Stage Five

I set my alarm clock for the first time since Cannes, and it’s a good thing I did, as I was still in a deep sleep when it went off at seven.  I had been up to midnight eating and eating.  I seemed to have packed in enough calories to replenish my stores after my nine hours of riding time to cover one hundred miles the day before, as I felt no more hunger than usual when I awoke.  And my legs felt fine too, just a little heavy, but I knew that they’d be rejuvenated after a few miles.  I can well understand why the racers will spend a few minutes on the rollers before a stage start to loosen up the legs, unless they have a long neutralized zone to start a stage, as they did today—over six miles.

I had a perfectly adequate campsite in a suburban park, but if I’d had a little more light to ride by last night I would have had a fine pasture to camp in right at the stage start marked by two course markers one on top of the other.  There was a large colony of camping cars along the pasture, but I could have gone deep into the field and had plenty of solitude.

The day’s most original rendering of a bike came early.  An ice cream parlor advertised itself with a bike that had an ice cream cone as part of its construction.

Warren Barguil, who won two stages and the polka dot Jersey last year lives in the vicinity.  A stable cheered him on simply using his first name, but not his nickname (Wa-Wa), with a polka horse.

The day’s double syllable expression was Cou-Cou, an informal version of bonjour only used with someone who is a close friend.

I had my second dose of the caravan at 11:30, early enough into the stage that all the purveyors of stuff were still full of zest and energy.  Once again I chose to station myself in a town at the intersection with the road I would be venturing off on after the caravan passed heading due north to the next day’s stage while the peloton headed west to the day’s finish in Quimper on the Atlantic.  Before the caravan arrived I had been bequeathed a polka dot hat when I stopped for provisions at the local Carrefour supermarket, sponsor of the mountains competition.  All the employees in the store from the butcher to the cashiers were wearing the hats.  The road was packed two deep on both sides of the road all through the town so I knew I’d just be enjoying everyone’s enthusiasm and not collecting much.  I did manage a madeleine, a shopping bag and a refrigerator magnet.  The magnet was from a new sponsor—a chain of senior residences.

After the caravan passed I had five hours to bike forty miles up to Carhaix-Plouguer to find a bar to watch the end of the stage and join  the next day’s stage forty miles from its finish in Mur de Bretagne. A head wind and hilly terrain was limiting my average speed to under ten miles per hour.  I distracted myself from the effort I was having to expend by catching up on the several podcasts I try to keep up with covering The Tour.  Two give a daily report—the Telegraph podcast of three journalists at The Tour, two English and one French, and Lance Armstrong’s podcast.  

Armstrong launched his last year and his five million downloads during The Tour, 250,000 per stage, earned him several sponsors this year.  He has enough of a following that one can pay to watch him watching The Tour, which more than a thousand are already doing.  He is quite diligent in keeping up with what is going on and has a close relationship with at least three of the five Americans in The Race.  He regularly texts Van Garderen, who is second overall, and Craddock, who thanks to his fractured shoulder, has a comfortable twelve-minute lead on the Lanterne Rouge, last place.  Craddock is a fellow Texan who Lance has ridden thousands of miles with.  Armstrong has ridden many miles with Van Garderen, as well, from their Aspen base, sometimes even motorpacing him, a genuine act of friendship. The purpose of his podcast was to prove that he’s not the pariah many regard him and is still well integrated with society.

Armstrong was the only source I follow who mentioned Sagan fell off the pace in the team time trial due to dehydration as he and several of his teammates lost their special aero-bottles for the time trial that don’t fit so well into their holders when several of the riders hit a bump just as they set out and their bottles flew out.  Armstrong said that aero water bottles are sheer idiocy as  no one has invented an adequate holder for them.  Some speculated that Sagan’s falling off was a sign of lack of fitness.  That is hardly the case, as in the two stages since the time trial he has finished first and second.

The Velonews and Cyclingnews also have podcasts from The Tour every few days.  And the Warren brothers try to supplement their year-round weekly podcast on all matters cycling with some extra commentary during The Tour with the ambition of some day going daily just like Armstrong and the Telegraph team.  I was finally catching up with their post-team presentation podcast today and did a double take when I heard myself being quoted.  Skippy will be pleased to learn that Randy acknowledged him as well, remembering it was Skippy who connected me with Christian Van Velde when his Garmin team was heading out of Monaco before the Grand Départ there on a training ride with Skippy and we were all stopped at a red light.

I was on schedule to make it into Carhaix-Plouguer a little after five but a final long climb set me back and then an extra mile to the town center set me back some more.  Yesterday’s stage didn’t finish until nearly six, so I wasn’t concerned.  When I stopped at the first bar I came too I could hear the announcers of The Race excitedly describing the action.  Still I was in no rush, taking the time to dig out the cable and plug for charging my iPad from a pannier. When I entered I saw the Yellow Jersey in the sprint to the finish line.  My first reaction was this must have been a highlight from a previous race, but then I recognized Sagan in the Green Jersey coming on strong.  

I had actually arrived within moments of the finish of the stage.  It was another spectacular win for Sagan, his second this year.  Gaviria wasn’t a party to this sprint as he had run out of gas due to an incline at the end. He had gained a point in the Green Jersey Competition on Sagan in the intermediate sprint, but collecting none in the final sprint put him 33 points behind, after closing to within three.  The Yellow Jersey faded with Colbrelli taking second and Gilbert third.  Valverde was fourth, indicating he is on strong form and will be a strong competitor to win tomorrow’s most telling finish yet up the steep, steep Mur de Bretagne, known as the Alpe d’Huez of Brittany.  This will be a finish for the climbers, even though it’s just a little over a mile.  The peloton will be climbing it twice within ten miles.  It will easily be the most exciting racing of The Tour so far.  As always it gets better and better.

Stage Four

After riding the final forty miles of today’s stage, including its lone category-four climb, I had no time to stick around for the caravan or the peloton as it was fifty miles to the start of the next day’s stage.  I needed to ride those fifty miles and then some before dark if I wished to keep to a pace that would allow me to reach the Stage Six finish on the Mur de Bretagne before the peloton.

I had camped in a forest just outside of Redon, three miles before the climb.  During the night I was awakened by a car that stopped right by me.  I heard two doors open.  I figured they had stopped for a pipi rustique and hoped they didn’t slip into the forest near me.  I couldn’t hear anything more.  The pull-off wasn’t wide enough for a Tour follower to set up to camp there, so I couldn’t imagine what they were doing.  After a couple of minutes, I heard the doors open again and off they went.  In the morning I discovered what they had been up to.  They had sprayed a message on the road, regarding some local political issue, another of the many features of The Tour.

All know they have a chance for millions to see their message or bizarre outfit or work of art.  The Froome denouncements have dried up, but not the celebrations of the French soccer team, who will being playing Belgium this night in the semi-finals of the World Cup.

The World Cup has  probably been good business for the outfit that trolls the route selling mini-cellophane French flags for a euro.  Their hustle is a real scourge upon the relaxed and joyous roadside atmosphere. These scamsters are a genuine nuisance and menace as they descend upon the decent folk having a good time in The Tour bubble away from the grasp and grind of the real world.  I recognized the chief henchmen in charge of the operation at the wheel of their dumpy car, but he had replaced the highly aggressive thugs who used to do his dirty work with a couple of portly, grandfatherly types.  They don’t go charging up to people as the others did, who could be a real terror. They looked as if they were fresh out of the clink and might slit your throat if you didn’t fork over what they wanted.  The guy driving has even slowed a bit, making me less wary of being sideswiped.

Though French flags of all sizes are more dominant this year than in the past, the greatest collection of flags were those of an Aussie fan.

Skippy would have been most pleased with the large banner wrapped around a water tower at the summit of the day’s climb promoting his cause.

I was glad I had saved the climb for the morning as I needed fresh legs to handle a short stretch of over ten per cent.  It averaged 7.8 for a half mile.  It would have been good to have gotten a little further down the road that night, cutting into the mileage I needed to do the next day, but I knew the climb could be packed with campers.  I had to stop a little earlier than I wanted to watch the end of the day’s stage, as the next town beyond Auray where I stopped wasn’t soon enough to have seen it. I sacrificed over an hour watching the peloton chase down the two French and two Belgian riders in the day’s break, perhaps debating the evening’s match between their countries, when I needed to only see ten minutes of it before the climatic sprint.  

But the rest was good for the legs with more than four hours of riding ahead of me, and the sprint was superlative with Greipel, Gaviria and Sagan riding furiously all finishing within inches of each other.  Gaviria claimed his second win and Sagan another second, just enough to retain the Green Jersey.  Gaviria is more restrained than his Colombian fans, celebrating with just a casual shake of clenched fist.  He’s just 23 and could be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.  He could be a threat to Cavendish’s thirty Tour wins, second to Merckx’s thirty-four.  Cavendish had hopes of closing in on Merckx this year, but so far he’s been a bust with no finish higher than twentieth, which he managed today.  He thought he was in good position today, with his team leading the chase in the final kilometers, but he claimed he got boxed in.  His team director says, “Don’t worry.  He’s a great champion and will eventually find himself.”

I thought I only had twenty-five miles to Lorient, but I encountered a detour that added another six miles around an estuary.  I had hoped to duck into a bar for some of the night’s soccer game, but I had no time to spare what with Lorient a large sprawling port city that I wanted to get in and out of in the late evening when there would be minimal traffic. It would be a real luxury to avoid the morning rush hour, especially over a couple of bridges. Thanks to my scouting I knew the start of the Stage was in the town center and not at an outlying sports center.  If I hadn’t known I would have been tempted to stop and camp on the outskirts of Lorient.  After eight o’clock when the game began I had the roads all to myself.  When I entered Lorient after nine the streets were dead other than for motorcycle pizza delivery guys. 

As I neared the center where the peloton would be setting out from the next day and barriers appeared I could hear cheering.  A little further and I saw a giant screen with the French players celebrating and beneath it a huge throng of locals, many with the stripes of the French flag painted on their faces, jumping up and down with glee.  France had upset Belgium 1-0 and would be playing in the Championship game Sunday!!!  The stage where the riders would sign in and be introduced the next day was already set up.  A dozen 18-wheelers with more structures to erect blocked the road in front of it.  I circled around looking for the course markers that would guide me out of the city.  It was 9:45 with maybe 45 minutes more light.  I knew I could pitch my tent anywhere along the route at this point where I might find some patch of grass.  I was happy I had pushed on and not too concerned about a less than ideal campsite.

After a mile I came upon the first Tour camping car parked along the road by a small park with a public toilet.  I was glad to fill my water bottles,  but wanted to get a little further down the road with hopes of finding a little less urban campsite.  I’d had a struggle navigating out of the city a month ago, but now in the hands of the course markers I had a carefree ride through the port area and urban sprawl.  I continued a couple more miles until I came to a forested suburban park. Although there were still plenty of soccer revelers still out I saw none in the park, and it had grown dark enough that I could be somewhat secluded.  I took advantage of a picnic table to start my dinner of couscous and cassoulet and revel in my own Great Day on the Bike.

I’d have to be up early as the road would be closed down by ten.  I just needed to get twenty miles down the road where I would stop for the caravan’s passing and then head north forty miles to connect with the next day’s route.

Stage Three

As much as I delight in pyramids of bikes and craftily arranged bike wheels and the countless variations on reimagining the bike and all the other decorations along The Tour route, none gladdens my heart more than those black-arrow-on-day-glow yellow course markers.  They are the true reminder that I’m riding The Tour de France. I may see one every few minutes, but their power to please never wanes. They are pure joy. All is well in my world as they guide me for miles and miles.  They are especially welcome when I return to them after an unmarked transfer from one stage to another.  

So it was this afternoon in La Baule, Ville Départ for Stage Four, after over eighty miles of riding off course, including the mile climb to the summit of the huge bridge over the Loire.  I made the climb early in the morning this time, unlike a month ago, so the winds hadn't picked up too much, but it was still a nerve-wracking effort holding steady in the narrow bike lane with all the vehicles speeding past unable to fulfill Skippy’s demand of a meter-and-a-half clearance.  I felt a duty to all cyclists to remain steady, as a bike fatality on the bridge could make it off-limits for all cyclists.  They’d have to go miles out of their way to Nantes for another bridge across the mighty river.  

I struggled to find my way out of La Baule when I scouted out the route last month without the course markers, so it was doubly sweet to be fully guided this time through the center of this resort town on the Atlantic, then a mile along its wide beach and past the casino before turning inland.   I was a full 24 hours ahead of the peloton.  Only a handful of Tour followers had skipped the day’s team time trial in Cholet and jumped ahead as I had to station themselves along the route.   Small towns had crews out sweeping the road and dropping off barriers and bails of hay and making other preparations for their great day in the spotlight. 

A few people in the town of Marlais were putting the finishing touches on their elaborate welcome to The Tour.

Along with spelling out their town’s name in bikes the field around it was inhabited by a legion of painted bikes and wheel creatures.

I could leisurely pedal enjoying a fine day on the lightly traveled secondary roads The Tour specializes in as I was in no rush other than to find a bar around  4:30 to watch the final hour of the day’s team time trial.  If I had checked to see what order the teams would be riding going off every five minutes in reverse order of their standing in The Race, I might have stopped sooner as the two strongest time trialing teams, BMC and Sky, were near the bottom of the standings thanks to the crash on Stage One and would be among the first on the road. They had already made their sub-forty minute rides around the twenty-two mike course and had the best times, BMC four seconds better than Sky.  Quick Step, the second to last team to hit the course, made it a little nervous for the BMC team, who all had to sit tightly packed still wearing their uniforms in an enclosure with the camera on them as the team-in-waiting for the stage win.  

When Quick Step crossed the line seven seconds slower than BMC they all rose to their feet and hugged one another.  The camera stayed on Belgian Greg Van Avermaet as he was the highest placed of their riders and would be in Yellow the next day.  His American teammate Tejay Van Garderen was tied with him on time, but had finished behind him in the bunches on the first two stages.  He is now second overall and Sky’s Geraint Thomas third, three seconds back.  Van Avermaet could hold on to the coveted Jersey for the next six stages through the cobbles of Roubaix before relinquishing it in the Alps.  Maybe it will help BMC land the new sponsor it needs to continue as a team.  It’s team leader, Richie Porte, has already announced he will abandon ship after the season to Trek, not confident the team will remain afloat.  

Thomas would have loved to have been in Yellow if Sky had just been four seconds faster, but his team is no doubt happy they didn’t gain the Jersey and have to expend energy defending it through the demanding next six stages in Brittany and across the north of France.  The top five teams for the day all finished within twelve seconds of one another, with Sun Web finishing fifth, anchored by time trial world champion Tom Dumoulin, who finished second to Froome at the Giro and is among the contenders here.  The Movistar trio of Valverde, Landa and Quintana lost 54 seconds, Nibali one minute and six seconds and Bardet one minutes and fifteen seconds, not as disastrous as it could have been for any of them. The other overall contender, Adam Yates, only lost nine seconds, as his Mitchell-Scott team had a strong showing with a fourth place finish.  

Uran on Education First fared decently too, losing only 35 seconds, as the former Garmin team, which once won the time trial at The Tour, finished sixth.  Uran is well positioned in tenth overall, hoping to improve on his surprise second place last year.  Education First was on the course early too so I missed Lawson Craddock trying to hang on with his fractured shoulder.  He did commendably well, even taking some turns at the front before fading away with six miles to go.

Sagan made no effort to defend the Yellow Jersey he was wearing, actually dropping off his team pace line two-thirds of the way around the course, likely saving energy for the stages to come.. The team’s time is taken after the fourth rider crosses.  Several of the teams were reduced to four riders with the other four dropping back unable to keep up or after a huge effort.  Even with four it is a beautiful site watching the riders work together and trying to remain as aerodynamic as possible.  

There was no drinking from water bottles to be seen.  The heat has diminished a tad, at least for me going north into Brittany.  Still I’m soaking my shirt and dousing my head whenever the opportunity offers itself.  I was glad to have a fifth water bottle last night as I drained my other four.  I was glad also to have picked up a pack of powdered sports drink with sodium and electrolytes as I needed it last night when I shifted in my tent and began cramping.  I was trying to finish off my mint syrup before starting in on the sports drink.  Now I know enough to alternate it with the menthe á l’eau.  It was rainy my entire time in Brittany two weeks ago, it’s customary weather.  A visitor to the region once asked a boy if it always rained there.  He said, “I don’t know.  I’m only eight years old.”

Stage Two

For the first time since I can remember I was able to roll up a dry tent this morning, saving me a few ounces of weight.  If it weren’t wet from rain, it had been soaked from a dew. It stayed so warm last night I had no concerns of dew and was able to go without my rain fly for the first time in these travels, saving me a few moments breaking camp.  It has come to that, with every second possibly mattering.  

I rode until after nine last night and was back at it before eight.  I had ridden twenty-five miles of the course after biking twenty miles from the Stage One finish in Fontenay-le-Comte to the next day’s start in Mouilleron-Saint-Germain, a nice forty-five mike nightcap.  Even in the early part of the stage there were dozens and dozens of camping vans parked along the road with their inhabitants sitting at roadside in chairs at a table under a canopy, eating or drinking or reading or playing cards or a board game, everyone in an amiable mood, many responding to me with a “Bon Courage.”

My goal for the day was to bike forty miles to Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne, watch the caravan pass, then head north beginning the one hundred mile transfer the race entourage would make from the Stage Three time trial to the Stage Four start on the other side of the Loire.  I intended to watch the stage finish in La Roche-sur-Yon forty-nine miles south from Les Lucs, in a bar in the decent sized town of Les Moutiers-en-Rietz, twenty miles in the other direction from Les Lucs.  All went to plan other than finding an open bar with a television, a challenge on a Sunday in France other than in tourist towns or the bigger cities.  Even the PMU bar was closed in Les Moutiers.  

The lone bar open was more of a restaurant and didn’t have a television.  But I was at least able to fill my water bottle with the frigid water that bars dispense in France, so cold there is no need for ice.  That left me a little happy but I was disappointed to miss Sagan’s ninth career Tour win, outsprinting Démare (No-No), having to read about it when I came to a McDonalds with WIFI over an hour after it happened.  Yesterday’s Colombian hero, Gaviria, went down in a crash as the sprint approached and was not a factor, nor Cavendish once again, through Greipel was right there coming in fourth after his twenty-sixth yesterday. 

No catastrophe befell the GC contenders as happened the day before with the first 52 riders across the line receiving the same time today.  So Sagan will ride the Stage Three time trial in Yellow and barring a major miracle will relinquish it to someone on BMC or possibly Sky.  It’s the third time he’s worn Yellow, but never for long.  I’ll be watching it on a television somewhere along the Stage Four route.  Getting the results in a McDonalds is not what I came to France to experience. The McDonalds along a main road beside the coast was so packed I couldn’t access an electric outlet to charge my iPad.  Traffic was backed up trying to get into the parking lot.  A woman with a clipboard was taking orders from cars before they entered the parking lot as the drive-up window had such a long line.  McDoanlds are hugely popular.  Billboards advertising them can even be pleasing to the eye.

I had a welcome two-hour mid-day rest waiting for the caravan to arrive.  It was twenty minutes behind schedule, which it adapts to the speed of the peloton, so it must have been relaxing in the heat.  I only got a small taste of the caravan’s offerings on Stage One, as it doesn’t throw much to the massive  crowds at the finish, as it could cause chaos.  I did notice quite a few of the floats had deluxe, high-backed seats for VIPs to sit in, a new feature, allowing them to ride out in the open rather than in a team car.  The VIPs were all well-dressed and looked as if they were  accustomed to first class treatment though they were wilting from their long day in the sun.  Four paramedics had to carry a teen-aged girl on a stretcher who had passed out.

My position in a town, rather than out along the roadside, wasn’t much better than being at the stage finish for collecting what the caravan was dispensing.  It was a bit parsimonious in this setting as well.  All I gathered was a micro-sized biscuit, the smallest I’ve ever seen, and a bag of candy.  The offerings didn’t seem noteworthy enough for me to give the caravan much priority this year, other than a box of juice that was being handed out, rather than thrown, to those right at the roadside and with hand outstretched ready to grab it.  I’ll be ready for it next time.  There were the usual hats and keychains and the always popular madeleines.  I didn’t notice any wrist bands, though I did meet a guy along the road earlier in the day who had gotten several on Stage One.  He was in a camper van adorned with a multitude of banners of Tour sponsors.  The sponsors drive the route well before the caravan and hand them out.  People are happy to put them on display, as if they are a great trophy.

A truly prized item is a cheap version of team jerseys that several of the French teams selectively hand out.  I was lucky one year to get a couple of them.  One has to be at the right place at the right time to score one.  They are light weight Lycra so they wouldn’t much add to my load.

There doesn’t seem to be a daily Tour newspaper this year, an item I coveted. It’s twenty-four pages were filled with features on riders and local celebrities and people associated with The Tour and Tour history all exalting the event.  I made a strong effort to get one every day, sometimes having to scavenge  one from the trash. Nor is the daily national newspaper “Aujourdui” being handed out.  It offered a lot of good reading on The Tour and news in general.  Vittel too has greatly reduced the amount of water it is handing out.  People used to walk away after the caravan passed with one of the two different shopping bags being given away packed with goodies.   Now people barely gather enough to stuff in a pocket.  But maybe it will be different out of a town without so many people.  Hopefully I’ll find out on Stage Four.

Stage One

I was standing beside two Colombians 250 meters from the finish line watching the sprinters charging towards us on the Giant Screen overlooking the home stretch of Stage One.  The Colombians were repeating with increasing fervor, almost as if it were a chant, “Gaviria, Gaviria, Gaviria,” a name we will be hearing a lot of in the coming weeks and years, as their countryman closed in on us and handily won the stage, the first he had ever ridden in The Tour.  The Colombians were jumping up and down with glee and pounding each other on the back even though Gaviria had been one of the favorites and was not a surprise winner.  Still he delivered, thanks in part to his veteran Belgian Quick Step team bringing him to the final meters with clinical efficiency.  He led all the way, holding off Sagan and Kittel.  Cavendish and Greipel, other former kings of the sprint, were not a factor, finishing a distant 36th and 26th.

It had been a long wait in the hot sun for the sprint on this bland stage except for a crash involving Froome and a Quintana mechanical that cost them and a couple other of the favorites nearly a minute or more.  Porte, Yates and Froome finished 51 seconds behind the first group of 63 riders which included Nibali, Valverde, Landa, Bardet, Dumoulin, Uran, Thomas and VanGarderan, who could all vye for the Podium.  Quintana was the 112th to cross the line, 1:15 back, the first to buckle of Movistar’s mighty three with Valverde and Landa avoiding the carnage.   The Spanish team had controversially brought three leaders on its eight man team.  Even two is unusual.  How this experiment plays out is one of the leading stories of The Tour.  If BMC wins the team time trial on Monday, the American Van Garderen has the possibly of taking the Yellow Jersey rather than the team’s designated leader Porte, whose usual mishap came early this year. And if Sky, another of the time trial favorites, should win it, Yellow could go to Thomas, recent winner of the Dauphiné, often a harbinger of Tour success.  As always, plenty of drama. 

The only other significant crash of the day was American Lawson Craddock of Education First wearing the number 13, though upside down to thwart its curse.  He fell in the feed zone.  He got a free tow from the medic car for a few miles as his facial wounds were tended to.  He eventually caught back up to the peloton on his own, but fell off when the chase to the three French riders in the breakaway heated up.  He finished last 7:50 back.  Hopefully he can heal up and fulfill his domestique duties in the mountains. 

In the two-and-a-half hours I hung out at the finish the only outburst from the crowd until the end came when the Sky bus passed,  the only bus to receive a reaction of any sort. It elicited a loud mix of cheers and boos, the cheers not entirely from the small handful of English fans, but a strong French contingent wishing to curb the hostility stirring in some fans. They recognize that Froome is an honorable character and he should be left alone now that his doping case has been resolved.  Two home-made signs along the route said otherwise.  One, that misspelled his name, bluntly said the equivalent of “get out of here.”

Another sign called Froome, Sky and the UCI cheaters.  I’m drinking from a blue Sky water bottle and not trying to hide it.  I hoped it wouldn’t be vandalized when I left it on my bike in the shade against a building when I submerged myself amongst the masses at the finish.  But with the squadrons of police and military with AK47s milling about, there was little concern of hanky-panky.  The whole finish area had been fenced off for blocks and one had to pass through a security check, the first I’d ever experienced other than in Paris on the Champs Élysées.   I was turned away when the burly African guard spotted my tiny scissors.  I went several blocks to another check and a more kindly guard let me pass without checking any of my panniers, recognizing me as a harmless touring cyclist.  He just wanted to know if I had a knife or alcohol.  Since I had no intent of using my Swiss Army knife or letting anyone else get their hands on it, I replied in the negative

Not all the signs related to cycling.  The French were thrilled by their soccer team beating Uruguay 2-0 the day before, advancing to the semi-finals, two wins from being World Champions for the first time since 1998.

I watched the game, which started at four pm, in a village bar along the Stage One route.  The audience consisted of twelve very jolly, big-bellied guys, three teen-aged boys all wearing jerseys of players on the team and a twenty-year old guy accompanied by the only woman in the bar.  They celebrated the goals vociferously and happily shook each other’s hands when the game was over.  Towards the end the town mayor dropped in and greeted everyone  in the bar, including me, with a handshake.  He kissed the woman on the cheeks and a couple of the men too.  The bartender was so happy to have me he only charged me a euro for my menthe á l’eau.  I’m still only seeing one or two cars a day with a French flag, about the same number I see of the vintage Deux Chevaux driving about, except on race day when invariably there is a gathering of all Deux Chevaux in the area. 

It was a day of giant Yellow Jerseys along the route, the most distinctive remembering Robic’s 1947 win.

But the best fan offering was a remembrance of red-haired Yvette Horner, the renowned accordionist who wowed the crowds along the route riding in the caravan for eleven Tours in the ‘50s and ‘60s,  who died a month ago.

“Merci” is as common as “Vive” on signs along the route.  One sign included “Bravo” along with a “Merci” to Chavanel riding for the Direct Energy team for his eighteen Tours. The fans of French sprinter Arnaud Démare cheers him on with his nickname of “No-No.” Just up the road was a sign announcing the fan “Jo-Jo the Clown,” a rival of The Devil.   There was a “Merci” to the caravan and another sign that said nothing more than “Merci,” taking in everyone.  The French are truly thankful and grateful to The Tour when it comes through their town, sometimes just a once in a generation event.  I rode about half of the route the day before.  Most of the signs don’t go up until the day of The Race, so I try to ride as many miles as I can when the course is lined with fans.

I was gliding along much smoother than the previous few days.  The day before I discovered one of the pulleys on my rear derailleur had seized up and only turned with great effort.  I had been fighting a mystery resistance.  It had begun the day after I replaced my chain and tires.  I couldn’t figure out what it could be.  Both my wheels still spun easily and so did my cranks.  I thought maybe my new tires were excessively heavy or that I had a slow leak or that the pound of honey and pound of sports drink powder I had just bought we’re slowing me down.  But I knew none of those factors could  make as much difference as I was feeling.  One hint to the mystery was that whenever I needed to push my bike backwards to maneuver it the derailleur would buckle.   Likewise I couldn’t pedal backwards a quarter or half turn if I needed to move the crank arms to an easier position to clip into the pedals.  

I suspected that maybe the chain I had bought had a defect or was  too wide.  It said it was compatible with three to eight rings on the cassette.  I only had seven, but looking at it there wasn’t much leeway between the chain and the teeth on the rings.  So I went to the Decathalon in La Roche-sur-Yon and bought a thinner chain for nine speeds.  As I started to remove my chain I discovered I could barely move the lower pulley. I removed it and discovered several of the tiny bearings inside had crumbled and clogged it.  It was a monumental relief to discover the problem, and a genuine shock to realize how that little pulley could provide so much resistance. I went back in the store, returned the chain I had just bought and hadn’t even removed from the package and bought a package of Shimano sealed bearing pulleys.  For two days now I have been feeling lucky to have solved this problem before The Tour started, but I have also been worrying a bit about what else could go wrong on my fourteen year old bike.  I’ve never had a pulley do this to me.  But all has been good otherwise except for my charging woes.  I haven’t even had a flat tire in two months and nearly 3,500 miles.  I was glad I didn’t have the worries of Cavendish and Greipel, whose days of triumph may be at an end.  It’s going to be a long, humbling Tour for them if they do no better than they did on Stage One.

The Presentation of the Teams

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Among the many noteworthy decorations honoring The Tour scattered throughout the Grand Départ city of  La Roche-sur-Yon were a pair of JR-esque photographic murals (akin to his work in the Oscar-nominated Agnes Varda documentary “Faces, Places” from last year) on the walls of buildings facing the stage in Parc Napoléon where the Presentation of the Teams took place. Each honored a French icon and multiple winner of The Race, Bernard Hinault and Bernard Thévenet, but they equally honored the fans, who define this monumental sporting event as much of the racers.

The one dedicated to Thevenet particularly emphasized this point, just showing his passionate fans.  Hinault’s fans may be in the background, but they almost overshadow him, as grimly determined as he is on the bike with their ardent enthusiasm.  Those supporting Thevenet are wearing hats with his name and holding up a sign urging him on using his nickname, Nanard, a variation on Bernard, an anomaly among French nicknames, which are most commonly a staccato repetition of a monosyllable from their name such as Pou-Pou or Ja-Ja or Wa-Wa.  This could have been reduced to Na-Na and upheld the tradition, but no one ever accused the French of being consistent or sensible regarding their language.

Both murals were on the promenade route of several miles the racers rode through the downtown of the city after their introductions allowing the thousands of fans a close look at the generally smiling helmetless riders.

It took nearly an hour-and-a-half to introduce the twenty-two eight man teams, after years of being nine.  Each team rolled up onto the stage after biking several blocks through a gauntlet of fans and then rode past an even longer gauntlet back to their team buses.  The announcer interviewed each team leader and sometimes a teammate or two.  He let Peter Sagan, a ham of a sort, introduce all his teammates.  Sagan, as were almost half the team leaders (including Froome, Porte, Cavendish, Yates, Uran, Martin, Mollema) were interviewed in English.  

Usually the team of the defending champion is the last to be introduced, which would have been Sky and Chris Froome.  There was minimal applause for Froome when he took the stage, and absolutely none when he rode past where I stood.  A few lightly booed him around me, not pleased with the recent dropping of drug charges that had been hanging over him for ten months since last year’s Vuelta.  It will be a shame if that remains the tenor through The Tour as he contends for his fifth win, joining the exclusive club of Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain.  It could encourage some very bad behavior, such as urine being tossed on him as happened a couple of Tours ago. 

For better or worse, the proceedings didn’t end with Sky, but rather Direct Energie, the team of the local region, Vendée, riding for the first time in fifteen years without the hometown favorite Tomas Voekler, who retired after last year’s Tour.  The introduction of teams was preceded with a fifteen-minute interview with Voekler, who looked as tan and fit as any of the riders, maybe even more so. The riders are all so skeleton, trying to be as light as possible, they don’t look fit at all.  Standing near them when they are off  their bikes, as I had the opportunity to several times during the day, they look like such waifs, I feared sneezing, or even coughing hard, would blow them over.

Two of the teams, Katusha and Lotto, were sharing a hotel across the street from the Fan Park, a fenced in area of Tour sponsors promoting their products  giving away stuff.  Skippy and I wandered past when the Lotto riders were returning from their morning ride.  I had met Skippy less than an hour before as he was searching for the Hotel de Ville to meet the mayor.  Skippy and I hadn’t made any arrangements of when and where to meet, knowing that it would happen on its own as it has year after year.  Skippy is a Tour fixture, known as well as The Devil by the official Tour entourage.  

This will be his twenty-first campaign of following The Tour on his bike, six more than me.  Skippy also has multiple Giros and Dauphinés and other races on his palmares.  He likes hanging out with the mechanics and team staff and riding with the riders on their rest days.  When he introduced himself to someone wear team gear that we passed on the street, the guy said, “Yes, I know who you are.” I pretty much keep my distance, only falling within their orbit when I’m with Skippy.  Plus I’m handicapped with carrying a tent and sleeping bag and much much more gear than Skippy.  He travels exceedingly light, just s pack on his back and another strapped to his tribars, staying at hostels and such, allowing him to ride much faster than I can, so he has spare time to linger around the team compounds at the start and the finish of a stage. With his light carbon bike and minimal gear he’s also able to cadge rides when need be.

Skippy is known for his causes.  Initially it was supporting handicapped riders.  Now it is making an issue of drivers giving cyclists a wide berth when they pass, preferably one-and-a-half meters.  He wears a jersey of an Irish organization promoting it and tells whoever he can about its Facebook page—stayin’aliveat1.5.

He also carries around a sign that says “Stop Killing Cyclists.”  Whenever he sees someone with a big camera who looks official he pounces on them and tries to get them to take his picture and have them spread the word.

He hit a goldmine in the Fan Park, as one of the sponsors is pushing the same issue and had a French version of his one-and-a-half-meter jersey.  They were delighted to give Skippy one with the promise he would wear it during The Tour.  They also gave us a handful of reflective bands, something they will be tossing to the hoards along The Tour route.  They have a deluxe version with a battery that lights up that they also gave us.

Skippy also seeks out gendarmes to endorse his cause.  

Besides the reflective bands we also nabbed a few yellow wrist bands from a couple of vendors as well as from the city hall.  The city hall facing the 

Park de Napoléon was also tossing refrigerator magnets to the crowd out front and children-sized t-shirts.  We also got a few key chains and balloons with The Tour de France emblem.  It was a good foretaste of the caravan offerings to come.  

Before the evening program Skippy and I retreated to his accommodations for a hearty lunch.  Rather than staying at a hostel, Skippy searches out temporary housing offered to students in larger towns that have a college such as La Roche-sur-Yon with 53,000 inhabitants.  Though it’s not promoted, the dorm-like buildings will rent out rooms when they have a vacancy.  Rooms have their own bathroom and shower and refrigerator with a shared kitchen.  While I got my first shower in a few days Skippy cooked up a feast of chicken, frites and zucchini.  Our great mutual friend Vincent, who has shared three Tours with us and is a professional cook, would have applauded Skippy’s culinary skills.  I certainly did.  His only miscue was mistaking a communal jar of salt for sugar, which ruined his coffee. But no loss as there was free coffee at the Fan Park.

Skippy is booked into his dorm room for five days through Sunday.  It will be just happenstance when we connect in the coming three weeks, as it is impossible to coordinate our schedules with so many variables to contend with, but it will happen a couple of times and will be a great occasion with plenty of tales of our escapades to share.

Final Tour Prep

As the Grand Départ grows imminent, less than five days away, I’ve been putting the final touches on my preparations.  During my two days in Tours with Florence and Rachid I was able to lighten my load by better than ten percent.  I sent home a box of cold weather gear (a fluff jacket, tights, gloves, booties) and a few other items including stuff from Cannes—the program, a bag and some literature.  I was also able to unload a few things on Florence and Rachid—a paperback, another bag from Cannes and some road booty— a water bottle, a knife and a bright  pink cable for recharging one’s phone.  

I mailed the box the day before we indulged in one of the favorite pastimes of the French, a vide grenier, a huge communal garage sale.  Every town has at least one during the warmer months and advertises it for weeks.  Those are the most common signs I see every day.  Florence and Rachid could go to one or more every Sunday all summer in the many communities that surround the large city of Tours.  The one we went to was alongside a large park in downtown Tours. I was hoping I didn’t find something I really wanted, not wishing for the added weight or having to send another package home. I was looking for books on cycling, especially one of the fifty by Jean-Paul Ollivier.  That I could leave behind and pick up on another occasion. 

I saw quite a few books among all the knickknacks, but none on cycling.  It’s likely though that Florence will start finding them, as she is a great devotee of the vide grenier and will be happy to have something to look for.  Florence has long intended to pay the nominal fee to be a vendor herself.  She was surprised to see someone she works with at a table, the lady in the photo above.  She had a few books. Florence asked if she had any by Ollivier and was surprised that she knew who he was, though she had none of his books.  

The only sports books I saw was one on rugby and another on Zidane, the French soccer hero.  If I had been looking for something to read in English, I would have had only one choice, a book on London.  There were plenty of well-worn classics by Zola and Balzac.  Florence’s one purchase was a Balzac.  Rachid came close to buying a sketch signed by Picasso going for a mere fifty euros, a real steal if it were authentic.  Someone else swooped in and got it while Rachid was contemplating it.  The woman also had a portrait of Johnny Hallyday that she was sure to sell.   One of the more popular items among the many sellers were bicycle helmets for children.  There were a few bikes, but nothing of note.  One guy had two Skoda sun hats from The Tour de France caravan.  He had them priced at twenty cents.

If I’d found an Ollivier, especially one of his books on Bobet, that could have been the highlight of my visit to Tours, but instead it might have been watching France defeat Argentina 4-3 with Rachid to advance to the final eight in the World Cup.  Rachid certainly had his heart in the game, not even relaxing when France was up 4-2 with less than five minutes remaining.  A two goal advantage is generally insurmountable.  He wanted a fifth goal so he could really relax.  When Argentina closed to within one he felt fully justified in wanting that extra goal.  It was the first of two games for the day, my first soccer doubleheader ever.  The winner of the second between Uruguay and Spain would determine France’s next opponent.  It would have been nice to face Spain so France could knock out the two biggest stars of the tournament, Messi of Argentina and Ronaldo of Spain, but Uruguay prevailed saving some honor for South America.  Of the final sixteen teams, nine are from Europe and four from South America, with Russia, Mexico and Japan rounding out the field.  France and Uruguay will go at it Friday the evening before The Tour commences.  

There was no bike ride with Florence and Rachid this year as they have become attentive to the air quality index and the ninety degree heat had put it at a level that was inadvisable for outdoor activity.  That meant for the first time in the two months I’ve been in France I went a day without riding the bike.  It was no doubt good for the legs.  It gave me ample time to sort through my gear and make some repairs and adjustment, including gluing the sole back on one of my Tevas and scrubbing the scum out of my four water bottles.  

I thought I might replace my chain and tires in Tours, but decided to put an extra hundred miles on them and do it in Cholet.  It turned out to be an opportune time as much of my gear was wet from a deluge the day before and I could lay them out in the sun while I tended to my repairs.  I’d put over 3,000 miles on my chain since arriving in France.  I generally replace it after 2,500 before it starts wearing the teeth on the cassette.  Fortunately there was no excessive wear and the new chain was fully compatible.  I also made adjustments to my derailleurs making it easier to slip onto the big chain ring up front and the small ring in back for when I really need to push it.

It was nice to be back in Cholet where the countdown outside the mediatheque was a J-5.  The library was taken over by bikes.

There were also several displays of cycling books, one featuring an Ollivier on Bobet.  There are so many French books on cycling it was a genuine surprise to find none at the vide grenier.  They may be just too prized to relinquish.

My greatest final adjustment and relief for The Tour was buying a new battery to charge with my generator hub.  My two batteries had worn out and had finally stopped charging at all just before Tours.  The new battery came with a cable identical to what I had been using.  I was thrilled to discover that my old cable had become defective and it was the root of all my charging headaches the past month.  I never would have guessed it.  It showed no wear whatsoever.  I was certain it had to be the generator or the transformer or most likely just worn out batteries.  But the batteries are fine and now I am too.  If I had lost my ability to generator electricity I would have been back to scavenging it at cathedrals and tourist offices and campgrounds, which I wouldn’t have much time for as I chased the peloton. 

My chase has been made considerably easier too by finding a train from Brittany to the Alps that can accommodate me and my bike, saving my legs some 400 miles.  Florence had been helping me find one, but we were continually stymied by the bike slots all being filled.  We had been looking for trains from Rennes and Nantes and Tours to Annecy, but there were none in the three or four day window that would have worked for me.  A most helpful agent in Cholet found a train with two transfers from Vannes, about fifty miles south of Mur de Bretagne,  to Lyons, fifty miles from Annecy, and with only a five euro charge for my bike.  That works fine other than getting me into Lyon at ten pm.  I ought to be able to watch the Roubaix stage and then the World Cup final later that evening, hopefully featuring France, in Annecy the day before The Tour entourage arrives the next day, some flying and many making the long drive.  I ought to be well rested and ready for the mountainous second half of The Race.