The Tour.

Later, George