Tour de France

Eric here...
During the tour I went to see the start of stage 16 in St. Paul Trois Chateaux, a small town about 50 minutes drive south from Mirmande. I actually rode my bike there to see the town prior to the stage on the second day we were here in the 95+ degree heat and got totally dehydrated. Took me about 6 hours to ride 75 miles. I drove to watch the start armed with my new camera and monopod that my brother Michael strongly suggested I get. Glad I did. It's great for stopping racers in their tracks to snap a picture. Perched up on someone's window sill, I snapped about 500 pictures in a matter of about 20 minutes. I caught Thomas Voeckler in the yellow jersey checking out Mark Cavendish, the lead sprinter in the green jersey before the start, as well as someone chatting with the ultimate tour winner Cadel Evans.

At the start of stage 16 from St Paul Trois Chateaux to Gap. 

Cadel Evans- BMC rider is eventual Tour winner.

Drove to Vaujany in start of the French Alps to meet my friend Keith and his family. We rode Alpe d'Huez together (along with a few hundred other cyclists) 2 days before the tour. This is the little ski town they stayed at and let me crash in their condo. Very nice of them.

The ride up Alpe d'huez is not that steep. It's a pretty consistent 6% or so and about 17k. I think Keith timed us at about 1:20, and the pros do it in about 50 mins. I think if we really tried we could have done it 10mins faster.

There were so many people at the top you couldn't ride across the finish line. There were vendors set-up selling stuff. I didn't even look and rode through it. We turned around and rode right back down and then home to Vaujany. The climb up to the town of Vaujany is 6k and 10%. There were thousands of cyclists all over this area.

Keith and his beautiful family. Mandy (wife) and children Hannah and Sam.
Sam loves Mark Cavendish.

The next day after our ride, we went to the big climbing stage finishing up the Col de Galibier. It's not super steep, but really long (last climb is 30k). We drove to within 8k of the base you see here. I had my bike and rode the 8k to here, and Keith and the gang walked. 5 miles there uphill. Wow. I hiked up with my bike and rode up higher to try to get a good vantage point.

When you see the yellow chopper you know the racers are coming.

Up along the course you see people from every country...

Exciting to see Andy Schleck on his break.

The scenery was unbelievable. I got to the mountain at about 11am and the riders came through at 4pm. I waited alone up here with it raining, windy and cold on and off. Right before the riders came through it cleared up.

This Astana rider was on solo break that Andy caught and passed. He was cruising but was definitely toast at this point.

Cadel got angry that no one was working and decided to storm up Galibier on his own. He came right up the right side and nearly hit me trying take pictures. Probably trying to block some wind that was in his face at this point. My focus was off. Darn. Contador is in this group, but i never really got a picture of him. he got dropped later on the climb.

 Rest of the pack comes through (half of it actually). You can see Hincapie in the middle of the pack.

Next year I think we'll have to plan to see and ride more stages :-)