Keeping the dream alive- 2026 Tour de France planning starts now!

Personal stuff, Tdf trip planning

The stages of the 2026 Tour de France, unveiled Thursday, October 23rd
Kevin and I didn’t make it to the 2025 TdF, but instead did a shorter-than-planned trip to Italy to watch the first four stages of the Tour of Spain… which were in Italy! Things actually went very well, getting to all four of the stages as planned, a little excitement with the second stage returning in the rain, but sadly we had to leave early and didn’t get to ride the Stelvio.

But next year… can it be done? With the TdF make it difficult to see several stages in a row? Will we get back to the Pyrenees (my favorite part of France) again?

The Pyrenees appear to be out. Once again, they’ve shortened the epic Pyrenees stages to just two days, near the start of the ‘Tour. Just like last year. So we’re back to the Alps again, but can we get back to the basics, the option where we stay entirely in one city (typically either Lourdes for the Pyrenees or Grenoble for the Alps) and then pack up on the last evening and head to Paris by train the next morning for the finale?

Survey says… yes!

It appears possible to do the impossible… see all 7 of the final stages. Don’t think we’ve ever done more than six in the past. Normally we’d skip the usually included flat stage the ‘Tour tosses into the final week, a gift for the sprinters, but this year, if we stay in Grenoble, we’ll be close enough to that boring flat stage it will be worth the ride to see it, maybe viewing it from a feed stop, or perhaps scouting things out well enough to get that ultimate and still-elusive shot of the riders with sunflowers in the background.

The basics- Leave Thursday July 16th and, depending upon pricing, fly into either Paris (CDG) and take the train to Grenoble, or Lyon (LYS) and take a shorter train to Grenoble.
Arrive Grenoble July 17th probably around 4pm, hopefully stay at our favorite apartment just two blocks from the train station, build the bikes, find dinner, set up shop for 9 days (Friday 17th night through Sunday 26th), then Sunday morning train to Paris for one night, see the finale, and leave next day (Monday 27th).

Saturday (the 18th) will be a day for a local ride, maybe into the Vercors.
Sunday (19th) will be a challenging day, seeing the finish at Plateau de Solaison. This will test the limits of following the TdF without a rental car! This will be a new climb for us; details can be found here. Getting there… not so easy from Grenoble. 7:32-9:15am from Grenoble to Annecy, and then a 50 kilometer (32 mile) ride with about 7000ft of climbing to the summit finish. There’s a choice of either going up the backside of the climb, watching it from the top, and then returning the way the riders came up, or a different route that would take us up the race route and then back down the same way. Details here. But getting back…unfortunately, about 2500ft of climbing on the return, either way. Looking into staying overnight “on the road” and returning the next day. Not a huge deal since that’s a rest day for the ‘Tour, but don’t want to make it an impossibly-tough day for us!

More to come. Close to 1am so got to shut things down and restart tomorrow (or, later today!).

It really isn’t writer’s block. But if it was, this would be my anthem

Personal stuff

Funny how much of my life seems to converge on 1975 or thereabouts. I was a big fan of Procol Harum during High School and College, favoring their more esoteric and sometimes bizarre pieces over the popular (like “Whiter Shade of Pale”).

‘Typewriter Torment’
Procol Harum, 1975

Typewriter torment, dreadful disease
Caught it the first day I touched the keys
You wear down your fingers and churn out your pap
It eats up your life like a dose of the clap
Typewriter torment it tortures me still
If only my doctor could see that I’m ill

Typewriter fever gives birth to a flood
It sweeps through your body and curdles your blood
You curse and discurse but you’re damned for all time
The moment your fingers give birth to a rhyme

Typewriter fever it harries me still
If only my doctor would give me a pill
Typewriter fever I’m worn to a stub

I’ve dumped my Thesaurus and pulled out the plug
I’m rending my ribbon and bending my spool
Don’t bother rewinding: I’m done with it all
But why can’t my doctor just say that I’m ill?

Typewriter fever is paying his bill
Typewriter fever it harries me still
If only my doctor would give me a pill

The reality is that I really don’t have “Writer’s block” at all. Rather, just not finding the time to sit by myself and… write. Once I start, I can bang out a piece in no time, sometimes decent stuff, sometimes drivel. But putting words to paper has never been a problem for me. I often wish I had a way to jot quick notes while riding, because there are so many interesting things that come up, even during the most mundane, ordinary rides. Always something worth writing about, if only I’d remember. And, seriously, none of the things that get in the way of that happening, life as it were, are more important than those things I notice on the fly.

It would be a nice feature for my Garmin computer if I could tap part of the screen and it would create a 20 second recording. In the old days, with small digital cameras (before phones took over picture-taking duties), it was easy to take it out and get off a quick shot and afterward, the photo would jog my memory.

You’d think it would be easy, seeing or thinking of something during the ride, and recalling it later. Frequently Kevin and I will see something along the way and I’ll suggest that it’s inspiration to give the ride a certain name. And darn, no matter how amazing that idea seemed at the time, it’s lost before I can put it to paper (geez, I’m really stuck in the past aren’t I? What do people say today, younger people who never dealt with a real typewriter and paper was the beginning, middle and end?).