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.

I wish I knew

Tdf trip planning, Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Weather right now in Lourdes and Grenoble, France, the bases for covering the Pyrenees & Alps, respectively.
It is a very, very odd thing. I really don’t have a good idea how fast I am on the climbs right now. It’s been weeks since I’ve ridden with anyone where I could “air it out” and really try to kill myself up Kings. The only thing I do know is that it’s no longer difficult to get under 30, and a 28-something could be the regular routine. If I was able to get more miles in on Sundays and really push myself, I’m guessing I’d be back in the mid-27s again. Maybe. Or maybe it’s just wishful thinking. I just don’t know.

I do know that I’m not supposed to be here. I’m in the wrong parallel universe at the moment. The universe I’m supposed to be in is in France. But this year, everything’s upside-down. Even if I was in France, even if the ‘Tour was running right now, they put together a screwy course that has the last week in the Alps again, just like last year. Right now, Kevin and I should have arrived in either Paris (CDG) about an hour ago, or Geneva (GVA) about an hour or two from now. If we were heading to the Pyrenees, it would be Paris, where we’d have 4 hours to make the transfer to Gare Montparnasse. Best option is the Air France bus, which takes you from outside the terminal at CDG straight to the Gare Montparnasse train station. The train leaves at 12:47, arriving Lourdes at 5:39. This is not the best example of high-speed rail in France; once you get past Bordeaux, it’s pretty ancient & slow track. Last year, before the course was announced, that’s what we expected to do.

But they did the screwy thing with the course that I mentioned, so instead, we’d be heading back to the Alps again. Probably flying into Geneva and taking a short train from the airport to the main Geneva train station, then a two hour not-terribly-fast train to Grenoble.

Whether Lourdes or Grenoble we have apartments we stay in within an extremely short walk from the train station. Less than 100 meters in Lourdes, maybe 300 meters in Grenoble.

In my mind, right now, I’m navigating the transfer from the airport to the train. Seriously, this is the first time I’ve been here in Redwood City, on the 3rd Thursday of July, in 10 years. No, 12 I think. I think 2008 was the last ‘Tour I missed. To Grenoble, since that’s where the final week of climbing is this year. Kevin and I will arrive, with our two Bike Fridays each in their own suitcase, two other suitcases with clothes & whatever is needed for 12 days away from home, plus a backpack each, one with camera gear, the other laptops & such. It’s a bit of a struggle getting it all loaded up into the train, but not too bad; we’re pretty used to it by now. But obviously, the fewer connections, the better.

We’ll arrive at our apartment in Grenoble about 5:30pm, same time we would have arrive in Lourdes had that been our destination. Check in, get a shower, then head out to eat. Stay up until 11pm or so France time, making it a very, very, VERY long travel day, but with the benefit that you sleep straight through and actually feel kind of normal waking up on the other side of the world at 8am “their” time, which is 11pm back home. That’s a lot of time difference!

But, that’s not where I am. And even if the ‘Tour hadn’t been rescheduled to September, I still wouldn’t be there, because it’s still way too busy at the shop. Kevin and I do have plans & tickets to go in September, but getting the shop moved might keep that from happening (although it’s possible that we might want to just close the shop for 12 days then anyway, just to give everyone a rest). And it’s possible that Covid-19 will still be going strong enough in California that Europe won’t let us in. It’s looking pretty doubtful at the moment, which is exactly the reason I ought to try and do everything I can to make it happen. I wish it was Lourdes we’d be heading back to, but I’ll settle for Grenoble and the screwy course they’ve laid out this year.

Riding/Working/TdF Planning

Personal stuff, Ride reports (not Tu/Th), Tdf trip planning, Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Where do I start. No write ups for Tuesday’s or Thursday’s rides. Nothing really eventful; still riding stronger than Kevin (not the pilot), and that’s likely to continue because he didn’t ride at all today (Sunday), leaving me to do a solo effort. Up Old LaHonda at a pretty good clip, 22:08 according to Strava. Leaving me to wonder where those 9 seconds were lost! Best recent historical time was back in September when I clocked a 22:04, so even 5 seconds faster would have been nice. Still, pretty good speed on the climb, especially on the first half. Then headed south on Skyline, something I rarely do, then down Page Mill, looped out to our former store location in Los Altos (still vacant after 2.5 years!!!) then back via Sand Hill and Woodside. Just 48 miles but felt pretty good and was able to keep the watts up later in the ride.

Work. Oh. My. Gosh. I need to be so grateful that we have work, that we’re allowed to be open, which is so much better than many can say. But the stress of working through the day non-stop, no time for lunch, phone ringing every two minutes instead of once every 6, lines outside the door many times during the day… it gets to you. And the masks. I have a pretty nasty lung condition which I’ve compensated for by breathing more often than most. Specifically my lungs clear CO2 at 28% efficiency of a normal person, but, because my lungs have been trained to breathe more often, I can still climb a hill on a bike. Just… loudly. But the masks. Wow. I get out of breath just talking to someone on the phone! Climbing stairs? Yikes. Thinking I’ve got another year of this ahead of me is scary.

And then there’s the shop move. Getting the new location ready has been a Covid-19-enhanced nightmare. Few things are going right, but somehow it’s all going to magically pull together and we’ll be wondering why we didn’t make this move years ago.

So sometimes I start feeling a bit helpless, hopeless, and generally down. Because what’s to look forward to? That’s what keeps me going. Something to look forward to. So, I bit the bullet. Despite the questions about how Covid-19 is going to play out, I’ve made arrangements to see the Tour de France again. The rescheduled Tour de France, which will run from August 31st to September 20, nearly two months later than normal. Found some very inexpensive air fares, but seriously don’t know if United is going to keep flying nearly-empty planes or cancel a lot of them, potentially making it difficult to get to where we need to be, when we need to be there. But I need hope, so I’ve got everything blocked out, hotels in Grenoble (7 nights), Mulhouse (2 nights) and Paris (1 night). No idea what the ‘Tour might be doing to keep things from getting too crowded, but we’ve generally not had much trouble finding a not-too-crowded spot on the big climbs. The finale in Paris? I have no idea how they could control crowd density, if they allow spectators at all.

And will the local trains be running? I hope so, because I’d really rather not rent a car, and I’ve mapped out an itinerary that allows us great access using the combination of local trains and our bikes. The 2020 TdF route at first looked downright hostile to fans, in terms of seeing many of the stages, due to long distances between some of them. But it really does look like I’ve got it figured out. One of those brief moments of clarity where it all came together.

Except, of course, that it could all come apart, if the trains aren’t running, or they decide to exclude fans entirely. But the worst-case scenario is that we’ll be able to ride some of the best cycling roads in the world, on our own. Life could be worse.