Category Archives: Tdf trip planning

Information on seeing the Tour de France in person, including the process I go through myself each year- figuring out the TdF route, finding places to stay, rental cars, trains & more.

Tomorrow the ‘Tour starts. Without me racing to catch up to it 10 days before the finish.

Tdf trip planning

Since 2000, I’ve made it to every single Tour de France, except one. 2008. I don’t even recall the specifics why; 2007 was the first year I’d gone with my son, so it was a bit of an abrupt pause in the sequence. OK, I just looked back to get a feel for why I wasn’t there, in 2008. Looks like it was the first year that Trek didn’t field a team, so I’d lost whatever connections I might have had to make things run a bit more smoothly. Which really doesn’t make that much sense, given that, in 2007, Kevin’s first trip with me, we were entirely on our won. But we got back to it in 2009, with an unbroken string since.

Until COVID-19 turned the world upside-down. The reality is that things have been so crazy it would have been difficult, maybe impossible, for both of us to have made it this year had the ‘Tour been at its normal time in July, and even the new dates, which would have had us leaving a week from next Thursday (September 10th) and coming back September 21st, would have been tough because things haven’t slowed down much. But ultimately it was precisely COVID-19 that kept us out of the ‘Tour, because France isn’t letting in Americans. I briefly thought hey, maybe we could somehow score an exemption! Then I read how NBC was allowed just 10 of their normal contingent of 65 for covering the race, how Phil will be working out of a studio in France, Bob Roll somewhere on the East Coast.

And then United cancelled one of the segments on our return flights; the plan was to leave from Basel, fly to Frankfurt, then home. So the good news is, because United can’t arrange a flight home, we get a full refund. The bad news? Kind of felt like the final nail in the coffin.

I was ready. I felt like I really needed this; it’s been a crazily-stressful year at the shop and even at home. Lots going on. I needed that 10 days away, 10 days in a country where things are just different enough to make a difference, not so different that I really have to think about things anymore. Landing in France I go into automatic mode; I know what do do, how to get around, where to eat, where to sleep. I know how the trains work, I know the airports, I know more than I wish I knew about car rentals. I know exactly where to drive, if driving is required, for the absolute perfect spot to ride from, a place that is easy to get to (despite half a million others out there to see the same thing we are) and easy to drive back from. No traffic jams. 18 or 19 times doing this and I kind of have it down now.

But not this year. And, assuming the ‘Tour makes it all the way to Paris, this is going to be an AMAZING year becasue it won’t be predictable, there won’t be a dominant team or rider, and it’s even possible a Frenchman could win (Pinot).

And so I’ll be watching the replay every single day (no, I won’t be getting up at 4am to watch it live, like Burt), but without the anticipation I’d normally feel, without trying to get a feel for how the race is going before I join it. And I’ve done my best to try and get my sunflowers to limp their way to at least the start of the ‘Tour. Don’t think they’ll make it to the end.

–Mike–

This photo shows why I have my doubts the 2020 TdF can run as planned

Personal stuff, Tdf trip planning

July 20, 2017, atop the Izoard at the Tour de France. Me and a few, maybe tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of my closest friend.
A picture’s worth a thousand words. It’s hard to believe that everything is still in place to run the 2020 Tour de France in a normal fashion; “social distancing” and Grand Tour Cycling, as we have come to know it, don’t really co-exist. But so far, everything says things are good to go.

In general, it wouldn’t be that difficult to avoid overly-packed situations, if you’re willing to watch the race pass by from a less-than-optimal spot. Unless you’re on Alpe d’Huez, which is packed from bottom-to-top, there will be plenty of less-interesting places where spectators are fewer, especially on the descents. You’d miss the angst and suffering but after 20 years of going for the same thing, the same shot more-or-less, doing something different could be fun.

Whatever they allow is likely irrelevant though, as I doubt France (or any other reasonable country) is anxious to let Americans into their country. I’m thinking we might, maybe, have a two-week window in which Trump could declare a national mask requirement and get things to settle down a bit, and then, maybe, we could travel again. It’s interesting that I don’t find travel itself fearful; International flights are likely to have very light loads and the filtration systems in planes are advanced far beyond anything you’ll encounter outside of a lab. It’s pretty clear that it’s places like bars and parties clubs that are the new petri dishes, while elsewhere things aren’t so bad.

Since the Tour de France is held on public roads and it would be impossible to fence off access for the entirety of a 100 mile stage, it would be seemingly impossible to run it without spectators. And even if it’s terribly inconvenient and sub-optimal viewing, just being able to say you were there, at the 2020 Covid-19 edition of the Tour de France… that would be a story to tell for years down the road. It’s not likely a story I’ll get to tell, and I’m not entirely sure it’s going to be a story anybody gets to, as Covid-19 cases begin to reassert themselves in France, and elsewhere, as they’ve tried to regain some sense of normalcy and end the most-draconian measures Covid-19 has brought us.

Kevin and I still have tickets for the flights, we still have reservations, but the only money that has been spent was for the flights, and they were both very inexpensive and can be changed to any other date or destination for the 9 months following. So no financial risk, but my desire to travel, to get away, to spend 10 days thinking about something other than the craziness that is the bike biz currently, has never been stronger.