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| Saturday, July 8th, 2000. I
participate in the Death Ride as an observer, from 30,000 feet in
the air! |
The better part of a day later and
I'm in Charles de Gaulle airport in France! You never get to see
Paris at all, as it's miles away plus the train station is
downstairs. |
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| Pastoral countryside and nuclear
powerplants. Powerlines everywhere. |
Our train at the Avignon
station. France has a very well developed train system
that's highly recommended as a way to get around the country. |
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| 7/9/2000 Collecting bodies in Avignon for the
trip to L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, where we'll be
based throughout our stay. |
The "bike station" at our
resort, where there's a fleet of brand-new 5200 road bikes,
identical to the frames Lance will be riding! |
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| 7/10/2000 7-time Tour de France racer Ron
Kiefel demonstrates the use of special seat-leveling tools. |
Our first trip on our bikes in France!
It really does look like the pictures you've seen. |
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| Substitute sugar cane for the
cornfields, and you could easily believe you were in Hawaii! |
Returning to the prison, er,
Village. |
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| 7/11/2000 Anxiously awaiting the
start of L'Etape du Tour, where we get to ride the Ventoux stage
of the Tour de France! |
Eight hours later, climbing Mont
Ventoux itself. This is quite the hill, and we've
devoted an entire web page this one particular ride alone. |
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| You're looking at the rarest of all
things in France. Yes, a garbage can. Second rarest is
ice. Why? I never could get a good answer on that one. |
7/12/2000 We took a field trip the
day after Ventoux to the castle at Les
Baux. As you'll see
further on, this is quite a large fortress. |
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| Yep, a catapult...but instead of
flinging rocks etc, at times they'd toss decaying animals in an
attempt to spread disease amongst their enemies. Nice. |
And what would a castle be without a
stockade? |
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| Overlooking the Provence
region from high up on the Les Baux castle. The beauty of
this region alone would make it worth defending! |
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| 7/13/2000 We've just arrived at the
base of Mont Ventoux, where we'll be setting up station in a
restaraunt we've taken over. |
It's unbelievable how many people are
streaming up the mountain this morning, looking for that perfect
spot to watch the race from. |
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| For hours upon hours they come, some
walking, many riding. The road has been shut down to all but
pedestrians, cyclists and motorcycles. |
On the right is Dick Moran, head of
TREK marketing, talking with journalist Zap Espinosa, who had
joined us on our trip to France. |
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| Hey, you didn't expect us to come to
France and not paint the pavement, did you??? |
Prior to the race coming through,
this incredible caravan of sponsors tossing out trinkets &
trash cruises through (with a kid chasing after it). |
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| Kids are the same everywhere...here
they're checking out the various things trinkets they've
collected. |
The Michelin Man in the lead,
followed by who-knows-what behind. Goofy stuff everywhere! |
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| Is that a...yep, that's a guy with a
vacuum cleaner on top of that car! |
Not difficult to figure out what
Festina's business is. At 2:31, this is about the last part
of the caravan. |
But here's what we've been waiting for...the Tour de France!
It's 3:19pm, and we've been on-site for six hours, anticipating
this exact moment. And with luck actually holding out, I get
a photo with Lance squarely in the middle!
Afterward we went back to our command post,
where we had a bevy of TVs set up to watch continuous coverage of
the race as it climbed Mont Ventoux.
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| 7/14/00 We're in Avignon
for the start of the next stage, and actually get "backstage
passes" so we're up close and personal with the riders! |
| Check out our Memories
of France page, with "raw" unedited notes of my
trip. --Mike-- |
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