If I was lucky, here is the view that I would see for the entire tour - the backside of everybody else. More likely I would see it for about 4 minutes, after which it would rapidly disappear into the distance.
Yesterday's stage (Tuesday really, I have been having trouble with the interrnet.) was another sprinter type, from Cambrai to Reims. We had already gotten an idea of what we were here for the night before, at the team hotel. The lads are keeping upright and staying out of enormous potholes for the most part, so while there is a lot of driving (about 400km yesterday) there is not a lot of need for bakery fresh wheels. Personally I would rather be building wheels than driving around a foreign land - even with the aid of GPS (more on that later). Riding shotgun through France must be even more boring, lucky John is a great travel companion.
Jill, the American voice on the GPS has treated us pretty well, with only a couple exceptions. She is not completely up to date on every road project here, so a couple of times we have followed her advice only to end up going the wrong direction. Last night we were tooling along and Jill directed us into a new development - that she did not know was even there. The GPS machine showed us driving cross country, instead of on the road. Fortunately it was easy to turn around. Another funny quirk is that when we get into a city the roads are often very narrow. and we end up going very slow. The ever solicitous Jill will then check to make sure we don't want to switch to pedestrian mode. Good one Jill.
So anyways, yesterday AM we pile into the good old Eurocar to light out for the race, but we are low on cash. John advises that we go to the train station - it is close by and they always have a cash machine there. As per usual, I think I have a better idea. Lets head into the town center... they'll have a bank there and we can see some of town. Boy did we! it was market day and we drove into a major traffic jam . It took about 15 minutes to cover a mile. Jill asked if we wanted to switch to pedestrian mode.
We got into Reims, and walked to the course to see the finish. Finish time was not for two hours but it gave us a chance to see the entire publicity caravan. There were tons of floats, hat giveaways, cars motorcycles, team cars, team busses, officials cars... two hours worth.
We saw the big yellow rider (top phot0)
and the French equivalent to Shriners, swerving all over:
and the big duck:
and the makers of the really good gummy candy, Haribo:
And plenty of print, TV, radio sponsors. If Moses were around, I am sure that he would be the official tablet sponsor:
Eventually, the race came along. I was all excited, and had the camera all set on multiple shot so I could get some great photos... and I got three great photos of everybody else getting ready to get a great photo. if you look really closely right next to the 350 to go sign, and under the U in Carrefour, you can see the lead rider:
I did manage to get an OK photo of the second group.
After the race we stopped in to see the cathedral at Reims. It is very impressive, I think I have seen in on travelogues on PBS. My photo skills are in plain evidence here:
We stopped for a really good pizza at 9:45, the sun was still up, and got to the hotel about 10:30.The next morning I snapped a picture of our cool wheels - not in front of our hotel.
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