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Published: July 28th 2006
heaven
now for super expensive bike mania. We were rather smitten with the CSC carSo I guess Montelimar (the Nougat capitol of the world) is too small of a town to list by the blog site, but not too big for the tour. When checking the maps to see how close the tour was coming I thought, hour, two tops by train. Well no, it was four and a half hours one way. But shit... its the Tour! So we embarked on our journey from La Napoule at 5:45 by bike (how appropriate- the trains and busses didnt run eary enough for us to catch the train) to catch out 6:30 train from Canne. We arrive in Montelimar at 11:00, and am imediatly in need of caffiene before we can be excited. Once Caffinated tour fever catches on in a big way. The entire town has embraced the arrival of the tour, with every shop having a cyclist display. We check out the spot deciding the finish line is the place to be, however this is at 13:00, and the tour isnt supposed to arrive until 17:15
- Now starts the Waiting game -
Being a veritable oven against the barracades, we decide to sacrafice the most awesome spot ever to not bake
in the sun. So as i twiddle my thumbs, Robin makes friends with the sassiest little french girl. At probably two years old she easily could out sass Alison Sheets. no really. (if you dont know her, ask. its hilarious. she has sass lessons and even a sass apprentice.) So the cool part about the waiting game is the jumbo tron they have set up at the 150m mark, so I couldnt read the details of how far out the break is, but at least i could see who was in the break. So once the baracades come into view on the jumbotron its time to sqwish into the sea of NON_CYCLISTS crowding the wall. oh and bet your ass they smelled nice after a few hours in the sun. we made friends with some kanucks with a half decent view, but still could see nothing more the Voights ares and helmet fly into the air past the line. (no way we could get a picture though). and now is when we start to learn of the historic gap. as the minutes pass people loose interest in the feildsprint, so Robn and I slowly weasle our way to the wall.
Uber Sass
Incredibly cute, but I'never seen so much additude out of a 2 year old playing. Robin ate it up Once on the barracade we can lean over and see back about 100m. Cyclist appear, and I watch for the green. I get nothing until about 30 meters when not only does he appear but the Aussie once again escorts the peleton across the line. Utter dominance by crossing the line with half a bike length open behind him- and Robin and I were less then a meter away.
now tarts the migration towards the podium, which as you can see we were not too close to, btu still had a view. but the real excitement was drooling all over the team cars. oh man, I've never seen so many 404's stacked in the back fo a car.
so the day was nine hours on a train, and five hours standing aruond for the most exciting collective two minutes ever. I never thought anything could be exciting enought for 14 hours of waiting, but if you dont beleive me... go to the tour. now just imagine if we could get to Alp d'Hueze!
-Patrick (one incredibly happy cyclist)
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Tot: 0.435s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0612s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Miguel
non-member comment
Oh, so wonderful...
Oh man, so great... all those pretty bikes. And those pretty fast (you know, kind of, sort of fast) bikers. Oh man, wow...