Tour de France, Part One

Once I started writing this, I realized it would be too long for one sitting so welcome to part un a deux in which we recount our two days watching the Tour de France. Also in the blog pipeline: Denise visits Lourdes for some old-timey healing.

As a child, I had a fascination with bicycles starting very early. From my first toddler tricycle, bought for me by my grandfather, to the last city bike that I bought about ten years ago, they have always represented a sort of freedom: I could get on and ride away anywhere I wanted. Well, in grade school, I could ride to the convenience store to buy a Slushie and a Yodel. As a teen, my friends and I would ride the twenty-or-so miles to the Rhode Island border and then come back, just to say we did. Later in my teens, In 1972, I bought a ten-speed Maserati racer at Lechmere Sales for $99 and decided to become a bike racer, probably because my small Massachusetts town was celebrating its dodransbicentennial with a Fourth of July road and bike race. As it turned out, the official route wasn’t well marked and I got lost, probably cutting miles off the race and, as I approached the finish line in front of the junior high school, found myself in first place. Just as I made the turn into the parking lot to take the checkered flag (actually, I doubt they bothered with anything like that), the real leader cut me off, causing me to crash into the school’s stone wall, bending the fork of my bike and giving me a nice road rash on my arm. My racing career — and my Maserati — were finished.

Starting in my early twenties, I frequently commuted to work on a bike — maybe because I couldn’t afford a car — and spent many weekends bicycle touring around Boston (and later, San Francisco). Still, it wasn’t until 1999 that, thanks to Lance Armstrong and the Discovery Channel, that I truly became a fan of bike racing. I was immediately drawn to the spectacle of the Peloton and the thrill of a mountaintop or sprint finish and began waking up in the early morning to catch the live broadcast from France. As much as I loved the thrill of the race, I have to admit that my favorite part was the French scenery, especially the helicopter shots of the Alps, dotted with medieval castles, and the motorcycle shots of the riders pedaling through quaint French villages that looked unchanged since they were liberated by the Allies in 1944. France looked like a storybook place and I pledged to, one day, visit and see the Tour in person. 

When I booked our place in Pierrefitte-Nestalas, deep in the Haut Pyrenees, sometime last year, I had an idea that the Tour de France would be coming through the area; after all, the sadistic race organizers can’t seem to resist these stunning, rider-torturing peaks year after year. What I didn’t know until afterwards was that the sixth stage of the race would be coming through the town, passing just blocks from our place, before heading up the hill to a mountain finish in the next town.  Needless to say, I was ecstatic and began making plans for the best place to view our stage. I spent months poring over Google Maps to identify prospective vantage points. I solicited advice from friends and relatives who had seen the Tour in person. Now, we were in the village and the time to decide was coming up. 

As the days counted down to the race, I pondered the options; surely, the most iconic setting would be at the top of the Col du Tourmalet, twenty miles away and at almost 7,000 feet elevation.  Or perhaps it would be better to just let the riders come to us, and take a seat at a cafe just on this side of the river, where the peloton would have to carefully navigate the roundabout before heading up to Cauterets. Or maybe rent an electric bike and ride the Tour route to the finish line at Col du Cambasque and watch them finish there? I’m sure I drove Denise crazy but I’d waited so long and wanted to do it right. Finally, we agreed on a spot on the road above Pierrefitte that we’d spotted on an earlier hike: it was a relatively easy uphill hike from the town and a big enough grade to slow the riders down. Once that was settled, I noticed that the Stage Five race was to finish in Laruns, only 35 miles away. Hmmm. 

I suggested to Denise that I drive by myself over to Laruns to watch the finish and she surprised me by saying that she wanted to come along. I warned her that we’d have to get there early to get a good spot and likely sit for hours, on what was forecast to be a rainy day, and the riders would go past quickly etc., but she was undeterred. I wasn’t so crazy about driving over two mountain passes in the rain and fog myself but, when the day dawned clear, we agreed to pack a lunch, along with Coco, and motor the 32 miles — but one hour, twenty minutes — over the Pyrenees to Laruns. I mean, what else did we have to do? 

A few miles from town, we started the climb up to the Col de Solour and immediately encountered large numbers of bicyclists, some no doubt on their way over to Laruns as well, climbing the mountain. Many of them were part of tour groups with support vans, while others were seemingly making the grueling climb on their own. All the waiting to safely pass them added serious time to our trip but I didn’t care: the road belonged to these guys and we were the interlopers as far as I was concerned. Also, the scenery was jaw-droppingly beautiful and the frequent bike jam slow-downs gave me a chance to enjoy it. After we went over that summit, we briefly headed downhill until we began the climb to the even more impressive Col d’Aubisque. The roads became skinnier, the drop-offs more intense, and the cyclists even more determined. I have a tremendous amount of respect for amateur riders who do this kind of thing for fun. Of course, the intrepid bicyclists and white-knuckled motorists alike are rewarded with incredible views: I’m no seasoned mountaineer but this range is some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve seen in my life. 

We arrived in Laruns only to find all the roads leading into town blocked off, the reasons for which we’d learn later. We found one of the last parking spots at a public park on the south end of town and had a picnic lunch by the river before walking a mile to the northern end of town where the race would conclude. Having watched dozens of Tours on television, I was unprepared for the rush that I’d feel when I approached the familiar architecture of the finish area: there was the yellow arch under which the riders would sprint; there was the stage where the jersey presentations would take place; it felt surreal to actually be there. It reminded me of the first time I saw a baseball game at Fenway Park: my mother and I walked up the ramp from under the bleachers (of course, it was the one-dollar cheap seats — she never would have paid the stratospheric price of $4.50 for box seats) and there before me was the field on which my heroes spent their summers. I didn’t expect to have the same breathless reaction half a world away and fifty-plus years later but wow, it was cool to finally be at a stage of the Tour de France! 

We found a spot on a grassy knoll above the road about 75 meters from the finish line and began our wait. Luckily, Le Tour provides some pre-race entertainment in the form of Le Caravane, a rolling parade of dozens of sponsor floats, each sillier than the last. Once the show passed, our attention turned to the giant flat-screen TV just beside the finish line where the race was unfolding in the mountains outside of town. An unknown Australian rider, Jai Hindley, had broken away from the race favorites and was leading the pack coming into the final kilometers and the crowd starting buzzing in anticipation of his arrival. As he came into sight, the noise of the fans yelling and banging on the barriers became deafening, and Coco (even premedicated) began to jump up and down on Denise’s back. Hindley raised his arms in triumph and, 30 seconds later, the chase group crossed the line. The gap between riders was enough to give Hindley the yellow jersey, a nice surprise for him and us. 

We got caught in a little pedestrian traffic jam getting back to the town, but it gave me time to see the presentation of the jerseys for the stage up close, another important tour ritual that I’d only enjoyed on television. Another unexpected treat happened when we started our hike back to our car: Laruns is such a small town that there really wasn’t anyplace to put the team buses and cars besides on the city streets to the south of the finish (thus the barricades we encountered earlier). The police didn’t close off the street to pedestrians so we ended up walking right through all the team vehicles, getting to see riders walking around and being interviewed. I don’t think we would have experienced that in a larger city where the buses are usually barricaded off from the crowd. It was like leaving a rock concert through the backstage area. Further along, we ran into all the floats of the Caravan, who were stuck in a very long traffic jam that stretched for many blocks as they waited their turn to get out of town behind all the other tour traffic. Amazingly, even the guy who drives the giant chicken has to drive from stage town to stage town and, in Laruns, there was only one way to Tarbes, the starting town for tomorrow. I almost felt bad for him and then I remembered that he gets to drive a chicken in the Tour de France, so let him wait. 

The drive back to Pierrefitte over the same mountain roads we came in on was a little more harrowing than the journey over to Laruns. The fog had set in, reducing visibility to a couple of car lengths, and we had to look out for the bicyclists who were still climbing and descending the mountain as well as the cows who filled the pastures around the road. We made it back to our place around 8:00 in the evening, making for an exhausting but rewarding ten-hour day. Lying in bed, I was still buzzing about the race we’d seen and the best — a mountain stage going right through our town — was still to come.