I have been to the mountaintop

These here are the real Alps.

Today was the first “real” mountain stage, ending at Morzine-Avoriaz with a Category one, cat three, and another category one mountaintop finish. Karsten from Sky called in the morning, and they needed a wheelset rebuilt. We looked up the address for the team hotel - Club Med in Avoriaz. After typing in the address, Jill, John and I hopped in the Eurocar and away we went. Even though we had not asked her to, Jill kindly took us right onto the race course after about 1 hour. We started seeing a few families at the side of the road, setting up tables, shade, and picnics in anticipation. VERY EXCITING! Thanks, Jill. I didn’t know how long we would be on the course, so I asked John to take some photos of the fans. I won’t bore you with the first ones. We kept going and going, and the crowds got thicker and thicker.

pretty soon, the view up the road was this.

Here is the 25K to go banner. Almost there lads! just a couple of leg breaking mountains left to go.

We went through a couple of traffic stops, and thought we had talked our way past the Gendarmes. (we hadn't really) The road zig-zagged up the mountain. We rounded a corner into a town of about 20 buildings. You could not see it from even one switchback away:

It smelled like goats too. there were at least 50 of them roaming the town. In the roads, eating from customers at the cafe, posing for photos...
We rounded the next corner and more Gendarmes steered us into the grassy parking a large ski area. There were four different lifts that went up the mountains all around. We weren’t sure what to do next, Jill wanted us to keep going up the road, but the Gendarmes had other ideas, and I was out of charm. Clearly we were near the finish. I have read about the terrible traffic jams coming down off the mountaintop finishes, and it was still about 40km to our hotel (or about 5 if we went straight over the mountain and down the other side). I convinced John that maybe it was not a bad idea to go back down, go to the hotel, and either ride back, or watch on TV. We still had about 4 ½ hours to the finish.
But, since the Gendarmes were packing heat, we decided to stay put. That’s how we ended up standing at 95 meters to go until the summit finish. There is actually quite a town on the mountain top, with hundreds of hotel rooms at several resorts, restaurants, bars, grocery stores, jewelry stores, time share stores… and the race.
We got some lunch, and watched the race in a bar until it got closer, then we found the best spot left, at 95 meters to go:

Once again, I tried to take some pictures. This time I needed high heels – or longer arms to get over the crowd. Look carefully for the wheel of a rider on the left side of the photo.
After the finish, we rode back down the mountain (the back way, not on the course) and waited 1 ½ hours to leave the lot. We got to Le Castellan just before sunset, and had a huge dinner. Bread, salad, steack, 2 kinds of potatoes, creamed spinach, rice, cheesy pasta, cheese course, and glace for dessert. It was a more than we planned on. The hotel was interesting, in a good way. More tomorrow from rest day one.


Bon Courage!

Les Alpes

The day after our Paris adventure, we got up early and had a hearty (not) hotel Balladins breakfast. Remember, this was the tiny, hot hotel on a dead end in the middle of nowhere good.
We had promised the Columbia team that we would do them a favor and drive back to Service Course to get some supplies. So, the day consisted of an 1100km drive. End of story – almost. We did the drive, and got to the team hotel about 8pm and delivered the goods. Did some work on wheels, and then we were invited to eat dinner with the team staff. Pretty cool! Dinner was good, and I got to know the team mechanics a little better (John already knows them, he has been over here before). About halfway through dinner, the lads showed up. It so happened that Mark Cavendish had finally won a stage that day, so everyone was in very good spirits. There were toasts to Cav and his teammates, and everyone had a good time.

We packed up and managed to make it to our hotel about 11:15. Long day.
The next day, the race headed to the Alps, and we headed there too. We stopped at a rest area, and it was very pretty. We were not the only ones to think so, this family apparently has had a rest area picnic or two before.

We though these were the Alps. Not quite. At the other end of that bridge are 3 long tunnels. When you come out of the last one, then you are in the Alps. The real thing is MUCH pointier than these

We eventually found our hotel. It was a pretty nice one for a change. Since we had some time we went for a ride, only the second one of the entire trip. In the Alps, what do you do but climb mountains? We headed for an imposing ridge and after a 20 minute ride through beautiful farm country and three small towns we were climbing a mountain in a National Forest. The road was small and lumpy but paved, not too bad to ride on. I was sure we would not see another soul, but as we rode along we saw a girl in the distance, pumping away on here mountain bike.
Then we saw this guy, and eventually four other people, all on klunkery bikes, just out for an evening cruise up the mountain. It was getting late, and we could here thunder not far off, so we turned around.


At least John seems to be having fun, in spite of all the driving and lack of riding.
We got back, ate our third pizza in as many days, and then took care of some business:

Au Revoir!

A little break

We've been mostly driving on this trip, luckily (I guess) wheel builds are somewhat spread out. Our hotels are not always that close to the team hotels, and with 2 teams to support heavily we need to be in contact every day. Yesterday we saw both teams then had to drive quite a while to get to our hotel, which happened to be:
A. cheap, hot, and very tiny. Not to mention in a strip mall-like area without any food close by except a bar and a Tabac. Neither were intriguing choices for a decent meal after driving most of the day.
B. On the far outskirts of Paris.
As you can see in the photo, we decided to chuck it all and take the train into Paris for sightseeing and supper. After missing two trains while we tried to word the automatic ticket machine, we found the real live ticket office, got set up, and caught the train. I had a vague recollection of how to work the metro, and how much trouble could we get ourselves into? Contrary to what those of you who know me well are thinking, the answer was not much (trouble).
Once we got to Gare Lyon, we got our "carnet" (a 10 pack of metro tickets) and set off.
First stop, the Louvre. The sun was getting low and it made for a great scene in the big courtyard:
Here is the smaller inner courtyard, since we are on a bike related trip, it was a good thing that there was a man riding by to oblige us:
We walked down the Tullierie to the other end - the Champs Elysee. Le Tour will end here on July 24th with 10 hot laps through town. I could not figure out what they could possibly be building in the center of the Champs, where the big obelisk is. Then I realized... the Super VIP stands for the finish of Le Tour! No bleacher seating here, there are individual chairs.
From there, we forged ahead to the Pont Alexandre, the fanciest bridge I have ever seen (top photo). I made sure to get the Tour Eiffel in the background. We were planning on hopping back on the Metro to see said Tower, but it was 9 o'clock and we had not eaten yet. Following my unerring sense of wrong direction, we crossed the bridge to look for food - in what I think was the diplomatic section. It didn't look familiar, and John thought that the foreign flags hanging out in front of the various building probably meant that these were the embassies.
So I says to John, "lets go up to Notre Dame, I think there are some little cafes on the side streets there". We come up the stairs from the metro, literally turn the corner, and find this:
The Paris food court. that's John taking a picture of it all. Every shop you can see is a restaurant. Little cafes indeed. We got a couple falafel dinners from this guy:
They really hit the spot. His shop had to be 110 degrees, and even though he was wearing pants (a good thing when you are a chef), double breasted chef shirt, and apron, he was not even sweating. he must get a lot of practice at being hot.

By now the sun was starting to set:
So we went back down to the metro for a long, stop at all stations ride back to our tiny hot hotel room.
Not a bad way to spend 5 hours.
Au Bientot!

As my old friend Jay "Hollywood" Henderson would say: THE MAD DASH FOR CASH!!

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.

Oude Kwaremont, Koppenberg, Paterberg, Eikenberg

Still in Belgium. We had a long day yesterday, a lot of driving, a little riding, and some wheelbuilding. In the morning we went to get tools and food, then piled in and started driving. We needed some spokes, so it was off to Antwerp to visit our spoke supplier, Sapim. We did not manage to score any diamonds whilst in Antwerp, and I only got turned around once while driving.
By the time we got the spokes, it was 1 o'clock, and we were hungry. Time to learn a new flemish word: Broodje. I think it is Flemish for sub sandwich. they are very good here.

We wanted to get a little ride in, so John directed me to the town of Kluisberg, and we set off to do some of the famous cobbled climbs of the Tour of Flanders.


I can understand a little more about the race now, and why it is such a big deal here in a country where, as Bob Roll once said (i'll paraphrase) " the average 11 year old has more cycling knowledge in his pinkie than most Americans". Imagine racing 180 or so other professionals up and down roads that are as wide as a driveway. ROADS! and not a double car garage driveway either - I swear these things are one car wide. Then, throw in some honest to god cobbles. Not pretty smooth bricks, but squared off rocks. It makes for an exciting ride. The paved sections are actually quite good, if very narrow, but the cobbles are another thing entirely.
We rode Oude Kwaremont, Koppenberg, Paterberg, and Eikenberg. The Paterberg is the steepest, with an average grade of about 20%, the steepest part is 22%.
On most other races I've ever been to, you fight to stay out of the gutter. On these climbs, the fight would be to stay in the gutter. It is much smoother.
The view from the top of the Paterberg is nice, but the nuclear reactor in the background is a little jarring. Check out the smooth gutter.

We climbed the Koppenberg

John got a flat coming back down, you probably saw that photo at the top. Then we road past picturesque farmhouses

... got back in the van and headed to France. And fixed some wheels, after CARNAGE ON THE COBBLES!. Actually it was only a wheel, and if you fall down on the cobbles and guys ride over you, things are going to break. I'm glad I wasn't trying to race on those things (the cobbles, not the wheels).
Even though we've been here a month or so, it was our first contact with the actual Le Tour. In some ways, it was about what I expected. At the hotel the team busses set up in the parking lot, mechanics started cleaning bikes (and team cars, and busses), and the general public wandered around taking photos. I glanced up a couple times to see people snapping away at me. Must be my rugged good looks. Or maybe its more like a sideshow: See the man build wheels, ON THE SIDEWALK!. While I built the first wheel, John assembled our tables from IKEA. My job was much easier. A little offputting was the Gendarmes strolling around - with dogs and sidearms.
At least we were well protected.


Today I'll finish re-booking all our hotel rooms, and if we can find our way 330km to Reims in time, we'll see the race.

having trouble getting the photos to work.

I am having trouble - not only did the brand new battery charger for my truing tool hum loudly, smoke for 5 minutes, and blow the fuse on my Euro electricity converter (not necessarily in that order, ) but I can't post the cool photos I took. I'll try again.