Feed zone attempt #1

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Geo: 43.4854, 6.21784

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Fair warning: This entry is a particularly lengthy one. Pam + coffee + 2 hours on the highway with a charged-up laptop = the following….

Having slept as well as one can, on a mattress made for napping instead of a full night's sleep, we downed some breakfast and headed off to try to get to the feed zone. For you cycling newbies (or never-evers, don't-wannas), here's what a feed zone is, and why it might be of interest to people like us:
If you're a cyclist, and you're riding 100+ miles, you're going to get hungry. And since you're wearing that tight spandex jersey and shorts (partly because it's got the sponsor's logos on it, partly because it fits closely and has the least chance of chafing and getting caught in the gears and all), you don't have a lot of room to carry extra food with you. So the race sets out established feed zones. Your team sends its lackeys (though they call them soigneurs, to make them feel better) to stand by the side of the road in this feed zone, holding out musettes (fabric bags about 15" x 12” or so, with long fabric straps) . You deftly rip one out of the soigneur's outstretched hand as you go whooshing past at 20 mph and then – while you're still riding your bike in a group of 190 other guys – you sling it around your body and begin searching through it for the bits you want. The team has stocked it with energy bars, energy gels, probably a can of Coke, maybe a banana. Maybe you tuck the bar and the gel (ick, not that one…Banana Fudge? Really? Yuck. Toss that one to the side of the road) into the back pocket of your jersey. You down the Coke, then throw the can aside. Eat the banana – or most of it – and toss the peel aside. You've got everything you want out of this thing – take it off your shoulder and toss it aside, too. On with the race.
So there are fans lining the roadside in these feedzones, and after hoping to not get clocked in the head with an unwanted can of Coke, or a banana peel, you hope to be in the right place at the right time, when someone tosses their musette. And if it's someone from a team that you like, that's even better. If you can catch the guy's face or bib number as he zips by, that's pretty great. It's kinda' interesting to even see the discarded wrappers and uneaten bars, to see what kind of stuff the teams are offering up to their riders. No, we're not picking food up off the side of the road (though an unopened can of Coke would certainly be salvageable), but it's an interesting area to be in.

The challenge here is that while the Tour organizers are happy to publish the overall route, as well as times that the peloton is expected to pass thru this little town and over that mountain pass, they're reticent to publish the details of where the feed zone is going to be, until the day of the stage. However, when we bought our tickets to the Alpe d'Huez finish area (details on that, later), one of the things we got was access to a more complete schedule, including where the feed zones would be. So, we'd picked out a few stages where we wanted to try to catch a feed zone. We'd tried one in 2012, at the USA Pro Challenge, and learned a little lesson about where to position ourselves. For this stage, we knew that the closest town was Entrecasteaux, and we figured we'd need to come at the race route from a perpendicular road, as the actual route tends to be closed fairly early prior to the race. So, we'll just make our way over to that town there, and drop down, and voila!

Mm-hmm.

What we didn't anticipate was that the first teeny tiny bit of our planned route WAS on that race road, and was already closed. OkayFine, we'll take their detour. Pam with her iPhone/Google maps will find an alternate route.

You know where this is going, right?

After a couple of turns on this detour, we came to a stop (on a hill, no less). We were on a very narrow street behind about 8 other cars, and there were 2 cars up ahead that needed to get through coming toward us. A woman was coming to each car, alerting them to the situation, and she was hoping to stop any more cars from joining the line, until these 2 could get through. Once they were through, the rest of us could continue on our way.

I (Pam) hopped out and ran down the road to try to stop anyone else from coming up behind us. Around the 1st bend, no cars. Around the 2nd bend, there was a car just coming up, so in my horrible French and flustered state, I tried to tell her to wait ici, après deux voitures, then she could go. Then I noticed another car coming up around the next bend, so I thrust my palm out to make them wait (which, to my surprise, they did). The 2 – no, 3 – cars came down the hill, and ran back up to where I'd last left my Cute Blonde Boy and our campervan. Dejo had pulled partly into a driveway to wait for me, so I hopped in, and off we went. At the next intersection, traffic looked kinda' backed up to the right, so I directed Dejo to go left. The map showed that we could get where we needed to be, going this way.

Next time, I might pay a little more attention to how twisty the little lines on the map are.

Twisty is one thing. Twisty with zero shoulder before a 2-foot dropoff which would certainly send a rented campervan onto its side is quite another.

After a tense little drive, we made it onto a more reasonable road, and finally to our intended destination. We parked on that perpendicular road (as we saw that it was already lined with other cars), and grabbed the bikes for the last bit down to find a spot. We heard some folks speaking English, and struck up a bit of a conversation, asking who they supported in the race. Turns out that one of the guys is from Ireland, but lives in the nearest town. He reckoned that the feed zone would be in the long flat section that was just up the road, so the spot we were in would probably be a good one. Given that he knew the area – and they were nice folks to talk to – we decided to hang out there.

When the breakaway came by and had clearly already disposed of their musettes, we decided to hop on the bikes and head upstream. Yes, there was a nice long stretch, but that's not where the feed zone was. Huh. We went a little ways further, then turned and headed back to the van. As we drove toward the highway, the quickest way took us up the road where the peloton had come through. We spotted some things that would help us in our next quest for a feed zone. Like arches saying "Feed zone” (or the French equivalent). And inflatable balloon thingys that indicated where the collection zone was. Lesson learned.

Now for a drive over toward Montpellier, where we hoped to see both a finish and a start. We had a couple of aires in mind for this location, none of which were really close to town. We settled on one on a breakwater south of Montpellier. After a couple of missed/incorrect roundabout exits (bad navigator, bad!), we found the spot, paid our €13 for the night, and plugged in. We've been charging up the iPhone, iPad and MiFi on the road with the car charger (as they're USB-powered), but the laptop, and the camera battery charger require a proper plug. And though the van has one, it only works when we're plugged into land power.

This particular aire is a little side area of a regular campsite, where people tend to set up their motorhomes for the summer. As such, there was a laundry, a bathroom facility, a little food truck, and – oh, joy – a shower!!! We bought a really lovely chef's salad from the food truck (such a welcome break, after almost nonstop ham & cheese baguette sandwiches for the past week), and grabbed showers. Such a delight to feel human again!!! After setting the towels (which we rented from the campervan place, along with our dishes & linens) out on the community clothesline to dry, we turned in for the night.

That's enough reading for now. Take a break.

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Photos

Vineyards, vineyards everywhere!
The campervan's parking spot during the feed zone. We could see that cars were parked ahead of us already, so we decided to leave the van and take the bikes the rest of the way.

Irish & British friends
Dejo talking to the local Irish chap. He had British friends who conveniently showed up for a visit during the Tour. :)

Pam waits for the musettes.....
....which of course, never arrived.

The peloton, from the vineyards
Dejo -- resigned to not getting a musette -- aims for an artsy shot from the vineyard.