Friends: Its been an extra pleasure these past few days bicycling around Paris, sharing the streets with the legions of freshly reborn cyclists on rental bikes. Even if their battery-powered head-lights and tail-lights didn't make them so obvious, their shining exuberance, bounding about with the heightened zest of the recently unshackled, would distinguish them from the veteran cyclist and make them stand out. They all sat a little higher on their seats, proud and delighted, gazing all about as if amazed at how much there is to see freed of the confines of whatever metal box they had formerly been imprisoned in as they were transported about the city.
The locals are taking advantage of the bikes as much as, if not more than, those visiting-- shopping, running errands, commuting and venturing to locales they might not otherwise. Not all Parisians have space in their apartments for a bike, nor feel comfortable leaving a locked bike out over night, so easy access to a rental bike is meeting a tremendous need. And with the streets of Paris greatly diminished of motorized traffic in August, the city is presently a bicyclist's paradise. Even the pay toilets are now gratuit. Not even a rainy Monday could discourage the use of the rental bikes.
The rain had me marooned in my tent until two in the afternoon out in a cornfield twelve miles from the city line, where the night before I was amongst a crowd of a couple thousand in the Cité de la Musique park watching John Ford's "The Grapes of Wrath" from 1940 starring Henry Fonda on a giant inflated screen. Several hundred of us took advantage of the free, fenced-in valet bike parking. After the screening the six or seven people staffing it were literally sprinting to retrieve and deliver bikes as fast as they could, easing whatever impatience those of us in the long, long line in the post-midnight hour might have been feeling.
The rain kept me from tracking down the Tour de France offices, as had been one of my Monday objectives. Besides seeing how extravagantly bike-themed it might be, I was hoping to learn what town had won the best-decorated award and who the runners-up might have been. I was hoping too for an array of photos of their decorations either hanging or in an album. I was hoping also for a poster of this year's race, The World in Yellow, of the bike-configured continents. But that was no longer necessary, as I lucked into one Saturday when I biked out to Compeigne, 50 miles to the northeast, the stage 3 Ville Arriveé where I was trapped on the wrong side of a fence for four hours awaiting the peloton's arrival.
When I inquired at Compeigne's tourist office if the city had had any special exhibits or displays honoring The Tour, the woman at the desk rewarded my interest by taking down their "World in Yellow" poster and letting me have it. Little did she know how much it would be appreciated. One of the several reasons I was drawn back to Compeigne was to visit its Vehicle Museum, which included a bicycle collection. Getting the poster easily made up for the bad news that the museum was closed for renovation. Compeigne also lured me back, as it is surrounded on three sides by a ten-mile wide band of forest that was just begging to be camped, something I was unable to do a month ago in my race to keep up with The Tour.
Compeigne has been the start city for the Paris-Roubaix one-day classic the past thirty years. The race is older than the Tour de France and equally storied. The woman at the tourist office traced its route through the city for me so I could ride it myself, starting in the cobbled Plaza de General de Gaulle, going past the Hotel de Ville (City Hall), over the Oise River then off into the wind-swept fields of Flanders and its assorted stretches of cobbles that have earned the race the sobriquet "Hell of the North."
After a night in the forest, undisturbed by its population of deer, I returned to Paris on a road I had yet to try, that supplied the easiest access to the city of any that I have attempted. Before "The Grapes of Wrath" I went in search of Oscar Wilde's grave in the sprawling Pére Lachaise cemetery. After seeing the grave in "Paris Je T'Aime," a recent movie celebrating the twenty arrondisements of Paris, I wanted to verify that it was truly plastered with lipstick-stained kisses. Indeed it was, even more dramatically than the movie indicated, half-way up all four of the twelve foot high walls of the tomb. It was also splattered with graffiti of adoration in several languages. There was a steady stream of devotees, but no kissers, just photographers. The Dublin-born Wilde died in Paris in 1900 at the age of 46. An unnamed admirer paid for the tomb. Evidently the graffiti is accepted, otherwise the tomb would be fenced off as is Jim Morrison's in another sector of this cemetery. Morrison's grave remains the only one of thousands in the cemetery with a fence and a guard. While I stopped by Morrison's grave, a young woman gave the guard a potted yellow carnation to add to the forest of flowers adorning his grave.
Hanging out in the parks of Paris outside the tourist orbit, the city takes on the demeanor of a third world country. Their grassy expanses were packed with Africans, black and Arabic, and a few Asians. Occasionally I'd glance up from my book and have a momentary lapse forgetting where I was. If my eye caught a rare Caucasian, I'd think, "Ah, a gringo, I'm not the only one." Even as this trip draws to a close, flying back to Chicago tomorrow, the array of nationalities had me pondering travels elsewhere and contemplating where to next, perhaps that Istanbul to Cairo ride that Eelco, the Dutch cyclist, planted in my mind three months ago as I was setting out for Cannes.
Later, George
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Paris
Friends: Paris will soon become known as one of the premier bicycling cities in the world. Just last month, on July 15, the city initiated a bike rental program that has been a runaway success. The city scattered 10,000 bikes around Paris that can be rented any time, day or night, with a credit card for a mere euro per day. The most optimistic projections were that there might be 30,000 uses per day. There have been 70,000. The city is scurrying to put another 10,000 bikes out there.
In my four years of passing through Paris after the The Tour de France I have never seen so many bikes locked up and being ridden about the city. I was struck by the number of bikes to be seen immediately as I entered the heart of the city even before I learned of this new rental program. It is too early to assess what effect it has had on taxi and bus and subway use or the mental health of the city.
As I lingered in the plaza in front of City Hall along the Seine, just three blocks from Notre Dame, awaiting the evening's "Critical Mass" bike ride, a continual line of people stood waiting to rent one of the bikes locked up there. The bikes are of one size and style--a swooping woman's type frame with three speeds. Each comes equipped with fenders and lights and a front basket.
A similar program was given a try in Lyons, France's second largest city. It was so successful, Paris decided to try it as well. Part of the city's burgeoning bicycle consciousness may be attributed to the great popularity of its weekly "Critical Mass" ride. Most cities around the world stage the ride the last Friday of the month. Once a month isn't enough for Parisians. They have a ride every Friday. Most Critical Masses are scheduled to coincide with the rush hour commute. The Paris ride doesn't start until ten p.m., when traffic has considerably thinned and motorists aren't in such a frenzy. Nor is it called a "Critical Mass."
One of the organizers I spoke to was only dimly aware of the term. It is a critical mass though. The 800 riders on this ride took over the streets, remaining in a bunch riding through traffic signals as a unit as in every Critical Mass I've been a part of in Chicago. Each week's route is planned and available on the group's website. The guy I talked to was dumbfounded that rides elsewhere just randomly follow whoever is leading it, and can indeed be hi-jacked by whoever is at the front, even if there is a pre-determined route.
The Paris version is very organized. There were twenty or so very gung-ho young men wearing orange day-glow jackets who "cork" the intersections, standing guard through red lights holding back cross traffic. When everyone has passed, they race ahead to their next assigned intersection. As I awaited the ride's departure, one of the officials came over and asked me if I had ever been on the ride before and then briefed me on the procedure. He said the group would take an hour to ride twelve kilometers (7.5 miles) to a park, take a 20-minute break and then bike back to where we started following a different route, arriving back around 12:30. He warned that there would be officials flying past on the right or left calling out that they were passing. The feel of the ride wasn't much different from Chicago's Critical Mass, other than the later hour antagonizing fewer motorists. Unlike Chicago, hardly anyone wore a helmet or rode older, vintage road bikes. It was a much less anarchistic crowd as well, mostly mainstream, conventional-looking folk, and not the predominance of twenty-year olds as in Chicago.
My panniered bike attracted a bit of attention. I rode the entire ride with a woman who had just returned from three years of touring in South America. It was her first touring experience and she was still in a state of euphoria and most pleased to be able to share her experiences with someone who could fully appreciate them. She had set out on her travels as a typical backpacker with her Mexican boyfriend. After a couple of months they decided to exchange their backpacks for bicycles in Buenos Aries. They were immediate converts to traveling by bicycle, discovering what a richer experience it was, exalted by their freedom and independence, not having to rely on buses and trains and taxis to get where they wanted to go and being able to camp, freed from having to search out hotels.
She is busy saving money so she can get back at it. We talked about kids throwing stones at us in Bolivia and the winds of Patagonia and our favorite foods. She pointed out various landmarks along our route. She warned me that on the hour the entire Eiffel Tower would glitter with lights, a feature that was introduced for the Millennium and has been continued since. We rode right along side it as well as a few blocks down the Champs Elysees just as I hoped the ride would.
As I biked into Paris Friday afternoon, there was so little traffic and so few people about I thought it might have been a holiday. And it was to a degree. August is the month when many take their summer vacation and Paris becomes a semi-ghost town. All was desolate and quiet other than the tourist corridor along the Seine from the Eiffel Tower past the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay and Napoleon's Tomb to the Notre Dame Cathedral. With so few locals in town, I feared there might not be a Critical Mass ride. If there hadn't been, I was prepared to attend the the free outdoor movie, a nightly event all of July and August. But the officials at the tourist office were well aware of the bike ride, as it started right there in their plaza in front of City Hall, and assured me there would be one.
My evening's riding partner was staying with a friend in an apartment so cramped there wasn't even room for her bike, otherwise she said I could have stayed with her. Instead I got to camp. That was no tragedy. I knew of places to camp less than an hour's ride away out towards the airport. With a near full moon, I had no problem finding a spot in a field by 1:30 a.m. As I headed out of the city, for the first several miles I passed a handful more people riding the rental bikes. Night riders in Paris had formerly been a rare site. Hopefully, they will all be full-fledged converts.
Later, George
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Tours, France
Friends: Of the twenty stages and Prologue of this year's Tour, I managed to make it to the finish line before the peloton for six of them. I witnessed the other fifteen finishes on television. Finding a television was often a saga of some sort, occasionally cutting it very very close. I was engaged in one of those races to the finish Sunday for The Tour's last stage. I had to ride seventy miles before I found an open bar, a genuine scarcity in France on Sundays.
I thought I might find one in Gençay after I'd biked a little over fifty miles, especially since it was large enough for there to be signs to a "Centre Ville." But that Centre was a ghost town, forcing me to push on to Poiters, a city of 120,000. Even it had me nervous, as it was dead and deserted for three miles from its outskirts until I reached its center. There were open bars, but the first three I came to did not have a television. The fourth had a pair of televisions, but they were tuned to something else, though no one seemed to be paying them any attention. I am always concerned I might encounter resistance when I ask a bartender to change the station to The Tour. I fear the bartender might be among those fed up with the doping, and is boycotting the race as some newspapers and TV stations and the Danes have done.
But not this one fortunately. It was 4:45 and the peloton was just reaching the Champs Elysees, over half an hour late, for the first of its eight laps, led out by Discovery elder Hincapie--a most pleasing site. I tried to scan the spectators looking for Roberto, but that was an impossible task with the racers flying by at thirty miles per hour. Roberto hadn't been able to come up with a ride the 250 miles to Paris from Angouleme for either of us, so he was going to try to get there by train.
As much as he loves to ride his bike, he likes even more close contact with the racers, as if some of their energy and power and mystique might fly off onto him as they speed past. As we were watching the time trial Saturday from the same hillside vantage I had watched the previous day's action, he excused himself after Leipheimer passed us fifty feet below, saying he wanted to be on the railing, close-up, when Evans and Contador came by, just inches away, as he knew he wouldn't be able to get so close to them the next day in Paris. I liked it just where I was, staring at the jumbo screen and seated right beside the exit route for the motorcycles and team cars leading and following each rider as they turned off the course ninety meters from the finish. The team cars often had guests in the backseat. Their faces were unfailingly wreathed with expressions of supreme delight, if not ecstasy, after having been in the wake of a rider for an hour who had been cheered non-stop for 34 miles by the thousands of fans lining the course.
My strongest memory of the day before was the Orange Euskatel team car when it passed by me leaving the course, its passenger side splattered with blood. Evidently one of its riders had taken a fall and was spurting blood while being tended to as he rode alongside it. Blood is not an uncommon site at The Tour. The Discovery water bottle I found along the road earlier in the week had blood on it. When I saw a close-up of the swollen, blood-clotted lip of Popovych as he left the starting ramp for the time trial, I knew whose bottle it had been.
Blood was in the face of those watching Friday's stage, as one of the four riders in the day-long breakaway, the French rider Sandy Casar, who won the stage, suffered an early crash when a dog ran out on the course. The pavement ripped a gaping hole in the right buttocks of his shorts, turning his flesh into red hamburger meat. Its a tough, demanding sport. The drugs make it no easier. They only allow the racers to push harder, making it harder on all of them.
Once the peloton entered the Champs, I had a final 55-kilometer, one-hour, dose of racing to watch in the Poiters bar, then an hour of post-race ceremonies--the various trophies awarded, interviews and the teams making a ceremonial circuit, some with their coaches accompanying them on bikes in their civilian clothes. The Contador, Evans, Leipheimer podium had to have been the least ecstatic, almost glum, podium in Tour de France history. They all looked uncomfortable and none-too-pleased.
Leipheimer, who finished a measly eight seconds behind Evans for the third spot, had just a hint of a forced smile, undoubtedly bemoaning those ten seconds he was penalized for hanging on to his team car while a mechanic pretended to be working on his bike. And besides those ten seconds, he had to be thinking of countless spots over the race's 2,000 plus miles where he could have gained another 21 seconds, which would have placed him atop the podium with all its glory and millions of dollars of endorsements. Third-place isn't much better than 25th.
The frog-faced Evans was utterly expressionless, staring blankly, unblinkingly, perhaps at a fly that he might suddenly leap at. Contador seemed embarrassed, barely summoning a smile, perhaps fearing that in a day or two the results of one of his drug tests would put an end to his fairy tale as happened to Landis last year. It wouldn't have been any happier of a podium if Rasmussen were still around. His results would have been tainted, not only by drug suspicions, but by the placement of the time trials later than usual in this year's race.
Ordinarily the first time trial comes before the mountains. If that had been the case this year, everyone would have been alerted that Rasmussen had transformed himself in this discipline and the peloton would not have let him escape on the second day in the Alps, as it has allowed the past two years, thinking he was just racking up King of the Mountain points without being a threat to the overall standings.
He wouldn't have gained those minutes that put him in the lead. And if he hadn't been in yellow, there wouldn't have been all the furor about his missed drug tests. He would have finished the race as King of the Mountains for the third straight year and Contador could have been an ecstatic 24-year old winner, the youngest since Ullrich ten years ago, and the racing world could celebrate this new great talent.
Roberto was very much soured on The Tour, pained that the rider's heroics were often fraudulent. When I met him Monday, before Rasmussen's dismissal and Vinokourov's positive drug test and the ouster of the Cofidis team when one of its riders tested positive, he thought following The Tour would be a life-long pursuit. Now he's not so sure. I told him I'd be back for at least one more year, as it was such a pleasure to bicycle in France. He said as much as he liked biking in France, he didn't like it that the road signs did not give distances to towns and also that the skimpy shoulders of the narrow roads were often gravely, unlike the roads of Germany.
The Tour is a French institution that the public fully embraces. It is an opportunity for a day-long gathering and road-side picnic when The Tour comes to their region. But if television interest plummets, the money-interests will withdraw and the magnitude of The Tour could be jeopardized. Money is at the root of the drug woes. There is so much to be gained, millions, by those who excel, that they are willing to take great risks and spend lots of money on means to artificially boost their performance.
That has been the history of The Tour from its very start. The first four finishers and eight others of the second Tour in 1904, including the previous year's winner, were all disqualified a month after the race for cheating by taking trains. The Tour was wildly popular even then and people feared it was dead. It will persevere, and I'm sure I'll be seeing Roberto next year. Now I get to enjoy the company of Florence and Rachid, as I've done the past three years here in Tours.
Later, George
I thought I might find one in Gençay after I'd biked a little over fifty miles, especially since it was large enough for there to be signs to a "Centre Ville." But that Centre was a ghost town, forcing me to push on to Poiters, a city of 120,000. Even it had me nervous, as it was dead and deserted for three miles from its outskirts until I reached its center. There were open bars, but the first three I came to did not have a television. The fourth had a pair of televisions, but they were tuned to something else, though no one seemed to be paying them any attention. I am always concerned I might encounter resistance when I ask a bartender to change the station to The Tour. I fear the bartender might be among those fed up with the doping, and is boycotting the race as some newspapers and TV stations and the Danes have done.
But not this one fortunately. It was 4:45 and the peloton was just reaching the Champs Elysees, over half an hour late, for the first of its eight laps, led out by Discovery elder Hincapie--a most pleasing site. I tried to scan the spectators looking for Roberto, but that was an impossible task with the racers flying by at thirty miles per hour. Roberto hadn't been able to come up with a ride the 250 miles to Paris from Angouleme for either of us, so he was going to try to get there by train.
As much as he loves to ride his bike, he likes even more close contact with the racers, as if some of their energy and power and mystique might fly off onto him as they speed past. As we were watching the time trial Saturday from the same hillside vantage I had watched the previous day's action, he excused himself after Leipheimer passed us fifty feet below, saying he wanted to be on the railing, close-up, when Evans and Contador came by, just inches away, as he knew he wouldn't be able to get so close to them the next day in Paris. I liked it just where I was, staring at the jumbo screen and seated right beside the exit route for the motorcycles and team cars leading and following each rider as they turned off the course ninety meters from the finish. The team cars often had guests in the backseat. Their faces were unfailingly wreathed with expressions of supreme delight, if not ecstasy, after having been in the wake of a rider for an hour who had been cheered non-stop for 34 miles by the thousands of fans lining the course.
My strongest memory of the day before was the Orange Euskatel team car when it passed by me leaving the course, its passenger side splattered with blood. Evidently one of its riders had taken a fall and was spurting blood while being tended to as he rode alongside it. Blood is not an uncommon site at The Tour. The Discovery water bottle I found along the road earlier in the week had blood on it. When I saw a close-up of the swollen, blood-clotted lip of Popovych as he left the starting ramp for the time trial, I knew whose bottle it had been.
Blood was in the face of those watching Friday's stage, as one of the four riders in the day-long breakaway, the French rider Sandy Casar, who won the stage, suffered an early crash when a dog ran out on the course. The pavement ripped a gaping hole in the right buttocks of his shorts, turning his flesh into red hamburger meat. Its a tough, demanding sport. The drugs make it no easier. They only allow the racers to push harder, making it harder on all of them.
Once the peloton entered the Champs, I had a final 55-kilometer, one-hour, dose of racing to watch in the Poiters bar, then an hour of post-race ceremonies--the various trophies awarded, interviews and the teams making a ceremonial circuit, some with their coaches accompanying them on bikes in their civilian clothes. The Contador, Evans, Leipheimer podium had to have been the least ecstatic, almost glum, podium in Tour de France history. They all looked uncomfortable and none-too-pleased.
Leipheimer, who finished a measly eight seconds behind Evans for the third spot, had just a hint of a forced smile, undoubtedly bemoaning those ten seconds he was penalized for hanging on to his team car while a mechanic pretended to be working on his bike. And besides those ten seconds, he had to be thinking of countless spots over the race's 2,000 plus miles where he could have gained another 21 seconds, which would have placed him atop the podium with all its glory and millions of dollars of endorsements. Third-place isn't much better than 25th.
The frog-faced Evans was utterly expressionless, staring blankly, unblinkingly, perhaps at a fly that he might suddenly leap at. Contador seemed embarrassed, barely summoning a smile, perhaps fearing that in a day or two the results of one of his drug tests would put an end to his fairy tale as happened to Landis last year. It wouldn't have been any happier of a podium if Rasmussen were still around. His results would have been tainted, not only by drug suspicions, but by the placement of the time trials later than usual in this year's race.
Ordinarily the first time trial comes before the mountains. If that had been the case this year, everyone would have been alerted that Rasmussen had transformed himself in this discipline and the peloton would not have let him escape on the second day in the Alps, as it has allowed the past two years, thinking he was just racking up King of the Mountain points without being a threat to the overall standings.
He wouldn't have gained those minutes that put him in the lead. And if he hadn't been in yellow, there wouldn't have been all the furor about his missed drug tests. He would have finished the race as King of the Mountains for the third straight year and Contador could have been an ecstatic 24-year old winner, the youngest since Ullrich ten years ago, and the racing world could celebrate this new great talent.
Roberto was very much soured on The Tour, pained that the rider's heroics were often fraudulent. When I met him Monday, before Rasmussen's dismissal and Vinokourov's positive drug test and the ouster of the Cofidis team when one of its riders tested positive, he thought following The Tour would be a life-long pursuit. Now he's not so sure. I told him I'd be back for at least one more year, as it was such a pleasure to bicycle in France. He said as much as he liked biking in France, he didn't like it that the road signs did not give distances to towns and also that the skimpy shoulders of the narrow roads were often gravely, unlike the roads of Germany.
The Tour is a French institution that the public fully embraces. It is an opportunity for a day-long gathering and road-side picnic when The Tour comes to their region. But if television interest plummets, the money-interests will withdraw and the magnitude of The Tour could be jeopardized. Money is at the root of the drug woes. There is so much to be gained, millions, by those who excel, that they are willing to take great risks and spend lots of money on means to artificially boost their performance.
That has been the history of The Tour from its very start. The first four finishers and eight others of the second Tour in 1904, including the previous year's winner, were all disqualified a month after the race for cheating by taking trains. The Tour was wildly popular even then and people feared it was dead. It will persevere, and I'm sure I'll be seeing Roberto next year. Now I get to enjoy the company of Florence and Rachid, as I've done the past three years here in Tours.
Later, George
Friday, July 27, 2007
Angouleme, France
Friends: The roads were lined as thickly as ever today, as if the French wanted to say their support and love for The Tour is undiminished despite the ever unfolding scandals and the death knells of the press. As I watched the final three hours of the stage on the giant television at the finish line, I paid particular attention to the crowds along the road up on the screen making sure they were applauding as usual as the racers passed. They most certainly were.
As I biked the final sixty miles of the stage I thought I might see an extra amount of syringes and EPO painted on the road and other drug allusions, but there was only one syringe, which The Tour officials this year have painted over before the racers and television pass. The only home made sign relating to the current state of affairs I noticed read, "The Tour is good, and even better without dopage." And there were the usual "Vive Le Tour" signs.
One young woman was brandishing a card board sign that read "Courage." She jumped out from a group she was partying with about one-third the way up a pesky category-four climb and waved the sign at me and cheered. It was like an alert to those lining the road ahead. I was bombarded by "allez-allez" and one lone "plus vite" from a teen-aged boy who thought I could be riding faster. As I neared the summit a woman stepped forward and held out a brownie for me. To make sure I understood, she pointed at it with her other hand. I grabbed it and popped it right into my mouth. I was breathing too hard to chew and swallow, so I just bit it in half and tongued the two segments into my cheeks, waiting for the descent to swallow it.
It's the first food I've ever been offered while biking past all the picnic spreads. A couple times when I've stopped to watch the end of a stage on someone's television I've been offered food, but never while biking. As enthusiastically as people respond to me as a touring cyclist, few must have done any themselves, otherwise they would know what a voracious appetite a touring cyclist has and would quickly grab a sample from the food heaped on their picnic tables and make an offering.
I arrived at the finish line a little after one. It was already mobbed. I provided myself a bit of shade in the vast expanse facing the giant screen by leaning my bike against a pole and then leaning against one of my rear panniers. I remained there for five hours reveling in the atmosphere and the enthusiasm of the fans. The slight hillside was elbow-to-elbow with several hundred others, while just below us the finishing straight was mobbed two or three deep the final half kilometer.
Just about the loudest cheer I've ever heard from a French crowd came when the lone French rider in the four-man breakaway sprinted away from the three others just before reaching us to win the stage. The French are as nationalistic as any. The first week of The Tour when the French rider Moreau was still in the top ten, the television ratings sky-rocketed. When Moreau fell off and the highest ranked French rider in the race was only 23rd, the ratings plummeted, even during the most exciting racing of all in the mountains.
Yesterday and today were the first days since I left London nearly three weeks ago that I didn't once need to consult my map as I had the course markers to guide me all the way. But first I had to ride 45 miles from the previous day's finish in Castelsarrasin to the next day's start in Cahors. The black-arrowed course-markers are put up a day in advance. I was a day ahead of the peloton and riding the course shortly after it had been marked. People are remarkably conscientious about respecting the signs and leaving them up, even though they are a prized souvenir that disappear quickly after the racers pass, when they do become fair game. Nearly every camper following the race has a sign or two in their windows and I have one on the back of my bike.
Occasionally, some dastardly soul dares to prematurely plunder a sign. I can not imagine a more heinously disrespectful act. I was early enough on the route that I had no such problems yesterday, and only one today. If some prankster truly wished to play havoc with The Tour, he could switch the direction of signs, but that seems to be an absolute taboo. Tonight I'll camp a few miles outside Angouleme on tomorrow's time trial course. It concludes on the same finishing stretch as today's stage, a real rarity, making things easy for those of us following The Tour and even easier on those who set up the vast finish line village. Then its on to Paris.
Later, George
As I biked the final sixty miles of the stage I thought I might see an extra amount of syringes and EPO painted on the road and other drug allusions, but there was only one syringe, which The Tour officials this year have painted over before the racers and television pass. The only home made sign relating to the current state of affairs I noticed read, "The Tour is good, and even better without dopage." And there were the usual "Vive Le Tour" signs.
One young woman was brandishing a card board sign that read "Courage." She jumped out from a group she was partying with about one-third the way up a pesky category-four climb and waved the sign at me and cheered. It was like an alert to those lining the road ahead. I was bombarded by "allez-allez" and one lone "plus vite" from a teen-aged boy who thought I could be riding faster. As I neared the summit a woman stepped forward and held out a brownie for me. To make sure I understood, she pointed at it with her other hand. I grabbed it and popped it right into my mouth. I was breathing too hard to chew and swallow, so I just bit it in half and tongued the two segments into my cheeks, waiting for the descent to swallow it.
It's the first food I've ever been offered while biking past all the picnic spreads. A couple times when I've stopped to watch the end of a stage on someone's television I've been offered food, but never while biking. As enthusiastically as people respond to me as a touring cyclist, few must have done any themselves, otherwise they would know what a voracious appetite a touring cyclist has and would quickly grab a sample from the food heaped on their picnic tables and make an offering.
I arrived at the finish line a little after one. It was already mobbed. I provided myself a bit of shade in the vast expanse facing the giant screen by leaning my bike against a pole and then leaning against one of my rear panniers. I remained there for five hours reveling in the atmosphere and the enthusiasm of the fans. The slight hillside was elbow-to-elbow with several hundred others, while just below us the finishing straight was mobbed two or three deep the final half kilometer.
Just about the loudest cheer I've ever heard from a French crowd came when the lone French rider in the four-man breakaway sprinted away from the three others just before reaching us to win the stage. The French are as nationalistic as any. The first week of The Tour when the French rider Moreau was still in the top ten, the television ratings sky-rocketed. When Moreau fell off and the highest ranked French rider in the race was only 23rd, the ratings plummeted, even during the most exciting racing of all in the mountains.
Yesterday and today were the first days since I left London nearly three weeks ago that I didn't once need to consult my map as I had the course markers to guide me all the way. But first I had to ride 45 miles from the previous day's finish in Castelsarrasin to the next day's start in Cahors. The black-arrowed course-markers are put up a day in advance. I was a day ahead of the peloton and riding the course shortly after it had been marked. People are remarkably conscientious about respecting the signs and leaving them up, even though they are a prized souvenir that disappear quickly after the racers pass, when they do become fair game. Nearly every camper following the race has a sign or two in their windows and I have one on the back of my bike.
Occasionally, some dastardly soul dares to prematurely plunder a sign. I can not imagine a more heinously disrespectful act. I was early enough on the route that I had no such problems yesterday, and only one today. If some prankster truly wished to play havoc with The Tour, he could switch the direction of signs, but that seems to be an absolute taboo. Tonight I'll camp a few miles outside Angouleme on tomorrow's time trial course. It concludes on the same finishing stretch as today's stage, a real rarity, making things easy for those of us following The Tour and even easier on those who set up the vast finish line village. Then its on to Paris.
Later, George
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Cahors, France
Friends: If there hadn't been a newspaper laying around the bar/cafe where I was watching yesterday's final mountain stage, I would have been wondering where in the hell the Astana riders were in their distinctive turquoise uniforms. But I couldn't have missed the front page headlines of Vinokourov being the latest rider to be caught with banned substances in his veins. Like Landis last year, he was desperate for some results and evidently went overboard in his usual regime and tested positive after his startling two-minute win in Saturday's time trial after struggling the first two weeks of the race.
Its no great surprise that he has gone down, as it was his former director sportif Manolo Saiz last year who was deeply implicated in the Spanish Operation Puerto scandal. Saiz was caught on tape visiting the notorious Dr. Fuentes and also arrested with some 30,000 euros in a briefcase entering his office. Four of the nine riders on Vino's Spanish team last year were linked to Fuentes, resulting in the team being ejected from The Tour the day before it began, sending Vino to the sidelines even though he was one of the favorites to win The Race and a popular personality with his aggressive attacking style. Miraculously, Vino wasn't linked to Fuentes, when it was obvious that if the team director was dispensing illegal substances to his racers, he would have been dispensing them to everyone on the team.
Vino has long been a fan and French favorite. His name is written on the roads as much as anyone's, and he animates the racing, so The Tour organizers like having him in The Race. Now he must live in shame the rest of his life, though he is a bigger national hero in Kazakhstan than even Borat. There was no mention of Vinokourov and Astana during the two-and-a-half hours of the telecast I was watching with a mob of Germans in Lycra who were following The Tour with a tour group. The lone German hope, Kloden, was no longer in The Race, ejected along with the entire nine-man Astana team Vinokourov led. The Germans were all rooting for Rasmussen and cheered heartily when he soared away from the two Discovery riders Contador and Leipheimer in the last kilometer.
For the last six miles of the climb to the finish the race had boiled down to the top four riders in the general classification with Contador hoping to put a dent into his two minute deficit to Rasmussen, and Leipheimer hoping to edge past Evans to third place. Evans finally fell off the pace, but he labored most heroically, keeping his deficit to a minimum. He only lost seventeen seconds, plus the twelve second bonus Leipheimer received for finishing second in the stage, maintaining nearly a minute advantage on Leipheimer for that crucial final podium spot. Evans edged Leipheimer in Saturday's time trial, and, in fact, becomes its winner now that Vinokourov has been eliminated, so its not too likely that Leipheimer will be able to overtake him in a similar time trial this Saturday. The final standings most likely will be Rasmussen, Contador, Evans and Leipheimer. Evans will become the first Australian to podium.
I will be curious to see if Roberto, the German Tour fanatic, will still be wearing the Astana cap he was wearing when I met him three days ago. He was rooting for Kloden and also Vino. One of the many other strands of conversation I'll wish to pursue with Roberto when we meet up at Saturday's time trial in front of the big screen is the story behind the several bracelets he had on each of his wrists. He already told me about one, his yellow Livestrong bracelet. Noticing mine, he proudly pointed to his and said it had been on his wrist for three years, ever since Sheryl Crowe removed it from her wrist and presented it to him. It happened on the morning of the team time trial in 2004 that concluded in Amiens. Roberto had been camping in the town park when he noticed a slight woman out for an early morning jog. When she passed by him, he struck up a conversation. She was wearing a hood, so he didn't immediately recognize her, but when he did, she offered him her Livestrong band. He said he's had several brief encounters with Lance over the years with his access to the racers through his German television connection. He commented, "Lance has evolved from being a brash, arrogant, typical American to a decent guy."
Roberto is the second person I've met who met Crowe on the day of that team time trial. The other was a former professional racer from Ohio who was trying to follow The Tour by bike, pulling a Bob trailer. We rode most of the fifth stage together, the day after he had shared a pizza with Sheryl, her parents, and Lance's former coach, Jim Ochieweicz, who was a friend of this guy. He, too, did not immediately recognize Crowe, but was also impressed by how nice and down-to-earth she was.
My yellow wrist band has attracted comment as well. When I walked into one of the bars where I watched a stage, a waitress immediately zoomed in on it and ushered me over to a French patron who was wearing one. He heartily greeted me as if we were in the same brotherhood. I occasionally notice them on mechanics assisting racers during a stage. The French rider Moreau also wears one. The Lance era has faded in many respects, and his wristbands aren't anywhere as ubiquitous around The Tour as they were up until last year, but they are still a regular site.
Another indication that Lance is no longer at the forefront of people's thought is that not once this year has someone exclaimed as I rode past ahead of the racers "Lance" or "Armstrong" as I used to frequently hear. Now its mostly "Le Premier" or "Le Maillot Jaune." Some also draw a laugh from those around them when they respond to me with an exclamation of "Bobet" or "Pou-Pou" or "Jalabert," old favorite French riders, though never Anquetil or Hinault, who never really endeared themselves to the public as these others did, even though they were bigger winners.
Cahors is the start of tomorrow's stage. I'm 24 hours ahead of the peloton. It is 130miles to the stage finish in Angouleme, which will also be the stage finish for Saturday's time trial, starting 34 miles away in Chablis. After Saturday the peloton takes a TGV train to within one hundred miles of Paris for the finale. With luck I may be able to accompany Roberto there in the back of a German TV truck and see the peloton on the Champs for the first time.
Later, George
Its no great surprise that he has gone down, as it was his former director sportif Manolo Saiz last year who was deeply implicated in the Spanish Operation Puerto scandal. Saiz was caught on tape visiting the notorious Dr. Fuentes and also arrested with some 30,000 euros in a briefcase entering his office. Four of the nine riders on Vino's Spanish team last year were linked to Fuentes, resulting in the team being ejected from The Tour the day before it began, sending Vino to the sidelines even though he was one of the favorites to win The Race and a popular personality with his aggressive attacking style. Miraculously, Vino wasn't linked to Fuentes, when it was obvious that if the team director was dispensing illegal substances to his racers, he would have been dispensing them to everyone on the team.
Vino has long been a fan and French favorite. His name is written on the roads as much as anyone's, and he animates the racing, so The Tour organizers like having him in The Race. Now he must live in shame the rest of his life, though he is a bigger national hero in Kazakhstan than even Borat. There was no mention of Vinokourov and Astana during the two-and-a-half hours of the telecast I was watching with a mob of Germans in Lycra who were following The Tour with a tour group. The lone German hope, Kloden, was no longer in The Race, ejected along with the entire nine-man Astana team Vinokourov led. The Germans were all rooting for Rasmussen and cheered heartily when he soared away from the two Discovery riders Contador and Leipheimer in the last kilometer.
For the last six miles of the climb to the finish the race had boiled down to the top four riders in the general classification with Contador hoping to put a dent into his two minute deficit to Rasmussen, and Leipheimer hoping to edge past Evans to third place. Evans finally fell off the pace, but he labored most heroically, keeping his deficit to a minimum. He only lost seventeen seconds, plus the twelve second bonus Leipheimer received for finishing second in the stage, maintaining nearly a minute advantage on Leipheimer for that crucial final podium spot. Evans edged Leipheimer in Saturday's time trial, and, in fact, becomes its winner now that Vinokourov has been eliminated, so its not too likely that Leipheimer will be able to overtake him in a similar time trial this Saturday. The final standings most likely will be Rasmussen, Contador, Evans and Leipheimer. Evans will become the first Australian to podium.
I will be curious to see if Roberto, the German Tour fanatic, will still be wearing the Astana cap he was wearing when I met him three days ago. He was rooting for Kloden and also Vino. One of the many other strands of conversation I'll wish to pursue with Roberto when we meet up at Saturday's time trial in front of the big screen is the story behind the several bracelets he had on each of his wrists. He already told me about one, his yellow Livestrong bracelet. Noticing mine, he proudly pointed to his and said it had been on his wrist for three years, ever since Sheryl Crowe removed it from her wrist and presented it to him. It happened on the morning of the team time trial in 2004 that concluded in Amiens. Roberto had been camping in the town park when he noticed a slight woman out for an early morning jog. When she passed by him, he struck up a conversation. She was wearing a hood, so he didn't immediately recognize her, but when he did, she offered him her Livestrong band. He said he's had several brief encounters with Lance over the years with his access to the racers through his German television connection. He commented, "Lance has evolved from being a brash, arrogant, typical American to a decent guy."
Roberto is the second person I've met who met Crowe on the day of that team time trial. The other was a former professional racer from Ohio who was trying to follow The Tour by bike, pulling a Bob trailer. We rode most of the fifth stage together, the day after he had shared a pizza with Sheryl, her parents, and Lance's former coach, Jim Ochieweicz, who was a friend of this guy. He, too, did not immediately recognize Crowe, but was also impressed by how nice and down-to-earth she was.
My yellow wrist band has attracted comment as well. When I walked into one of the bars where I watched a stage, a waitress immediately zoomed in on it and ushered me over to a French patron who was wearing one. He heartily greeted me as if we were in the same brotherhood. I occasionally notice them on mechanics assisting racers during a stage. The French rider Moreau also wears one. The Lance era has faded in many respects, and his wristbands aren't anywhere as ubiquitous around The Tour as they were up until last year, but they are still a regular site.
Another indication that Lance is no longer at the forefront of people's thought is that not once this year has someone exclaimed as I rode past ahead of the racers "Lance" or "Armstrong" as I used to frequently hear. Now its mostly "Le Premier" or "Le Maillot Jaune." Some also draw a laugh from those around them when they respond to me with an exclamation of "Bobet" or "Pou-Pou" or "Jalabert," old favorite French riders, though never Anquetil or Hinault, who never really endeared themselves to the public as these others did, even though they were bigger winners.
Cahors is the start of tomorrow's stage. I'm 24 hours ahead of the peloton. It is 130miles to the stage finish in Angouleme, which will also be the stage finish for Saturday's time trial, starting 34 miles away in Chablis. After Saturday the peloton takes a TGV train to within one hundred miles of Paris for the finale. With luck I may be able to accompany Roberto there in the back of a German TV truck and see the peloton on the Champs for the first time.
Later, George
Monday, July 23, 2007
St. Girons, France
Friends: After Sunday's brilliant, no-holds-barred racing to the summit of the ski resort at Plateau de Beille, I have felt more honored and privileged than ever to be riding the same roads as these stunningly gifted and conditioned and driven athletes. It was amazing to witness the extra, extra, beyond human effort the elite of the peloton was summoning, trading punches as if there was no tomorrow, with one acceleration and attack and acceleration and attack after another, parried and countered, in an offensive display out-dazzling any Fourth of July or Bastille Day fireworks celebration, as the race leaders tested what each was made of and how much they could take. It was a knock-down, drag-out battle for miles, as the racers careened up an incline most people would struggle to walk up. The suspense was riveting--who would prevail, who would break, who could recover after lagging behind to catch their breath. New heroes were born while old heroes cracked.
Rasmussen proved he has the mettle of a champion, first by shocking all with his time trial performance the day before and then responding to the barrage of assaults against him the next day. And the Spanish Discovery rider Contador proved he is a future star. The Aussie Evans dropped from second to third overall, unable to stick with Rasmussen and Contador. Poor Vinokurov faded again, just as the headlines were proclaiming he was back after his remarkable time trial win. The Spanish hopes Valverde and Mayo fizzled even worse than they did in the time trial. Leipheimer stuck in there, but as has been his history, he was a non-aggressor. Still, he moved up to fourth overall, within striking distance of the podium. It was a great day for the Discovery team, with Popovich also being an instigator and moving into the top ten overall. This ought to bring the team a new sponsor, as Discovery is bowing out after this year after three years in the sport, still searching for a replacement.
There are two telling stages to go--another mountaintop finish on Wednesday and the final time trial Saturday. Today I watched the racers fly past just outside the town of Massat on the flats just after they had finished off the category-two Col de Port. The peloton was strung out, still sorting itself out with the field scattered and breakaways trying to form. It was all-out racing. My ears were singed by the heated words flung by riders not happy that someone ahead was not closing down a gap. I was shaking my head at the intensity level, something television can't fully capture, just as it can't come close to conveying the violence of football. You've got to be on the sidelines to appreciate it, as I did for four years as a football manager at Northwestern.
I was standing across the road from the bicycling hostel, Pyrenean Pursuits, I visited two years ago. I had a grand reunion with the English owners, who I've maintained contact with. They'd been telling their guests about me, the bicycle messenger/touring cyclist from Chicago, that very day. I spent an hour watching the race on the television in the hostel after the peloton had passed, chatting with Austin and Sally and a couple of their guests, before heading down the road, promising to return next year for a longer stay with friends who promise to join me bicycling the Pyrenees in June before The Tour. I watched the final ninety minutes of today's racing over two category-one climbs on a large screen in the parking lot of a Champion supermarket, as Contador tested Rasmussen again, while Vinokurov took the win well ahead of the peloton up the road, as the true contenders let him escape since he was no longer a factor in the race having lost a staggering 28 minutes the day before.
I was joined by a German cyclist such as I've been hoping to meet since I began following The Tour four years ago. And he had been looking for someone such as me. We've both been biking The Tour route these years without encountering anyone else doing a similar thing, but hoping to find another. He said he had noticed me a couple of times, including over today's first summit, but we've never ended up at the same place at the same time. He's traveling much lighter than I without a tent, just throwing a sleeping bag down on the ground where he ends up at night. He has befriended a German television station covering The Tour, which occasionally provides him transport between stages and carries some of his extraneous gear. When German television abandoned The Tour several days ago, upset that another German rider failed a drug test, the German truck with his panniers headed home, so he has had to improvise, just lashing a bag on top of his rear rack.
He's following a different route than I will for the next couple of days, but we will meet up at Saturday's time trial. He said it may be possible for the two of us to hitch a ride with the remnants of the German crew covering the race the 250 miles from there to Paris for The Tour's final ceremonial stage concluding on the Champs Elysees. We talked non-stop for a couple of hours until well after today's stage finished, exchanging tricks and stories, and we barely got started. His name is Roberto. His email address,"girobertour", combines his name with The Tour and the Giro (the Italian version of The Tour), adding a "gi" to the front of roberto and "ur" to the back, as if he were born to be following the two of them, something he has been doing for five years.
Another highlight of the day was adding three team water bottles to my collection, including a Discovery bottle and a Quick Step bottle from Tom Boonen's team. Roberto pointed out that the Quick Step bottle had to have come from Boonen, as it had the world champion stripes on it, distinctive to him. He said he had noticed that Boonen was the only rider on the Quick Step team with such a bottle just a couple of days ago when he came upon the Quick Step team bus before the race and the riders were preparing to head to the start line. He had many, many such insider tips. He was a production assistant on the German documentary from 2003 on The Tour--"Hell on Wheels". We both agreed we had found our alter-ego.
Later, George
Rasmussen proved he has the mettle of a champion, first by shocking all with his time trial performance the day before and then responding to the barrage of assaults against him the next day. And the Spanish Discovery rider Contador proved he is a future star. The Aussie Evans dropped from second to third overall, unable to stick with Rasmussen and Contador. Poor Vinokurov faded again, just as the headlines were proclaiming he was back after his remarkable time trial win. The Spanish hopes Valverde and Mayo fizzled even worse than they did in the time trial. Leipheimer stuck in there, but as has been his history, he was a non-aggressor. Still, he moved up to fourth overall, within striking distance of the podium. It was a great day for the Discovery team, with Popovich also being an instigator and moving into the top ten overall. This ought to bring the team a new sponsor, as Discovery is bowing out after this year after three years in the sport, still searching for a replacement.
There are two telling stages to go--another mountaintop finish on Wednesday and the final time trial Saturday. Today I watched the racers fly past just outside the town of Massat on the flats just after they had finished off the category-two Col de Port. The peloton was strung out, still sorting itself out with the field scattered and breakaways trying to form. It was all-out racing. My ears were singed by the heated words flung by riders not happy that someone ahead was not closing down a gap. I was shaking my head at the intensity level, something television can't fully capture, just as it can't come close to conveying the violence of football. You've got to be on the sidelines to appreciate it, as I did for four years as a football manager at Northwestern.
I was standing across the road from the bicycling hostel, Pyrenean Pursuits, I visited two years ago. I had a grand reunion with the English owners, who I've maintained contact with. They'd been telling their guests about me, the bicycle messenger/touring cyclist from Chicago, that very day. I spent an hour watching the race on the television in the hostel after the peloton had passed, chatting with Austin and Sally and a couple of their guests, before heading down the road, promising to return next year for a longer stay with friends who promise to join me bicycling the Pyrenees in June before The Tour. I watched the final ninety minutes of today's racing over two category-one climbs on a large screen in the parking lot of a Champion supermarket, as Contador tested Rasmussen again, while Vinokurov took the win well ahead of the peloton up the road, as the true contenders let him escape since he was no longer a factor in the race having lost a staggering 28 minutes the day before.
I was joined by a German cyclist such as I've been hoping to meet since I began following The Tour four years ago. And he had been looking for someone such as me. We've both been biking The Tour route these years without encountering anyone else doing a similar thing, but hoping to find another. He said he had noticed me a couple of times, including over today's first summit, but we've never ended up at the same place at the same time. He's traveling much lighter than I without a tent, just throwing a sleeping bag down on the ground where he ends up at night. He has befriended a German television station covering The Tour, which occasionally provides him transport between stages and carries some of his extraneous gear. When German television abandoned The Tour several days ago, upset that another German rider failed a drug test, the German truck with his panniers headed home, so he has had to improvise, just lashing a bag on top of his rear rack.
He's following a different route than I will for the next couple of days, but we will meet up at Saturday's time trial. He said it may be possible for the two of us to hitch a ride with the remnants of the German crew covering the race the 250 miles from there to Paris for The Tour's final ceremonial stage concluding on the Champs Elysees. We talked non-stop for a couple of hours until well after today's stage finished, exchanging tricks and stories, and we barely got started. His name is Roberto. His email address,"girobertour", combines his name with The Tour and the Giro (the Italian version of The Tour), adding a "gi" to the front of roberto and "ur" to the back, as if he were born to be following the two of them, something he has been doing for five years.
Another highlight of the day was adding three team water bottles to my collection, including a Discovery bottle and a Quick Step bottle from Tom Boonen's team. Roberto pointed out that the Quick Step bottle had to have come from Boonen, as it had the world champion stripes on it, distinctive to him. He said he had noticed that Boonen was the only rider on the Quick Step team with such a bottle just a couple of days ago when he came upon the Quick Step team bus before the race and the riders were preparing to head to the start line. He had many, many such insider tips. He was a production assistant on the German documentary from 2003 on The Tour--"Hell on Wheels". We both agreed we had found our alter-ego.
Later, George
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Albi, France
Friends: I rejoined The Tour route last night about fifteen miles east of Albi, and I instantly knew it, what with campers parked bumper-to-bumper on both sides of the road, many flying national or team flags and their portable picnic tables already set-up roadside. I knew I was closing in on it, as the campers with The Tour course markers in their windows began passing me an hour earlier, back on the road after the conclusion of the day's stage, all hurrying to find a good place to park for the next stage. The Belgians were happy, as Boonen had won his second stage of The Tour, padding his hold on the Green Jersey. I was ready to camp at any moment, as it had been a most grueling day of multiple two to five mile seven per cent climbs on the southern fringe of the Cevennes, Craig country. I would have long ago been a puddle along the road if it hadn't been a miraculously cool, overcast day, the first sunless day since leaving England.
After a series of sweltering days of ninety degree riding, sixty degree temps were a most unexpected gift. It had been an exhausting three-day dash from Briançon to Albi, but with a 34-mile time trial (contre-le-montre) on tap, a loop starting and finishing in Albi, I had a day of relative rest ahead, at least until the evening when I'd head south 37 miles to the next day's start, beginning a three-day foray into the Pyrenees. I continued on to within ten miles of Albi before pausing to camp. I could have slipped in between any of the campers and set up my tent in the fields behind them, but I preferred some peace and privacy for a good night's sleep, so went down a side road a quarter of a mile until I came upon a field with huge rolls of hay, large enough to hide my tent, that always call out to me when I see them. I wasn't settled in even five minutes when a car swung off the road to join me. It drove up right alongside my tent. The driver had a question for me. He pointed at the roll of hay my bike was leaning against and asked if I smoked. I was posed the same question once in a sugar cane field in Brazil by someone likewise concerned that I might be a fire hazard. My negative reply both times earned me my camping privileges.
I quickly finished off the ravioli and couscous I had started at the summit of my last prolonged climb, five-and-a-half strenuous miles out of St. Sermin-sur-Rance, where I watched Boonen nip the ageless German Zabel at the line. I was more tired than hungry when I collapsed into my tent, but I forced myself to eat, then turned in before dark for the first time in days. I was in for a solid night's sleep. I was hoping Leipheimer would sleep as well on the eve of potentially the biggest day of his career. He, along with five or six of the remaining 167 riders in the race, would be going to bed with a realistic chance of taking the yellow jersey the next day. He would join LeMond, Lance, Landis, Hincapie and Zabriskie as the sixth American to achieve it. The stakes were huge. If he delivers the ride of his life his face will be plastered on the front page of "The New York Times" and "USA Today" and papers all over the world, and he knows it. It had me nervous and anxious myself.
I would have loved to have slept late and lingered in my tent, but with the caravan setting out at 8:50 and the first racer a little after ten, I knew the gendarmes would be eager to close down the course early this morning, so I was back on the bike at 7:45, cringing whenever I saw a gendarme ahead, fearing he would step out into the road with arms crossed or his arm out-stretched with a finger pointing at the side of the road wearing a stern expression on his face. I made it to within two-and-a-half miles of the finish before I was stopped. I agreed to continue walking along with the pedestrians filing in. After I'd gone a couple of blocks and was out of his vision I remounted and made it all the way to the 250 meters to go sign, passing dozens of tolerant, unfazed gendarmes.
The arbitrariness of the gendarmes can be infuriating. The most absurd abuse of a gendarme's authority this year, other than in England, occurred on stage four, miles from any town, 90 minutes before the caravan was due and three hours before the racers. It was as if the cop was lonely and wanted some company. I wasted no time protesting, quickly dismounting and agreeing to continue on foot, wagging my fore and middle finger at him, imitating a pedestrian, as gendarmes have done to me. I warned him that he should be ready for a group of twenty cyclists at any moment. I was hoping they'd arrive while I was still in his range, as I was eager to see if he could corral them.
They were part of an Australian-led group (Cycle Style) I had ridden with for a few miles until they stopped for a group piss. I was in no need at the time, so chose to continue gliding along at a more leisurely pace until they caught back up to me and I could rejoin their pace line. When they first passed me I was all set to speed up a bit and fall in behind the first two that passed me with bonjours until two more passed and two more and two more, some greeting me with a g'day, until ten pairs had gone by. With my speed upped from 14 mph to 18 just like that thanks to such a nice big drafting machine, I thought I was fully assured of making it 61 miles down the road to the peloton's feed zone, as was their destination.
I hadn't gone more than ten steps when they came roaring past the overwhelmed gendarme. I leapt aboard my bike and caught back up to them. All was fine until we came to a significant hill. Then the group splintered like a broken vase. I was among those off the back, settling into a pace with a 50-year old lawyer from Bermuda who wasn't much of a climber, what with the highest point on his 21-mile long island just 300 feet high. With a population of 36,000 it has yet to produce a Tour de France rider and has had only one Olympic medal winner, a bronze in boxing in 1968. After a few minutes we were all by ourselves. A few miles later we were stopped by a cop, three miles from our destination. I quickly told him we were part of the larger group that had passed and only had five kilometers to go. He kindly relented, telling us just to hurry.
After we resumed I remembered that I was accompanied by a lawyer and I should have let him handle the arbitration. He said that was okay. A couple years ago he'd had an altercation with French police in Paris that ended up with him being detained. He hadn't followed the protocol for the Paris subway and didn't have his passport with him and was hauled off to the police station.
As we approached the feed zone, a tour leader awaited my companion along the road, directing him to the group's gathering spot. I had made such good time and expended less energy than I expected, I didn't really need to stop to eat or rest, so risked pushing on. I was stopped a couple more times by gendarmes in populated areas, but once I got out into the long rural stretches with few side roads and gendarmes I was able to push on an extra 17 miles before gendarmes on motorcycles warned me the caravan was imminent, less than five minutes way. It was a record extra 34 miles for me after the first time I was ordered to stop riding. That will be a hard one to beat.
Later, George
After a series of sweltering days of ninety degree riding, sixty degree temps were a most unexpected gift. It had been an exhausting three-day dash from Briançon to Albi, but with a 34-mile time trial (contre-le-montre) on tap, a loop starting and finishing in Albi, I had a day of relative rest ahead, at least until the evening when I'd head south 37 miles to the next day's start, beginning a three-day foray into the Pyrenees. I continued on to within ten miles of Albi before pausing to camp. I could have slipped in between any of the campers and set up my tent in the fields behind them, but I preferred some peace and privacy for a good night's sleep, so went down a side road a quarter of a mile until I came upon a field with huge rolls of hay, large enough to hide my tent, that always call out to me when I see them. I wasn't settled in even five minutes when a car swung off the road to join me. It drove up right alongside my tent. The driver had a question for me. He pointed at the roll of hay my bike was leaning against and asked if I smoked. I was posed the same question once in a sugar cane field in Brazil by someone likewise concerned that I might be a fire hazard. My negative reply both times earned me my camping privileges.
I quickly finished off the ravioli and couscous I had started at the summit of my last prolonged climb, five-and-a-half strenuous miles out of St. Sermin-sur-Rance, where I watched Boonen nip the ageless German Zabel at the line. I was more tired than hungry when I collapsed into my tent, but I forced myself to eat, then turned in before dark for the first time in days. I was in for a solid night's sleep. I was hoping Leipheimer would sleep as well on the eve of potentially the biggest day of his career. He, along with five or six of the remaining 167 riders in the race, would be going to bed with a realistic chance of taking the yellow jersey the next day. He would join LeMond, Lance, Landis, Hincapie and Zabriskie as the sixth American to achieve it. The stakes were huge. If he delivers the ride of his life his face will be plastered on the front page of "The New York Times" and "USA Today" and papers all over the world, and he knows it. It had me nervous and anxious myself.
I would have loved to have slept late and lingered in my tent, but with the caravan setting out at 8:50 and the first racer a little after ten, I knew the gendarmes would be eager to close down the course early this morning, so I was back on the bike at 7:45, cringing whenever I saw a gendarme ahead, fearing he would step out into the road with arms crossed or his arm out-stretched with a finger pointing at the side of the road wearing a stern expression on his face. I made it to within two-and-a-half miles of the finish before I was stopped. I agreed to continue walking along with the pedestrians filing in. After I'd gone a couple of blocks and was out of his vision I remounted and made it all the way to the 250 meters to go sign, passing dozens of tolerant, unfazed gendarmes.
The arbitrariness of the gendarmes can be infuriating. The most absurd abuse of a gendarme's authority this year, other than in England, occurred on stage four, miles from any town, 90 minutes before the caravan was due and three hours before the racers. It was as if the cop was lonely and wanted some company. I wasted no time protesting, quickly dismounting and agreeing to continue on foot, wagging my fore and middle finger at him, imitating a pedestrian, as gendarmes have done to me. I warned him that he should be ready for a group of twenty cyclists at any moment. I was hoping they'd arrive while I was still in his range, as I was eager to see if he could corral them.
They were part of an Australian-led group (Cycle Style) I had ridden with for a few miles until they stopped for a group piss. I was in no need at the time, so chose to continue gliding along at a more leisurely pace until they caught back up to me and I could rejoin their pace line. When they first passed me I was all set to speed up a bit and fall in behind the first two that passed me with bonjours until two more passed and two more and two more, some greeting me with a g'day, until ten pairs had gone by. With my speed upped from 14 mph to 18 just like that thanks to such a nice big drafting machine, I thought I was fully assured of making it 61 miles down the road to the peloton's feed zone, as was their destination.
I hadn't gone more than ten steps when they came roaring past the overwhelmed gendarme. I leapt aboard my bike and caught back up to them. All was fine until we came to a significant hill. Then the group splintered like a broken vase. I was among those off the back, settling into a pace with a 50-year old lawyer from Bermuda who wasn't much of a climber, what with the highest point on his 21-mile long island just 300 feet high. With a population of 36,000 it has yet to produce a Tour de France rider and has had only one Olympic medal winner, a bronze in boxing in 1968. After a few minutes we were all by ourselves. A few miles later we were stopped by a cop, three miles from our destination. I quickly told him we were part of the larger group that had passed and only had five kilometers to go. He kindly relented, telling us just to hurry.
After we resumed I remembered that I was accompanied by a lawyer and I should have let him handle the arbitration. He said that was okay. A couple years ago he'd had an altercation with French police in Paris that ended up with him being detained. He hadn't followed the protocol for the Paris subway and didn't have his passport with him and was hauled off to the police station.
As we approached the feed zone, a tour leader awaited my companion along the road, directing him to the group's gathering spot. I had made such good time and expended less energy than I expected, I didn't really need to stop to eat or rest, so risked pushing on. I was stopped a couple more times by gendarmes in populated areas, but once I got out into the long rural stretches with few side roads and gendarmes I was able to push on an extra 17 miles before gendarmes on motorcycles warned me the caravan was imminent, less than five minutes way. It was a record extra 34 miles for me after the first time I was ordered to stop riding. That will be a hard one to beat.
Later, George
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