Stage Five

The weather had turned blustery towards the end of yesterday's cobbled stage and it was even blusterier today with stronger, gustier, colder winds and a low cloud cover that made it misty bordering on drizzly. The wind was against us, mostly from the west with some northerly.  And with an occasional hill our average speed hovered at ten miles per hour.  We had our work cut out for us to cover the fifty-five miles from our campsite to the stage finish by 2:30 when the roads would be closed.

But there was no regretting being on The Tour route.  We found energy from all the euphoria expressed by the towns along the way thrilled to be a part of this grand national event.

Some of the renderings of the bike could be a candidate for MOMA.

Whether an objet d'art worthy of a gallery or something thrown together by the farmer-next-door, they all gladden the heart.

Today's stage passed by quite a few WWI and WWII cemeteries including ones devoted to South Africa and Australia.  Vincent had visited the Australian one five years ago outside Villes-Brettonneux from WWI and was happy to pause and pay his respects once again.  He pointed out bullet holes in the distant tower from German soldiers in the second War.  Just inside was the copy of a most moving speech from an Australian prime minister dedicated to the Unknown Soldier.

Just before the twenty-five kilometers to the finish banner we saw The Devil's van parked along the road and a bit further The Devil himself in costume hanging out with a bunch of fans.  He leaped with delight when he saw us and waved his trident in greeting.  Though Vincent had met him a couple of times over the years, he had never had his picture taken with him and decided now was the time.  It had been a few years since I updated my Devil photo, so followed suit.

He was wearing his cold weather outfit.  He had missed last year's Tour due to a brain tumor, but was as frisky as ever.  He chased after me as we pushed off shouting "Allez, Allez," and gave me a gentle poke in the back with his trident, a benediction of a sort.

We reached the ten kilometer marker just after two.  If the gendarmes stuck to their policy of closing down the final stretch at 2:30, we had to pick up the pace to make it to the end.  But the wind continued to blast us and a slight incline held our speed down as well.  Just before the three kilometer marker we were halted by a gendarme in a car coming towards us.  The sidewalk was scattered with fans already and there were two gendarmes per block making sure we remained on foot. After a kilometer the route turned on to a main boulevard with a separated bike lane, so we could resume riding.  

We reached the Big Screen shortly before three.  The peloton was 100 kilometers from the finish, about two-and-half hours of riding time.  We couldn't afford to linger that long.  We sat and ate and rested and studied the map and I tapped out a few words while we soaked up the ambiance.  I've had a slow leak that requires pumping twice a day, but haven't had the time to repair.  I thought I might do it here, but we were 125 miles from Livarot, Stage Seven Ville Départ, which we wanted to reach by the next night.  If the head wind persisted that would be twelve hours of riding time.  Rather than sitting here for two-and-a-half hours, we allowed ourselves half an hour.  We would look for a bar to watch the end of the stage after an hour or so.  

It was a risk finding a town large enough with a bar, but we had two possibilities.  Satouel had none.  As we approached Quevauvilliers I searched the skyline for a church steeple, indicting a town of size.  There was none but better yet a small billboard advertising a Café de Sports.  We could see the neon sign of a bar down the road.  It was the Café de Sport, but it was also accompanied with a dreaded PMU sign, meaning that its TVs only showed horse racing.  We ducked in anyway, but there were two patrons watching the racing, so there was no hope.  

The next town was six miles further.  It was at a cross roads and big enough to promise several bars.  But it was just after five.  We had to push hard into the wind to make it and hope the peloton wasn't pushing harder than us and arriving before 5:30.  I wasn't sure if it was wise to be expending the extra energy that we would need the rest of the evening and the next day, but we pushed on. We reached a bar at 5:35.  Its TV was tuned to The Tour and the upper right hand corner showed the peloton was five kilometers from the finish.  Somehow we had managed to make it in time, just as the peloton always manages to catch the breakaway within kilometers of the finish.  We couldn't have been happier as we shared this experience with a lone patron and a bar tender with a classic gray mustache staring up at an old TV in this run-down bar.

The windy conditions hadn't significantly broken up the peloton, so it was a traditional sprint finish.  Cavendish lost his lead out man Renshaw and Griepel snatched his second win of The Race, while Sagan in the white jersey of the top young rider came scorching up the left side like Cavendish used to do, but didn't quite time it so finished second.

Though we didn't have course markers to guide us or to lift our spirits as we were off The Tour route, our spirits were lifted but our success and the extra miles we had gotten in thanks to the PMU bar.  We managed another thirty miles, calling it a day at 9:30.  By nightfall the sky had been clearing and wind diminishing, providing us hope for better conditions the next day.

Stage Four

The moment we crossed into France at the small town of Gognies-Chaussée, there was a brightness and lightness in the air.  There were smiles and flowers and a stately town hall and joyous, friendly chatter among its citizens as they bustled about putting the final touches on their Tour decorations.

Among the town's attractions was an "Expo Tour de France," an exhibition of Tour memorabilia, no doubt from the personal collection of a local or two.  Every town in France is likely to have such a fanatic. They all ought to have a welder, too, who could concoct a bike sculpture when The Tour came town.

Though we were pressed for time to reach the Big Screen at the stage finish before the road was closed, we couldn't resist sticking our heads into the Expo held in a veteran's hall.  We could spare a couple of minutes as we had gotten an exceptionally early start, on the road at 6:30, partially thanks to the heavy traffic on the road we had camped beside off in a forest once again.  

The two rooms of the space were full of jerseys and books and board games and dozens of small figures of cyclists from over the decades and other memorabilia.

One table was devoted to Eddie Merckx.

I was most interested in a course marker from 1996, back when they were dated.

A few miles further and we came upon a supermarket where we could indulge in our French favorites that had been hard to come by in Belgium and Holland--quiche and madeleines and cassoulet stew sirop de menthe.  While we snacked on our second breakfast of the day, we studied the map looking for a way to avoid the six stretches of cobbles coming up.  We had ridden the lone one-mile stretch in Belgium the evening before and that was enough for us.  We found a direct route into Cambrai that avoided the loop that took in the cobbles and also saved us ten miles.  With our seventy miles reduced to sixty we arrived at the Big Screen by one.  Though the peloton wasn't due until after five, the finishing straight was already packed.  We claimed a spot on the sidewalk up against a shop that gave us a good view of the Screen with the city cathedral in the background.

I left Vincent to go to a nearby Macdonalds I had used a couple of weeks ago to charge my iPad and file a report for the price of a one euro burger.  It was packed at lunchtime, including a couple of guys working for the Sky team, and I had to wait for a table to clear that had an electrical outlet.  When I returned to Vincent he had been joined by David sporting his vintage yellow Kas jersey.

The finish line was one hundred meters to our right in the city's central plaza.  Fans hung out of windows overlooking it.

There were heaps of people hanging out everywhere of every age, from grandmas...

...to toddlers. 

The people-watching can be as entertaining as the racing, even today's exceptional battle on the roads.  Nibali asserted himself on the cobbles as he did last year, but wasn't able to shed himself of his prime contenders in the drier conditions as he succeeded in doing last year on his way to winning The Race.  Froome showed no trepidations this year and contributed some forceful accelerations wearing the Yellow Jersey, not allowing Nibali to escape or intimidate him.  Everyone flew over the the seven stretches of cobbles totaling eight miles without any travesty as has happened the last two times The Tour visited them.  

That left a sizable pack containing all the contenders when the cobbles were completed six miles from the finish.  There was no small group or string of individuals fighting it out, but rather a pack that seemed destined for a sprint finish.  But Tony Martin caught them by surprise and flew out of the group  a couple of kilometers from the finish and no one attempted to reel him in.  Froome didn't care to protect his Yellow Jersey saving his team the effort of defending it until he regains it in the Pyrenees. There weren't  enough members of any of the sprinters' teams to give chase either, allowing Martin to seize the stage and also the Yellow Jersey.  No one could be happier than his teammate Cavendish who cost him the Jersey two days ago when he failed to win or even hold off Cancellera from finishing third.  Cavendish was much criticized and Martin most crestfallen to have so narrowly missed joining the elite pantheon of those who have worn the Yellow Jersey.  Seizing it today makes it all the sweeter. He becomes the fourth rider and second German to wear the Jersey in four days.

We didn't linger for any of the awarding of the Jerseys as we had ninety miles to ride to reach tomorrow's Big Screen in Amiens and hoped to knock off at least thirty of them before dark.  We were able to pick up the Stage Five route starting in Arras fifteen miles away well after the stage start.  David didn't wish to ride so many miles and took a short cut, while Vincent and I wished to experience as much of the route as possible.  And this evening one of our rewards for our efforts was meeting a Dutch fan who has followed The Tour the past seven years  putting on a goofy uniform advertising the Carrefour supermarket that sponsors the Red Polka Dot Jersey.   

Somehow we had managed to miss him all these years, both along the road and on television.  He was camped at the site of the Intermediate Sprint where he has a chance for TV coverage.  He also likes to park himself near the feed zone, but he said The Tour is not identifying the spot on its route sheets this year as it had been attracting too many fans hoping for water bottles and musette bags and food the riders didn't want.  They were interfering with the soigneurs trying to hand off the food and adding to the congestion of riders slowing to grab their bags.  One can still guess where the food zone will be somewhere near the half way point of the stage.  It is still posted along the route, including a warning that it is approaching.

We thought we had glimpsed The Devil amongst the cobbles on television, even though he had announced his retirement in December.  This Dutch guy confirmed that he was here and had been in Utrecht.  His retirement was due to his sponsor withdrawing, but he found another.  Vincent and I ended our riding once again at ten p.m. and crawled into our tents between some woods and a cornfield excited over the possibility of renewing our acquaintance with The Devil along the road the next day, knowing he always parks himself somewhere in the last forty kilometers.

Stage Three

Vincent and I had pedaled thirty miles down today's stage, the first of two in Belgium,  past dozens of early arriving fans along the road before we received our first cheer, and it came from an older couple with French license plates on their camper. In France nearly everyone applauds as we pass or shouts out "Allez," or Bravo," or "Bon Courage."

The Belgians are a somber, withdrawn lot not prone to expressing their emotions, except when they don't approve of a cyclist on their roads. Though racing is a popular sport in Belgium, there is an element who regard cyclists as less than admirable and pass all to close in their cars or shout to get on the bicycle path.  I was even hit by a tennis ball from a car.  It hit me in the back and stung.  I had to ask Vincent, who was trailing me, what it was that hit me.  It came so suddenly he didn't even see it launched from the car.

That's not to say that there aren't plenty of Belgians who are friendly and enthusiastic towards cyclists.  We've had one encounter after another with Belgians who fully embrace our ride.  We watched today's stage in a bar with a fine fellow who sat with us for over an hour translating the commentary and expressing awe at what we were doing.  Towards nightfall a guy in a car with his young son, who recognized us as Tour followers, stopped to tell us they had been on the Mur de Huy for today's finish and was excited for what we were doing.  A little later a Belgian touring cyclist invited us to a place that provided free accommodations for cyclists.  We would have loved to join him, but we had to get another ten miles down the road to get within seventy miles of the next day's finish.  Earlier in the day when I stopped to take a photo of two Belgians beside their vintage car they wouldn't let me leave.

They had advice on where to watch the day's stage and also wanted to know how far we were riding.  The owner of the vintage car said his ninety year old father lives in the south of France and would be watching today's stage.  They would be waving to him as the peloton passed, sure that the cameras would zoom in on them.

They weren't alone in that.  A Dutch family was offering up a painting by the husband of a rider from the early mustache era.

With no Belgians a threat to win The Race or even a stage the only banners celebrating Belgian riders were devoted to Eddie Merckx, who just turned seventy.  The lower corner of this one thanking Merckx also acknowledges his number of victories (525), a number that all Belgians recognize as synonymous with Merckx, as 714 once was with Babe Ruth in the baseball world for his career home runs.  

Vincent and I reached Andennes by 12:30 after forty-one miles, where we waited ninety minutes for the caravan to pass.  We were far from alone.  Plenty of kids were most expectant peering up the road.

Vincent and I nabbed a nice sampling of the goodies, standing back grabbing the items that flew past the first row of fans.

We both got a green hat from Skoda, new sponsor of the Green Jersey.  The past few years their hats have been the white of the White Jersey it sponsored.  I also snatched a madeleine and a packet of syrup to flavor water and a couple of key chains and a bag and a couple of items I'm not sure about.  Festina is giving out a bicycle hat this year that looks like it might be the best item of all.

After the thirty minute procession we headed on down the road, as we were 120 miles from the next day's stage finish.  It would be ninety minutes before the peloton passed and we couldn't afford the time to watch them zip by.  We knocked off fifteen miles guided by the course markers and then began our search for a bar in Namur with a television.  It only took two attempts this time.  And it had the added bonus of WIFI so we could supplement our viewing with the commentary on the action at cyclingnews.com.

The peloton was sixty kilometers from the finish.  Not long afterwards a horrific crash left quite a few riders sprawled in agony including Cancellera in the Yellow Jersey.  It was so bad that for the first time ever the race director halted the race on the grounds that all the medical staff was occupied tending to riders leaving none available to assist down the road if there were another accident.  It was a controversial decision with riders wildly gestilating that they wanted to keep riding.  Vincent and I did too, as any delay here would also delay us in resuming our ride. The Race resumed over a climb.  Two more short climbs were ahead including the final kilometer up the Mur de Huy with it nineteen per cent grade.

The finale did not disappoint.  Froome spurted ahead but was passed by Rodriguez, who had won up this climb at the Flèche Wallone.  He's not a contender for the overall, so Froome couldn't be disappointed.  Instead he could be pleased that it revealed he had an edge on his three prime contenders and he had the added bonus of assuming the Yellow Jersey thanks to his time bonus, reintroduced after a several year absence.  That's two stages in a row that the time bonus determined the race leader.

From the bar Vincent and I faced the lone categorized climb on Stage Four up from the Meuse River to a Citadel with magnificent views.  We biked until a little after ten just as it was getting dark.  We needed our headlamps to eat in the dark forest where we camped.  

Stage Two

Vincent and I finished off the final ten miles of Stage Two at 8:30 Sunday morning, nearly nine hours before the peloton was due.  We planned to keep on riding across the causeway where the finish had been placed  to Antwerp and start in on the Third Stage while the peloton was riding the Second.   David wasn't so ambitious.  He was going to hang out at the Stage Two finish all day and skip riding stages three and four and have another couple of leisurely days riding to Cambrai for the Stage Four finish.

But our plans went kaput when we were told we couldn't take our bikes beyond the One Kilometer To Go Marker and through the narrow stretch where crews were busily setting up stands and pavilions and boutiques and announcing booths.  This was another unique, original Tour finish on a small island on Holland's perimeter in the North Sea.  The decision had been made that bikes wouldn't be allowed in this confined space, nor would anyone be allowed to pass through with their bikes.  But there were bikes beyond the gate we were halted at that had entered from the other side. That made no difference to the security guards.  There was no reasoning with them to let us through at this early hour so we could continue on our way.  They were "only doing their job."  

Vincent and I left our bikes at the barrier and went in pursuit of some authority who might overrule this edict and be sympathetic to our cause.  The first person we tried, an older official-looking guy in a white shirt agreed that we ought to be able to pass through, but he couldn't help us.  He told us to ask someone in a green shirt, the uniform of the ASO officials, the organizers of The Tour.  The first we asked barely had time to listen to us and told us it was impossible.  We next tried a cluster of four, who didn't speak much English between them, and weren't entirely sure what we wanted.

Then I thought of seeking out Christian Vande Velde, once again announcing The Tour for NBC.  If he were around he might say that he was doing a story on us and needed our bikes at the NBC trailer for the interview.  It was easy to find their grand two-story broadcasting booth.  The lone NBC person already there said Christian wasn't due for a couple of hours. We were ready to give up when we saw two white-shirted guys who had epaulets on their shoulders.  They were with the local fire department.  They looked amiable enough to do us a favor and official enough to convince the guards to let us bring our bikes through.  They were very sympathetic, but didn't care to contravene an  ASO edict.  They suggested that we bike over to another bridge fifteen miles away that crossed this same body of water and proceed to Antwerp from there.  They said the distance wouldn't be much more than crossing the causeway we were stranded on.  As we studied the map, it seemed to be the solution to our problem.  

Antwerp was over sixty miles away.  We might not get there in time for the end of the stage, but we could find a bar to watch it somewhere else.  It was unfortunate that no one mentioned this earlier, as we had squandered over an hour trying to be let through here, an hour that could make a big difference.  But our biggest misfortune was the time we had squandered the day before so David could stay out of the sun for two hours.  If we had kept it to one hour we would have made it to the bridge that night and camped beyond this bottleneck and been halfway to Antwerp by now.

But then we might have missed a trio of bike sculptures a few kilometers from the stage finish.

The French flag adorned the Eiffel Tower replica and the Dutch flag the windmill contraption.

As the evening, before the wind was blowing from the north off the sea, though with none of its ferocity this early. Rather than a cross wind it was now our friend on our backs as we turned south.  The bike path to the bridge followed along and atop the high dikes confining the huge body of water that the two mile bridge passed over.  A few kilometers beyond the bride we arrived in the large town of Goes shortly before one.  There was a large crowd outside the Jumbo supermarket, a joint sponsor of the Dutch Lotto-Jumbo team in The Tour.  It was our supermarket of choice.  It was just preparing to open, opposite to the opening hours of the French supermarkets on Sunday, 8:30 to 12:30.  

Vincent and I both bought a final two-pound tub of mashed potatoes and liter of chocolate milk before leaving Holland.  We would miss them, but not the Dutch policy of cyclists sticking to paths.  Whenever we ventured on to a road the Dutch would hoot their horns and point at the path along the road.  If it happened to be to the right side, drivers would stick there arm out their window at a ninety degree angle pointing to the right.  We were eager to get to Belgium and France, where we could ride on the road and not worry about getting lost on paths that didn't always parallel the road we were following. 

We crossed into Belgium after forty miles.  Then we wound through miles and miles of docks and wharves, dead quiet on Sunday.  At one point we were joined by an executive and his wife.  He had had to make an emergency visit to his office and was now on his way home.  They led us along a huge canal for several miles and then gave us directions the rest of the way into Antwerp.  It was four o'clock, time for us to start looking for a bar with a television.  There were none until we reached the centrum and had passed the happy site of a course marker for the next day's stage.  

We stopped at three bars within two blocks of each other before finding one with a television broadcasting The Race.  The lead group was 23.8 kilometers from the finish, about half an hour.  We had been hoping to see the last hour of the action, but we were happy with this.  The roads were wet from rain, but the wind didn't look like it was a factor.  A group of twenty-six with Froome, Van Garderen, Contador, Cavendish, Sagan, Griepl and Cancellera were a minute ahead of the Yellow Jersey group with Nibali and Quintana.  The peloton had been fractured, as the organizers had hoped would happen, adding significance and excitement to The Race.

The lead group held its advantage setting up a perfect sprint for the top sprinters in The Race.  Cavendish had three teammates leading him out.  Renshaw, his main man, delivered him to the 200 meter to go marker with the lead, just where he wanted to be.  But Griepel came around him and so did Sagan, leaving Cavendish crestfallen, letting up to finish fourth with Grielpel just holding off Sagan.  

Cancellera snuck in before Cavendish and assumed the Yellow Jersey, a garment he is much accustomed to.  He holds the distinction of wearing the jersey more days than any rider other than those who have won The Tour.

We filled our water bottles and rode a block over to the course marker and started following them out of the city.  The neutralized zone went on for eight miles, more than usual, to beyond the urban sprawl.  We continued on for twenty-five miles and disappeared into a forest for the night after 113 miles for the day.  A tent with a band playing classic Rock was nearby, but we were too exhausted to let it keep is from dropping to sleep.  We didn't have to get up too early as we only needed to bike forty miles by one to the point where the Stage Three route intersected with the next day's route 110 miles from its finish in Cambrai.  We'd watch the caravan go by at two and then start in on Stage Four.  We'd stop to watch the finish on the  nineteen per cent Mur de Huy and then ride for a few more hours, hopefully putting us within sixty miles of Cambrai.  Our race to keep up with The Race is on and we couldn't be happier.  

Stage One

When we noticed the course markers had been set up in Utrecht Friday afternoon for Stage Two, a day earlier than usual, we decided to give them a follow and set out on the stage that evening, rather than the next afternoon.  We had only planned to stick around until noon on Saturday anyway for a look at all the excitement the publicity caravan would generate and then start riding before the riders started whizzing around the nine-mile time trial course at one minute intervals. 

But after half an hour of following the course markers with a dotted black line beneath the black arrow, indicating the initial neutralized portion of the stage before the racing began, the route intersected the time trial stage and the neutralized arrows ended.  We had been tricked into thinking that the entire stage had been marked, when it was just the first couple of miles in the heart of the city, which would have been difficult for the crew to erect the next day with the city packed with people.  

So rather than having the route marked for us, we had to figure it out for ourselves, which isn't the easiest thing to do through the urban sprawl and especially in Holland where cyclists are generally relegated to bike paths and not allowed on the road.  The bike paths don't always follow the road one wishes to follow.  And it can be tricky knowing whether there is a bike path on both sides of the road or just one or not at all.

Luckily one doesn't have to wait too long for a cyclist to come along to ask for assistance, and the Dutch have been amazingly generous with their help.  A sixty-year old woman on a sit-up-and-beg bicycle rode with us for a mile leading us to the road we needed to find out of Utrecht.  Half an hour later a young man on a racing bike wearing a special edition Utrecht Tour de France jersey rode with us for half a mile holding his cell phone with its GPS feature on to put us back on The Tour route.  

The next morning when we had gone astray for the third or fourth time in Rotterdam before the course marker crew had come through, two twenty-year old Moroccans used their cell phone to show us the way.  We invited them to ride along with us, but they said they were observing Ramadan and the effort in the heat without being able to eat or drink would be impossible.  They joined us as we taking our first break of the day after spending the night alongside a small-town cemetery just twelve miles before Rotterdam.  It was a semi-desperation campsite at ten p.m., as the countryside for miles had been too densely populated or fenced in pasture land for camping.

We were greeted at 7:30 the next morning by the cemetery caretaker, asking us if we knew we were camped by a cemetery.  "We are a Christian community and this is a sacred site," he told us.  When we told him we were following The Tour de France, which would be passing nearby the next day, and were preparing to be on our way, he invited us into his office for coffee and couldn't have been nicer.

The young Moroccans were equally cordial and conversational, but they didn't much like Holland.  They had come with their parents and weren't fitting in at all, plus they complained how expensive everything was.  After about fifteen minutes of banter, as we were preparing to leave, it came up that I was an American.  They had never met an American before and couldn't have been more thrilled.  It was the dream of both of them to come to America.  They asked how much a plane ticket would cost and if I might be able to help them get a visa.

Some of our route through Rotterdam was on a bike path with embedded plaques stating "2010 Tour de France Prologue."  We had all three been here for it.  When we saw the Hostel Vincent had stayed at, he stopped to take a photo.  "I didn't expect to ever see that again," he said.  

We were remembering the difficulties we had then too followng The Tour route.  Since cyclists don't ride on the road here, we couldn't actually follow the route, but just tag along beside it, while sometimes being forced to make loopy detours when the path diverged from the road.  We were beginning to feel like the Moroccans in their regard for this country despite the goodwill of its people and its delicious rich chocolate milk.  All day we kept getting separated from the route and then had to find our way back to it.  And, most disappointing of all, the route was hardly decorated, as had been Utrecht.

We had one bonus stretch of a half hour when we latched on to the draft train of Geoff Thomas' group following The Tour route one day ahead of the riders.  Thomas is a former prominent English soccer player who was diagnosed with leukemia the year after he retired in 2003.  When his treatment succeeded in defeating the cancer, he was inspired by Lance Armstrong to ride The Tour route in 2005 to prove his recovery.  He wrote a book about it called "Riding Through the Storm."  Since then he has devoted himself to raising money to find a cure for leukemia.  He decided to celebrate the ten tenth anniversary of his Tour ride by doing it again this year,  and to try to raise a million pounds doing it.  He hoped to recruit twenty cyclists with pledges of 50,000 pounds each.  Armstrong was going to join him for the ride, but the powers-that-be in cycling let it be known that he wouldn't be welcome on The Tour route.  Rather than doing the whole ride,  he will just join the group for two stages between the Pyrenees and Alps.

The "BeforetheTour.com" group passed us riding on the road on the outskirts of Rotterdam.  There were eleven cyclists in matching jerseys, including two women, led by three motorcycles and a car and trailed by four vans all plastered with decals promoting their Before the Tour ride. We sped up to their seventeen mile per hour pace and rode alongside them on the path for a couple of miles.  When our path ended at a roundabout, we swung out on to the road and took advantage of their road privileges  for several miles until the continual slowing at intersections and then accelerations did us in with the heavy loads we were carrying.  If we could have simply ridden a steady pace, we could have stuck with them to the stage end, but our legs were done in by the effort to regain the lighter bikes every time we had to get back up to speed.  Still it was nice to make contact with this group.  We probably won't see them again, as in the future the only time we'll be riding a day ahead of the peloton will be in the evening hours after that day's stage and this group will be long done with their ride.

David doesn't like riding in the heat so we took a much, much too long two hour midday break so he could have a swim in a canal and a nap under a tree.  When we returned to the road we had course markers to follow, though they were only of marginal help since we couldn't ride on the road the racers will. Our next stop came at three p.m. at a bar to watch the final two-and-a-half hours of the time trial.  We had the television all to ourselves.  

Vincent was thrilled that the Australian and former hour-record holder Rohan Dennis, riding for the American BMC team, had the best time so far and by a significant margin.  None of his main threats had ridden yet, but still his time would be hard to beat.  The camera was on him as he sweated out former time trial World Champion Tony Martin's strong effort, just several seconds short of beating his time, and then former prologue winner Fabian Cancellera missing by a few seconds more. When Chris Froome and Alberto Contador, among the last riders on the course, were even further behind, he held his wife in a prolonged embrace.  He would be wearing the Yellow Jersey the next day, no doubt his proudest moment in cycling.

When we returned to the road the wind had turned cool and strong as we closed in on North Sea.  And it was in our face. It held us to half the speed we had enjoyed the evening before when we were well off the coast and the wind was at our back.  We pushed into it for a couple of hours, knowing that it could be even worse the next day.  There was more open terrain than the night before, but we needed a camp site protected from the fierce wind.  We passed up several sandy gullies, as David the biologist said that they wouldn't be an ecologically responsible place to camp.  We settled upon a narrow strip of grass behind a hedge of trees beside a small parking lot overlooking a harbor.  There were stray cigarette butts and condoms.  It looked like a place people would stop for a pee as well.  It was getting late and we were worn out.  Once again Vincent had the last word--"A little urine never hurt anybody."

Utrecht, The Presentation of the Teams

Though we were all biking into Utrecht from different directions from hundreds of miles away, Vincent, David and I easily found one another yesterday afternoon in the park along a canal in downtown Utrecht where the presentation of the teams was to take place later in the day.  Vincent was sprawled in the grass having a picnic when I stopped by before noon just to scout out the location.  He had arrived in Utrecht the day before, just as I had.  He made the ride from Frankfurt in five days after flying in from Melbourne.  We hadn't seen each other in three years, but we have kept in close email contact, so it seemed as if we had last talked a week ago.  And David turned up several hours later fully resplendent in the bright green PMU jersey he had scored from the publicity caravan a couple of years ago.

I joined Vincent in the grass with a two-pound tub of mashed potatoes, my favorite Dutch supermarket treat.  Its to Vincent's liking as well and he had yet to find any, but he couldn't help me as he had more than enough food of his own.  I couldn't handle it all it one sitting, so after an hour of nibbling while the band and emcee rehearsed on stage we ventured off to visit a few of the museums with exhibits on The Tour.  The Instituto Cervantes had a gallery of photographs entitled "Bicycles, A View from the Road Side."  Most were in black-and-white from the past twenty years.  There were close-ups of haggard racers and fans along the road and other glimpses of the intensity and the passion that epitomize The Race that we were fully attuned to.

Our next stop was the Aboriginal Art Museum.  On the way we stopped in at one of several bicycle boutiques with high quality designer bikes and accessories, including Brooks saddles for an ungodly $320. The owner had recently been to Australia and raved how much he enjoyed it. Many shops, whether they sell bikes or not, featured bikes in their windows.  So did the Aboriginal Museum.  The frames of its bikes appeared to be made with didgeridoos, but they were only wrapped around their cross tubes.  The tires and forks were also painted with white dots in the Aboriginal style.

The large Central Museum had an exhibit entitled "Sport is Fun" that couldn't entice us in.  There was too much bike art on the street and in shop windows to pay to see any.  The emblem of Utrecht, the Dom Tower, the tallest structure in the city and the highest church tower in Holland, was flying yellow flags.

The official town poster for The Tour featured in shop windows and on the sides of buildings was of the tower and a rider in yellow.

Yellow was the dominant color in the city.

Benches and buckets turned up yellow.

 Waitresses wore yellow blouses and t-shirts and trees were wrapped in yellow as well as red polka dots.

The polka dots were almost as popular as yellow.  Canal tour boats had been repainted to acknowledge The Tour.

This being Holland the streets were aswarm with cyclists and not a one was wearing a helmet.  Bikes were parked everywhere, sometimes in masses.

Shortly after Vincent and I returned to the park for the evening presentation David rolled in on his bike, a couple days before he expected to arrive on his ride from Bremen.  He'd had favorable winds and an eagerness to make it in time for the opening event of The Tour.  When Vincent's face brightened with the recognition of a friend as we were talking I expected to turn and see Skippy, an Aussie who has been following The Tour on his bike since 1998, six years more than me.  He had been in town since Monday.  I had stopped by the hostel where he was staying earlier in the day but had just missed him. We were to learn later that he had been told by the manager of The Tour headquarters that he was a "persona non-grata" at The Tour this year and would be arrested if he didn't leave.  

All of us who follow The Tour on our bikes from time to time ignore arbitrary, senseless orders from gendarmes to stop riding the course hours before the riders pass.  Evidently Skippy had gone a little too far last year.  He has a strong exuberant personality who everyone knows, though not all appreciate. He is a strong rider who tags along with teams on their rest day day rides. He is a wonderful animator full of dazzling stories.  We have had many fine times over the years riding and camping and hanging out.  He has introduced me to many riders and tour officials over the years, including Chris Froome two years ago in Corsica as he was helping guide him through the crowds after the team presentation.  Hopefully he will get this matter straightened out and we will enjoy his company in the days to come.

It was still three hours until the ceremony started when we met David.  We were happy to sit in the shade on this hot ninety degree day.  About an hour before the program was to begin we were told we would have to remove our bikes from the park.  There was no corral or sanctioned place to leave them and since they were loaded with all our gear we needed to keep on our on them.  So removed ourselves to beyond the barriers along the parade route the riders would proceed after their on stage introduction.  We found a spot with a vantage of the stage and the large screen showing the proceedings.  The acoustics were strong enough to hear the introductions and interviews of two or three riders from each of the twenty-two teams.  It was conducted nearly all in English.  That's Froome on the screen.

It was actually on ideal spot as we could get a close glimpse of the gleeful faces of the riders as they rolled past responding to the cheers of the thousands who had turned out for the event.  I might have caught the eye of Mark Cavendish as he drifted by slapping hands if I had held out his team water bottle that was on my bike that I had scavenged in Dubai earlier this year.

Albert Contador slapped hands on the opposite side of the road.

A Dutch rider was one of five or six who stopped to give a young boy his autograph.

The fellow in the helmet in the foreground was about the only one of thousands wearing a helmet.  He was decked out in Lycra and had biked from his town twenty miles away for the event.  His nine-year old daughter raced.  They had been in Denmark the week before for a race.  He pulled out his phone to show us a photo of her with The Devil, who had been there.  Boys and girls race against each other until they turn fourteen when the boys start developing faster.  Up until then there are fairly equal.  His daughter had finished third in her last race, beaten by two riders on carbon bikes.  Her bike is aluminum and she thought maybe she should upgrade to carbon.  Her father pointed out that she had beaten other riders on carbon, and that aluminum would be just fine for her, though he knows in the feature the sport could get expensive for him.  He pointed out that whenever one of The Tour riders rode by us, he thought, "There goes ten thousand dollars," the cost of their bike.

After he learned that David was German he told Vincent and I that whenever a Dutch person meets a German they say, "Give me back my bike."  He was somewhat joking but also somewhat serious.  It was no small matter if he thought to raise the issue.  He explained that it went back to WWII when the Germans started to randomly confiscate bikes for their own personal use.  That was about the gravest indignity that one could inflict upon another in this Kingdom of the Bicycle.  He then he added whenever someone they know is going to Germany they say, "Bring back a bike."  I had read about this in a very fine book on the history of bikes in Amsterdam.  It told about a World Cup soccer match in the '70s between the Dutch and the Germans when the Dutch fans chanted "Give Me Back My Bike."  David said the guy was overstating the issue, but it was still quite telling that he would bring this up seventy years since the War.

The small murals painted by school children that line the parade route also gave some insight into the Dutch way.  One across from us featured a marijuana leaf and a joint.  It also had the small head of a white rabbit, a much more common emblem on these mini-banners along with the Eiffel Tower.  Our Dutch companion explained that Dutch children learn to read from books that feature a white rabbit and everyone has a strong connection to them

After the ninety minute program was completed we headed out of town to a field where I had camped the night before.  It was a somewhat complicated route as the many meandering canals prevent roads from going straight.  I had to take three ferries across waterways on my way into Utrecht.  We got near to my campsite but a storm was imminent so rather than continuing to seek it out we settled upon a small patch of grass with a picnic table alongside a bike path and a canal with a deck for swimming.  With three of us we had no concern about being in such a wide open space.  As we rushed to set up our tents Vincent echoed all our sentiments, "There isn't any place I'd rather be."

Leuven, Belgium

Any day on the bike is a great day, but some days are greater than others.  When cycling in the US, a day with a Carnegie Library or two always stands above.  In Europe with virtually no Carnegies outside the UK, I end my days with a heightened exhilaration when it includes a cycling shrine or two.  Yesterday was another of those extra great days with a pair of such places.

The first was Florennes, a city of 10,000 inhabitants sixty miles south of Brussels.  It is the only city that is the birthplace of two Tour de France champions--Firmin Lambot, who won The Tours of 1919 and 1922, and Léon Scieur, the 1921 winner.  There was no sign at the city's entrance celebrating its famous sons, as there had been outside Jean Robic's home town in France.  Nor was  there anything in the town plaza nor on the town map posted there.  Nor was there any acknowledgement of them at the city hall.  The receptionist didn't even know what I was talking about when I asked if there were any plaque in the city to its Tour de France champions.  She at least took my question seriously enough to go and ask if anyone else knew.  

When she returned several minutes later she said that there were indeed plaques honoring them.  They could be found on their homes.  As she was writing down the addresses, she paused to remove her sweater and started vigorously fanning herself with a piece of paper.  It was early in the morning and still cool enough that I was wearing my vest, but the ordeal I was putting her through, having to deal with some cyclist who spoke a minimum of her language, had her sweating and so much so that the piece of paper she was fanning herself with was too flimsy for the job, so she put it down and used a magazine.  It was a bit stuffy, the air still heavy from the unseasonably warm eighty degree temperatures of the day before, but it wasn't even 70 yet.  She seemed to be anticipating the heat to come.  A male colleague, just arriving for work, greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, just one in contrast to the French style of a kiss on each cheek.  Then she was interrupted by a phone call.  It was someone with more information about the plaques.  

After she wrote down the addresses she tried to find the houses on a town map, but was struggling as it wasn't detailed enough.  As she peered at the map, a guy who spoke English came to her rescue.  He knew precisely where the houses were.  For one I had to turn right after the cathedral, go to the roundabout and make a left, then just beyond the Match supermarket I'd see the plaque on the left side of the road a couple houses down. The directions were perfect other than mentioning that the plaque was up high above a garage door, so I missed it and had to ask a veterinarian across the street if he knew where it was.  He could point it out to me from his office.

For the second plaque I had to turn left after the cathedral, go through a stop light and there it would be on the right hand side of the road just after the intersection.  I knew enough to look up and there it was, on a better maintained building than the first.

It was a tad disappointing that there were no statues nor streets nor plazas named for these early winners of The Tour, nor even their image inscribed on their plaques.  Nor would it have been out of place for their photos to be hanging in the city hall.  I didn't have to go to the Internet though to see what they looked like, as forty-five miles down the road in Huy, the Ville Arrivée for Stage Three, its tourist office had photos of all nine Belgians who have won The Tour, and there they were astride their bikes.

The tourist office was a mini-museum devoted to The Tour.  Its entry hall was plastered with articles on The Tour and the office itself was decorated with bikes and wheels and books and souvenirs.  I was given a yellow pen and a pin with a bike on it and "Huy Le Mur, Un Sommet, 19%," as the stage concludes with a kilometer climb of 19%, also the finish for Flèche Wallon, one of the premier races of the Spring.  The climb may be short but its steepness makes it one of the most legendary in cycling.  It began about a mile from the tourist office.  The peloton will turn at a roundabout just past the tourist office with a giant cube celebrating the climb.

The climb begins in earnest at a small plaza and winds up a narrow road through a residential neighborhood.  The road had been freshly painted with the town name.

Looking back one could see the twin cooling towers of a nuclear plant on the Meuse River.

I was joined on the climb by a string of about fifty English cyclists with a Tour de Force travel company, many wearing matching Tour de Force jerseys.  Some were zig-zagging back and forth across the road as I was doing.  My heart was pounding and I was gushing sweat.  Anything over ten per cent is a brute.  L'Alpe d'Huez and Mont Ventoux aren't even that.  I was gasping for air, but my legs were passing this final test, letting me know they were ready for The Tour.  A few of the cyclists stopped or returned from the summit to take photos of their mates on the climb, but careful not to include me on my loaded bike.  "You're putting us all to shame," one of them said. 

The summit was a plateau with a small cathedral and a park and a closed down gondola that once hoisted people up the climb.  And we were greeted by a sign congratulating us for making it up, the upper half identical to the pin I was given at the tourist office.

If I had gotten to Huy a couple hours earlier I could have made it to Leuven, forty-five miles away, before dark and topped off my day with the lone Carnegie Library in Belgium.  

Instead I arrived at this vibrant university and beer town (headquarters of Stella Artois) the next morning.  The library was built in the 1920s replacing the library destroyed during the war.  Funds were provided by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace rather than Carnegie's library program as it stopped funding libraries after Carnegie's death in 1919.  There were quite a few other donors as well, many of them libraries, so its not recognized as a Carnegie Library, similar to the University of Chicago library he helped fund.

Two librarians I consulted didn't even know that Carnegie money had helped build the library.  They had a list of donors, but he wasn't among them.  There was a bust of Herbert Hoover though and also a plaque acknowledging the American ambassador to Belgium at the time of the construction of the library that was designed  by an American architect in a Flemish style.  One had to be affiliated with the university to use the library or be given a guest pass as I was.  School was out so I had the huge place almost to my self.  I couldn't linger long as 120 miles remained between Leuven and Utrecht and I wanted to be there by the end of the next day, a day before the team presentations.  The terrain is now flat.  I hadn't used my small chain ring since climbing up from Huy and the Meuse River and it promised to be flat all across Holland.