Tour de France, Stage 17

Warning: very long post that will bore most everyone.

Our tour experience had us waking up at 6am to guarantee early access to the mountaintop town that we were using as a base for our spectating. Each morning we have a few crucial tasks to complete before too long, and this morning was no exception. First, we had to get our espresso, and since we were back in France, our croissants or pain au chocolates. We found our coffee and pastries right next to each other in the mountain town of Modane, the last town before a very long tunnel to Italy.

The second task proved to be a bit more complicated. Our drive from the day before had left our gas tank at about 1/3 full. Not knowing how long we would be stuck in traffic coming off the mountain later that day, we wanted to get gas. The problem was that the gas stations were all 100% automated at that time of day, and the only way to pay was those damned chipped credit cards. In other words, nogo for us. Thankfully, Liz finally spotted a small gas station in the middle of Modane — really little more than a gas pump on the road like you’d see a mailbox in the states. It was manned already and we filled up and were on our way.

After heading through the 13km and €40 tunnel, all of the sudden we were back in Italy… for now. We retraced our steps from the previous day and headed up the back side of the first major climb of the stage. Back in France. The road was almost deserted and so was the town. We hadn’t known what to expect, but it turns out we were plenty early and that was just fine with us. We scored a great parking spot right on the road the riders would use, only 200m from the top of the climb. Now we just had to relax for 4 hours before the tour caravan was expected to roll through. The riders themselves wouldn’t arrive until an hour after that.

Shortly after we parked, the town began to wake up. Hundreds, if not thousands of cyclists were riding both sides of the climb and there were people from all over the world waiting for the TdF to pass through. We heard snippets of people excitedly talking about the caravan, but we were mostly excited to see the riders.

The entire tour experience was very carefully choreographed by the organizers. They had a schedule that said, to the minute, when the caravan would pass through. Because riders are a bit less predictable, we had a range of about 15 minutes, depending on their speed that day The caravan arrived on schedule and we were not disappointed. What likely started out as simply a way to get all of the various press cars, support vehicles, official vehicles, and VIPs from stage start to stage end has morphed into the European equivalent of the Rose Bowl parade, except spread out over 3000km, 20 days and going over some of the highest mountain passes in Europe.

Every tour sponsor was present with rather elaborate floats and their own giveaway items. They ranged from bottles of water to bags of Haribo candy to laundry detergent samples to the red polka-dot hat signifying the king of the mountain leader’s Jersey. The orange bandana head covering I was wearing was one if the first items given out, as were the giant green foam fingers. Good marketing because you really do see all those foam fingers on TV, even if you may not know who the sponsor is. Remember that the caravan went through at roughly race speed, but occasionally there were gaps and then other times the whole thing would come to a complete stop. Mixed in were dozens of team support cars. I got a smile and nod from the EuropCar driver when I pulled out our EuropCar rental keychain. This went on for half an hour after which the road was mostly clear except for a few stragglers.

We first knew the riders were about to arrive because we could hear the TV helicopters working their way up the mountain. Then we saw the helicopter as it followed above the switchbacks and before we knew it, the motorcycles and official cars arrived signaling riders were coming. In this case it was a large breakaway of 14 riders, including two Rabobank.
These guys barely looked like they were working compared to the amateurs we’d been watching all day. And they were past us so quickly, in a flash. Then we waited for the peleton to arrive, which they did a few minutes later. We spotted several of our favorites, including Frank and Andy Shleck of Team Leopard-Trek. And just as quickly they were gone and finally the broomwagon came through and official car #1, the traditional last car in the group.

People vacated the mountain in short order and we were on our way to Milan within an hour or so.