Today is day ten of the flashback series. I’m putting these posts up unedited in all of their retro glory.
By now I was a regular on the “wrong” side of the barriers much to the disbelief of the rest of our touring party.
This post originally published on or around 18/07/2008.
Today was an easy 50 km ride on the course to the race finish in Nimes. Riding on the course is great – we had a bunch of around 20 riders, the French line the roads and clap and cheer as you go past – it really makes the km fly by. All of the race kites and sprint markers are up and it is a blast to ride through them. We were able to ride all but the last 100 m of the course. Our busses have parking special Tour parking permits – meaning that we were able to leave our bikes and change in the busses quite close to the tour.
I was determined to breach security again and managed to enter the media area and made a new friend…
It was a scorching hot day – beautiful clear skies with barely a touch of breeze. The technical area at the tour is amazing with press from all over the world -there is a spaghetti of cables running all over the place.
The race finish is big business – with lots of VIPs and corporates being treated to a day at the race in style. They are fully catered as well as having a hostess (a pretty hostess) to give them a tour around the finish area.
I managed to find a spot close to the finish line where I settled down to wait for the race to come through.
The race finished in a bunch sprint with my old mate …
taking the honours. Once he turns on the rockets it seems that nobody can stay with him. The French love their funny hats and uniforms. Going by the number of police we see along the route most days, I’m pretty sure that most of the criminals in France would be pretty safe.
After the race I was behind the stage for the presentations. Lots of podium girls and assembled media…
All of the presentation and media is done within 30 mins of the stage finish and the riders are quickly in the team cars or bus and on the way to the hotel.
We were an hour or so in the bus to our next hotel in L’isle sur la Sorgue – as we got closer to the hotel our next challenge – Mt Ventoux – stands imposingly over the surrounding countryside – it looks big. Arrived at the hotel at around 8:00 – just in time for dinner and then it was an early night for all of us.
