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Tour de France Stage 1, 2 July 2011 Excellent day at the Tour de France! We left our apartment around 8:45am for the walk to the Europcar office at Gare Montparnasse. No troubles getting our car--we were on the road before 9:30am as called for on the day's timetable. Peripherique (exterior) to A6 to A10 past Chartres and Le Mans to A87 past Angers and Cholet to exit 29 for Les Herbiers a bit after 1pm. We parked at a small roundabout just a CO2 cartridge's throw from the race route and the "3km to go" banner. We walked alongside the course past the "2.2km climb to summit" mark, the "2km to go" banner, and the "1km to go" "red kite" to the finish area. We scoped out the media "city" and the team buses, which arrived just as we did (and in advance of the riders, of course). Along the way, we did a bit of eating and a bit of t-shirt shopping, stopping to chat with 3 guys from the town of Les Herbiers (population 15,500). We used their camera to get a picture of them, they then returned the favor. While hardly a true mountain finish, there were several hundred meters of climbing. That turned out to be a good thing--more on that later. After summiting ourselves on foot, we started back down the opposite side of the course looking for a good spot from which to spectate. The last 2.5km or so of the route was barricaded on both sides, so there was no crossing the road. The side we were on was the lesser trafficked of the two based on access at the bottom. Finding a 2-person gap at about the 900m to go point, we nudged our way in (in true French fashion) and carved out a 3-person viewing area. The clock showed about 1 hour until the caravan was expected to arrive, 2 hours before the riders would come through. The weather was sunny and warm, but breezy and not hot. The time passed quickly, with the occasional motorcyle, team car, and press vehicle climbing the otherwise empty road. The caravan came through a bit after its scheduled time (the Tour of Deutschland would no doubt have been punctual to the minute, whereas Giro d'Italia spectators are pleased if events transfer in the same calendar month as laid out in the program). The caravan, for the uninitiated, is much like the August parade in Provincetown, but with fewer gay people. As such, it's not as festive, but it certainly entertained us until it was time for the main course. Each of a number of sponsors had anywhere from 1 to 5 vehicle-float hybrids with several tossing out trinkets of one sort or another. Our haul ended up including, in no particular order, a polka-dot cycling cap (cool), a packet of laundry detergent (lame), a thin foam "#1" finger (lame), several packs of Haribo gummy candy (cool), two water bottles (handed, not thrown, and definitely cool), a hotel-branded skull cap sort of thing (lame), and probably something I'm forgetting. The caravan cleared out, a bit of time passed, and then the helicopters came into view, their arrival heralding the immediate arrival of the riders. (On the drive back to Paris, we listened to Billy Joel's Greatest Hits, which includes the Vietnam War-inspired "Goodnight Saigon" and its lyrics "..., they heard the hum of the motors, they counted the rotors, and waited for us to arrive, ..." Our experience was like that, but with less napalm.) A lead car and motorcycle or two whizzed by, then the lead pack headed by an Astana rider (probably Alexandre Vinokourov of some former Eastern Bloc country that I currently can't recall) blurred their way past. A smaller group went by a few seconds later, then a bigger time gap, then the main field, then stragglers including one whose kit was in tatters exposing a fair bit of road rash. Less than five minutes later and the racing was done. Because of the grade and the fact that the riders were at the end of a long first day in the saddle and about 1.6km up the climb, I was able to get some good photos and video of the riders. Belgium/Omega Pharma Lotto's Phillipe Gerard ended up winning the stage by 3 seconds over Australia/BMC's Cadel Evans, who in turn led by another 3 seconds a large bunch including USA/Radio Shack's Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner (respecively, an emphatic 2nd and 1st in this year's Tour of California) along with the Luxembourg/Leopard Trek Schleck brothers, Switzerland/Leopard Trek's Fabian Cancellara (nickname: Spartacus--this guy most definitely does NOT have a problem getting a date), and France/Team Europcar's Thomas Voeckler. (We later learned that a crash just inside the 10km mark split the field, with pre-race favorite Alberto Contador finding himself on the wrong side of that split and down 1:20 to the leaders.) Despite the crowds (1-2 deep and shoulder to shoulder on both sides of the final 3km for what must have been closer to 10,000 than 5,000 spectators), we were able to walk quickly back down the course, taking a detour through the archetypal village center before heading back to the car. Seeing a sign for the local Hyper U (and you thought the Super U grocery store was big!), we made a diversion to pick up some food and drink for the drive back. But, closed! Sorry, but you can't put "Hyper" anything in your name if you're going to be closed before 7pm on a Saturday. Fortunately, a small cafeteria-style restaurant stood just a few doors down, so we resupplied with food and beverages, walked back to the car, and breezed out of town with no traffic to speak of. The drive back to Paris was uneventful save for when the fuel indicator went from 2 bars (of 6) to 1 flashing and then rapidly flashing bar in what seemed an inordinantly short stretch of kilometers. The rest area came into sight in what may have been the nick of time, though, and we were good to go. We faux-navigated our way off the Peripherique (interior!), eventually finding the tall skyscraper near Gare Montparnasse that my Wednesday night cycling tour guide said was called by at least one wag, "the Eiffel Tower's gift box." I then dropped the boys at the apartment, drove back to the (correct) Europcar garage, parked the car, and hunted for the key return box. I found a sign on the Europcar office indicating that the drop box was to my left, but no drop box. At least, none emblazoned with TdF-sponsor Europcar green. Several times, I walked past what looked like a cross between an old floor safe and an unspecified piece of equipment from a WWII era submarine. Eventually, I spotted a small hole on the top rear that required me to reach around a garage pipe or two to access. The key rattled down a chute of some sort, I exited the garage, strolled back to the apartment (what's that, two Smirnoff Ices at a market just around the corner?), and joined the boys in finishing our packing. |