Those wacky Euros

Just a few fun photos:

the "American Soft-Car Wash" in Deinze, Belgium. You should have seen the cars lined up to get in.


France's version of the family Truckster. Talk about getting the groceries in STYLE! If your kids are anything like mine, they might never ask you to take them anywhere if this was the only set of wheels. I don't think the photo can convey the true awesomeness that is the Citroen DS. From the front it looks about 25 feet long. This is the car that defines "land yacht".


Check the fins and tail-lights, not to mention the big white wheels with chrome hub caps.
Au Revoir!

From one big ride to the other

Did you ever see "Breaking Away"?

That's me in the Cinzano hat, with a smiling Cutter on either side. Ragbrai is strange like that.

Rotterdam to Paris.

Sioux City to Dubuque.

Arguably two of the largest and best known rides in the world.

Both draw an international field of riders.

Both feature multiple stages, and a different course every year.

Both have organized teams, and posh team busses.

One has a spotty jersey, one has somewhat spotty jersey wearing (and kilts, and banana suits, wigs, tattoos, leisure suits, Elvis suits...and Team Muh-ven)

Muh-ven rode Ragbrai from Wednesday through Saturday, gaining both speed and riders as we progressed.

We camped here on Wednesday night, if you look very closely you can see my tent in the background - beside the pickup. Posh digs. At least we were able to mooch a shower.

We rolled in about the same time that every day's tour stage gets done, roughly 5:30. Our soigneur had camp all set up, and the beer on ice. We had a bevvie and

some crackers, then went out to look for supper. The church we picked was running out of food, and we were the

last diners through the door. Since supplies were running low, the kindly pastor gave us the bargain basement price of $3 for big slices of ham, buns, a heap of green beans with bacon, and all the brownies and ice cream we wanted. pretty good for the price.

At RAGBRAI, most teams don't have domestiques to carry water to the leaders. In fact, the leaders may not even want water because they're leading. That means they have already made it to the first bar on the right, unless it is on the left. (an old ragbrai joke)
Eating is a little different.
Here's Bordeaux:
And here's Rockville:
I liked them both, but it was nice to eat at a table where your neighbors were speaking the same language.

more later, there is plenty

Au Bientot!

Hautes Pyrenees

Le Tour is back in the high mountains, now we have moved from the Alps to the Pyrenees. John and I had a chance to squeeze in a ride, and what better ride to do than a climb to the top of the Col du Tourmalet? Though you can just see the top of the Tourmalet from where we are staying, we're still working and need to check in daily with the teams when possible. Hence, we did not have time to ride the 55km from here to the top. We decided to drive partway, then hop out and ride. On the drive, we went past riders who did have the time to ride from further away, and as we went there were more and more of them. By the time we started riding, there was constant bike traffic.

Above is the view from La Mongie, 3km from the top.

about 15km into the ride we were definitely climbing, and the valley opened up enough to see the top of the Tourmalet.

There are little towns along the road at the lower part, where there is still enough surrounding flat land to hold an entire town. I don't know why, but in this town someone was very excited to see me.
Here's the view to the top from very early on in the ride. At this point I just assumed that the one with the towers on top was the right mountain.
Up at La Mongie the scenery was this. There were thousands of people too, but I liked the rocks better.

We got to a spot where there was a little break in the crowd, just enough to stand right on the roadside. Now we just had to wait. The caravan came through, and John and I got some swag - spotty hats, water, and a pack St Michel madeleines"le Madeleine officiel au Le Tour de France" (some sponge cakes). Here is me and my hat:

We waited and waited, and got in a little nap. And then waited. Eventually we saw the helicopters and everyone jumped up and got excited.
It was a tease though, the helicopters were just getting long shots for scenery I guess.
Finally, the real race came through - a small break. Lance was in it! Pretty cool, especially because they had a BIG gap. The break would stay away all day, and the stage would have the fastest time ever for that route through the Pyrenees.
I got a photo of Chris Horner:



Here is what happens when sprinters have to climb. Bernie Eisel towed Mark Cavendish up the Tourmalet. They did manage to catch on on the descent, but they were well back here. Eisel saved his bacon. They were the very last riders to come through.

When the road was clear(er) we climbed the rest of the way to the top.

And posed for the photographers.

they'll be climbing up this side on Thursday. It looks even worse than the side we came up. (as I write this, it is an hour to the start, and still raining)

Good luck lads, you may need it on the descents today.
Bon Courage!

what it is not doing today

the sun did not shine all that wet, wet, wet day.
so, here is one from a few days ago.
The so-called "queen" stage is today, from Pau to a mountaintop finish on the Tourmalet. The climbs are rated on a category scale: 5 to 1. one is harder than five, and some climbs are HC - haute category, beyond classification. As Mr T said in that Rocky movie "I predict PAIN!"
The first climb is Renoir, a softy at category 4. It is only 3 times longer than the climb up the High bridge on Smith avenue. It must be named Renoir after the soft, fuzzy paintings, an impressionist climb.
Next is Col de Marie-Blanque, a category 1, 1035 meters of climbing, and steep. Another cat 1, the col du Soulor is almost 1500 meters high. The stage finishes by climbing to the top of the Col du Tourmalet. It comes up the other side from the way the race went on Tuesday. We looked down that side from the top, and crikey! It looks like a hard one. Tres steep.

Plus, I am looking out the window right now. There is a pretty good rain, and it is a chilly day. You could certainly pay me to go out and ride some mountains in this weather, but I am not sure how much I would enjoy my job.

Speaking of jobs, I am here working, and it has been a long three weeks. Sometimes I feel like this:(actual photo of me, doing my best Renoir imitation)
Au Revoir!

spectating

not a whole lot to tell here. Town: Toulouse. My least favorite French city to date. The center is OK, but it deteriorates quickly as you get out into the gritty part.
We got out to see the race, a flat stage. Shot a photo from a ways away across a field.


John got his third flat. The sunflowers are nice.

Rode on the flats for a while. Really pounding on the tailwind section, it was a windy day. I don' t have a computer, John says we were going 26-27 for about 15 miles. Until the Gendarmes got in the way and would not let us go any further. there was some big race coming through, and the road we were on was the course. It is starting to get tiresome running into Le Tour. Every time we want to ride or drive somewhere, there it is. Gendarmes, race caravans, thousands of spectators, helicopters...

We turned onto a promising looking side road, and after several miles, it dumped us back about 1/2 mile from where we started. We ended up on a different road. Then it was not really a road anymore. Not even dirt, it was just tractor tracks in the grass. Good practice for Chequamegon.


Stay tuned for the Tourmalet!
Bon Journee!

Best apricots ever

At least Gap is in the apricot belt. We stopped a a roadside fruit stand on the way there and got apricots and cherries. I have never had a tree ripe apricot. If you have the means, I highly recommend them.
We have been waiting on some rims from home, we didn't bring enough of the right kind. They have been chasing us from across the country from one hotel to the next. Fed Ex France just can't seem to get them to us. They arrived 2 days late for starters. By that time we had moved on, and now they seem to be perpetually 2 days behind.
The lads are staying upright for the most part, so we spend a lot of our time driving and waiting on rims. In Satilleau, we waited for a while on Fed Ex, and decided that if they had not shown by 11AM we would go for a ride and hope the rims would be there when we got back.
The ride was like all the others we have done - GREAT.
Though the drive from Gap to Satilleau is a flat, boring, crowded drive on the A6 and A7, Satilleau is very hilly, and very nice to ride.
The road above is about 4 minutes out of town. The truck route is on the left. Ha Ha.

Here is John, sporting a Mapleag jersey, climbing past a farm.


We had been riding for 30 minutes or so when my phone rang. It was Anne, calling to say that the rims would not show up that day. I happened to stop next to a pasture, and there happened to be some cows there. This being France, they of course had cowbells on. They were also very twitchy because there were a lot of flies around. Halfway through our conversation, Anne says "it sounds like there are cowbells in the background - what is that?". Well, we are at Le Tour after all.

Eventaually, the road turned to gravel, and it was getting on 1 oclock, so we turned around. But first I asked John to get a glamour shot of me:
Our hotel that night was in Chaudes Auiges. It is a small town in a deep valley, and has hot springs. The town was crowded with people taking the cure. I got the impression - from standing in line behind people at our hotel, that the national health service will pay for your hot springs treatment if your doctor prescribes it. There was a lot of official paperwork being shuffled around, and lots of stamping and signing.

Chaudes Auiges was tres quaint. Steep windy streets, ancient looking slate roofed homes, and the most amazing backyard garden I have ever seen. John and I were out strolling around after dinner and I peeked over a wall into this:


the photo does not do it justice. It was a small garden, maybe 20x40 feet and chock full of garden gnomes, other statuary, bridges, signs, and handmade furniture. Literally wall to wall.
TRES GNOMES!

Here is a representative photo of one of the buildings. Slate roof, stone construction, maximum quaintness. The garden shed is up top and the house part is below. The whole town was crawling with old buildings. Not falling down mind you, just old and lived in. There were also saints in town, in their own little second story cases. Maybe this one is the patron saint of happy hour. I waited for the neon lights under him to come on, because I thought it would make a better photo, but the bar closed while it was still light out. It looked like a slow night.

Speaking of saints, we drove past a town named after our Blessed Saint Flour. Lord love him, or her. I don't know if croissants and pain chocolate would even be edible without his (or her) divine intervention.

I almost forgot, it looked like there was quite a rock show coming to Aix-les-bains. Mika, Paul Weller (formerly of The Jam), even ZZ Top. We couldn't stay, but we did get a chance to hear the Gypsy Kings. They were either practicing their entire show, or doing a very long sound check in the the beautiful city park just down the block. Even better live than in recordings.


Au Bientot!

south toward Italy

Now that is what I call a team bus.


Mika and Paul Weller (formerly of The Jam)... and ZZ Top, were playing a a music festival in Aix-les-Bains. No time to stay and rock out. We did get to see the Gypsy Kings though. They were doing an extended sound check, or practicing at full volume in the city park. or both. Very nice park, excellent band.

We left Aix-les-Bains, but not the mountains. It was a not a terrible drive to the next finish line in Gap. We checked in with the teams, and only one wheel had been whacked. That was the easy part. The hard part was getting from Gap to our hotel. I had booked the closest thing that Hotels.com could find. It sounded nice, a ski area 40km (thats 25 miles in american) from Gap. After 20km though, Jill told us where to turn, but the road was closed. We continued on and Jill sent us up another road. It was tiny, and twisty, and very bumpy. I expected to encounter the Clampettes (you remember them, right? Granny, Jethreau, Elle, Jean Pierre) at any turn. Compounding matters, you may remember that Jill is not completely up to date. She did not know the location of the hotel, so we entered in a gas station in town. Well, she did not know where the hotel was because it was brand new. I think we were the first people to stay in the room, so and it was spacious, and clean so we couldn't complain. To get there, we just kept driving up the mountain. Eventually the road ended and we found the place.

There was time for a ride before the local (and only) restaurant closed. It happened to be Bastille day, so though there were a few other shops at the mountain top, they were all closed.
John managed a smile as we went up a hill.

Leaving the high mountains

After the rest day, a nice ride, laundry, and a ginourmous dinner, we left the high Alps for the old resort city of Aix Les Bains. It is an old resort because somewhere in the city, there are hot springs. We did not find them. Also there is a big casino here. We found that because we stayed right across the street. The photo above is from our 3rd floor balcony at the Savoy.



It was an old family run hotel and just like in books and movies (and TV) the family lives at the hotel with everybody else. When we came back downstairs after dropping off the suitcases, there was Dad, ironing in the dining room (petit dejuener was finished, so the family could have their multipurpose room back). I thought I might like it when we walked in and saw a bike and scooter leaning against the wall by the back door.
The Savoy has seen better days, but our room was large and clean, with the aforementioned balcony, and we those 12 foot ceilings that always seem to be in these places. Worn carpeting didn't detract from it at all.

We owed team HTC Columbia a wheel, so we plugged the address of the team hotel into the GPS, and Jill lead us to a Chateau.
Really.
With their own vineyard.

I don't know whether the teams book their own places or whether the Tour organization does it for them, but the lads were swanking it up. Perfect digs for another day where Cavendish won.
I built a wheel and then we strolled around the grounds:
the lads were still racing, and Jan and Gary (the team mechanics that we know best) practically forced us to go swimming. It felt really good, we saw a thermometer on the way back to our place and it read 38 degrees ( that is pushing 100 in American).

In case you think I am making this up, here are a couple of the Team cars parked around back, were we were working with the team mechanics.
Building the wheel didn't take long, and we had the rest of the late afternoon, so we went for a walk around town before looking for supper. If you have ever been on RAGBRAI with me, then you have stopped into The Office for a refreshing buck-you-uppo. There are more than one bar in small town Iowa named "The Office", as in "hi honey, I'm at the office, and I won't be able to make it home for a little while".
En Francais, "office" is "bureau", and as we strolled the street of Aix-les-Bains, what did I spy across the way but this:


Bon Soir mon cherie, je suis au Bureau. Je nes allez pas pour deux heures. ( i think I got that fairly right, with my limited Francais)

Au Bientot!

Rest Day!

Monday was a rest day for the riders, but we still had to work. Since we had not been able to get to the Sky team on Sunday to rebuild some wheels, we did it on Monday instead.
The teams stayed put in the same place, and so did we. We woke up at Le Castellan, had breakfast, and then away to the Europcar for a drive back to the mountaintop. It was only 40km, but in the mountains that takes a while - what with hills, switchbacks, campers, cyclists...
and SKIERS?. this guy was skiing UP the last hill, the steep curvy one from the day before:

We got to the top and did what we came for. Here is John, manning the truing stand, whilst I manned the camera. (my wheel was already done, John was just finishing up dishing)
Work done, we left to try and get in some R & R ourselves. We drove back and went for a ride - down through the valley and up the mountain at the other end. Here is the view from about halfway up. John and I agree that that must be the Matterhorn in the distance.


The scenery is spectacular, and the architecture is pretty good too. We stopped more than once to take photos in the towns we passed through. Here is the movie theatre:

and a hotel, not really out of the ordinary but the flowers were in full bloom:


And a restaurant:

After the ride, we were hungry, but wary of ordering too much food. The 19 euro meal from the previous night had been a doozy. We scaled back to a single entree each instead of the full salad, meat, cheese plat, and dessert of before. Good thing we had climbed an entire mountain, because the smaller meals also had huge servings. Between our two meals we had salads, meat (one each), two different sauces (one for each entree), and a mere 6 side dishes (3 each meal - and they were BIG dishes)

In case you have not gotten the full Alpine effect, here is a photo of the dining room at Le Castellan.
stuffed animals, real animal heads, old photos, decorative plates, folk art, kitsh art, exposed wood... all in abundance. the proprietors had a particular thing for kitties. The upstairs hallways were hung with completed, framed puzzles... mostly kitties, and a few puppies.


Another mountain sunset, and then a long drive to Aix les Bains tomorrow.

Bon Voyage!