Category Archives: Tdf trip planning

Information on seeing the Tour de France in person, including the process I go through myself each year- figuring out the TdF route, finding places to stay, rental cars, trains & more.

First BIG day in France, and it was a doozy!

Got to admit, last night, I was wondering if I could pull things off today. I felt pretty bad from the travel, worse than normal. And it was supposed to be HOT, and while I generally do better with hot than cold, there are limits, and one of the meds I take to manage my mild bone marrow cancer thing does cause me to sweat more than I used to. And my system was reacting badly to too much airplane food, causing my, er, roids to flare up (which never causes me pain but sometimes, as was the case this time, an annoying amount of blood while getting rid of that airplane food).

But this morning, all tha stuff went away. Kevin and I got out on the road and, truthfully, I felt great. On the 30 mile ride to the base of the big climb, I’d say I even felt better than Kevin, seeing some pretty good (for me) power numbers.

The climb? It was brutal, no two ways about it. I’ve been up the Columbier from another one of its 4 approaches, and that ride, too, was pretty tough. But today the ‘tour chose the toughest side to ride, and today, unlike any other major climb on the ‘tour I’ve done, for some reason, there were no places to get food and drink between bottom and top. And I live for that ice cold coke and orangina and baguette sandwich that wasn’t there. I didn’t run out of water and most of the climb wasn’t too hot, but by the time we got to the top, and found the only “buvette” in town, with lines over half an hour to get food, I was pretty wasted. Thankfully I was a able to have some guys save me a place in line while I detoured to the much shorter line for drinks, and quickly downs a bottle of water and another bottle of orangina. The effect was close to immediate; within 10 minutes I actually felt normal again.

For tomorrow’s stage, I’m going to bite the bullet and bring whatever we might need up the hill. More weight, but you do what you gotta do.

Pictures? Haven’t had a chance to look at them yet. We were about 1.5k before the finish, before Pogacar had attacked and made up a bit more time on Jonas. But what we did get will likely show the mental and physical state of each rider.

The train ride back was pretty crazy; way too many bikes trying to get onto already-crowded trains. I had to stand pretty much the whole way back. Two trains, actually, and on the second train, it was probably a brother and sister, somewhere between 10 & 12, who were either playing tag or hide & seek and requiring that  Kevin had to constantly move his bike so they could get through. At the Pescadero Bakery, they have a sign that says misbehaving kids will be sent home after being given extra strong coffee and a free kitten. Might suggest that for these kids.


A *BIG* first ride

This is what’s mapped out for our ride tomorrow, Friday, Stage 14 of the Tour de France. The stage everyone’s been waiting for, the first really monster, potentially decisive climb. A pretty tough one for Kevin and I to start out with, to be sure! Today and yesterday are just one big blur of sleepless travel and endless walking through airports.

The first 29 miles are pretty easy. Mild rolling stuff, no pressure to ride hard. Even if we do just 12mph average speed, we’ll get to the base of the climb in less than three hours. But from Culoz it’s up, up, up, and more up. We’ve descended this side of the mountain previously but we climbed it from the other side. None of the four ways up this beast are easy.

The caravan, that long line of vehicles tossing out trinkets to the fans… we have to make it to wherever we’re going before the caravan gets there, which is 3:32pm at the top. And it’s going to be pretty hot too, so while Kevin’s loaded down with a ton of camera gear, I’m going to be carrying a lot of food and drinks. Which, of course, slows us down. On the other hand, being able to bring all that stuff means we can hang out pretty much all day if we have to, waiting for the race to come through.

So my thinking is we get out of the apartment in Annecy at 8am, find something to eat, and be on the road by 8:30. In all likelihood that will get us there too early, but I’m OK with that, not knowing how I’m going to be doing.

We’ll be doing live updates to Facebook and eventually, hoping we get back at a reasonable hour, updating here. Cross your fingers for us!

Ah, forgot to mention the elevator here. It’s so tiny, the only way I can get my bike into it is by removing the front wheel. Which means yes, we did get our Bike Friday travel bikes built up and tested along the waterfront here in Annecy. Video below-