Le Tour de France

20 July

OK, le Tour de France is even crazier than I imagined. The bike riding is about what you'd expect after seeing the race on TV... Lots of skinny guys riding very fast on very nice bicycles... but the rest of the scene is pretty crazy.

Since my cousin Erica and her friend Maja were hoping to follow the tour when they came to visit us July 10 - 15, Craig and I thought we'd better preview things a bit, so we caught a bit of the individual time trial near Rennes in Bretagne. No big deal, just some road closures and a bunch of people clustered on the corner of a country road in the middle of nowhere.

With Erica and Maja, we decided to see a sprint near Bordeaux. It was still pretty tame, we managed to park within a kilometer of the sprint, and work our way through small crowds to see the sprint finish. If you can call it "seeing". It's more like glimpsing, they ride by so fast (our photo cartoon describes it pretty well). On our way out, Erica picked up the official advertising newspaper of the stage. And that's how we learned about the "Caravane".

In essence, the Caravane is a sponsor parade.

About two hours before the first tour riders arrive, a police siren announces the arrival of the sponsor cars. Many are in wacky shapes, resembling tires, gas cans, water bottles or movie cameras, to name a few. Like parade floats, most have dancing people in costumes tossing trinkets to the crowds on the side of the route. Watch out for the Aquarel trucks though. The first ones hand out bottles of water, but the third one sprays the crowd with water from hoses! It is hard not to get caught up in the hubbub. Especially when you set your sights on getting a polka-dotted hat (sponsored by Champion). The madness goes on for about an hour, with people scrambling for free cell-phone screen cleaners, refrigerator magnets, packets of candy, and lots and lots of cheap hats. At the end of caravane are a few trucks towing the day's casualties. (Some of those novelty cars have trouble with 10% grades!)

Another thing that goes along with the Tour is lots and lots of road closures. This is to be expected, of course, for a reasonable amount of time before and after the tour. Some of the signage was pretty funny. For example, on the autoroute near the Pyrenees, the readerboard said "Attention: Tour de France: Espagne fermee jeudi" ("Spain closed Thursday"). And we were surprised when one pass was closed the night before the race. So, in order to make sure we didn't miss the uphill finish at Pla de Beret in Spain, we decided to drive there a day early and camp out.

Which brings us to the other crazy Tour scene, the camping. A day early, campers were already lining the first climb on the course, parked on anything remotely flat and marginally off the road. Some of them waved as we drove by. Others scurried off the road, where they were painting enthusiasm for their favorite rider or team. We drove on to the finish, and joined a growing group of campers and tents scattered over the flats near the top of the course. Throughout the evening, the crowds kept coming, pitching tents in the dark between the campsites established earlier, where Tour supporters were singing, shooting off fireworks, and generally partying. Craig and I were so impressed by the scene that we decided to do it again, this time arriving two days early at the Col de Galibier so that we could park our camper on the route. We got an excellent spot with a view of four switchbacks, not to mention the peaks of the Ecrins and the valley below.

All in all, it was fun to be part of the scene, but to actually know what's going on, it's much better to be at home in front of the TV! As we were for the finish.

The photos here are representative of the Tour: the Caravane; the riders; and the camping.

SK
aux Brevieres