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.

Just 25 miles Sunday, things getting tight as we prepare for France

Ride reports (not Tu/Th), Tdf trip planning

So little time, so much to do. Today’s ride to the coast was severely shortened; it was to be our shakedown cruise of the Bike Friday folding bikes before packing them for the trip, but didn’t quite work out. First, we discovered we had no spare tubes at home! Doh! Had to ride down to the shop and pick some up, then ride up Woodside Road (yuck!) to Woodside. Heading up Old LaHonda wasn’t much fun, partly because Kevin was flying, and partly because I was having a little bit of an issue with new pedals & new insoles for my shoes. Kind of a dumb thing to do before an important event, but that’s how I roll sometimes.

The issue with the new pedals was that they weren’t set up with enough “inboard” float, so my ankles were a bit further out from the bike than they like to be. Fortunately they’re adjustable, so that’s taken care of. But further up the hill I found out that Kevin had forgotten to bring his mid-day epilepsy meds, and sorry, no way we’re heading all the way out to the coast without his meds.

Tonight (Sunday night/Monday morning) is probably my last semi-peaceful moment before having to go full-gas getting things ready and making sure I haven’t left any loose ends at the shop. We leave for France Thursday morning, arriving in Grenoble almost exactly 24 hours later. San Francisco/Chicago/Paris by plane, then a train (or two?) direct from the airport to Grenoble.

Nice thing about this trip is that we’re staying 9 days in the same place! No moving around, relatively-minimal driving (all but two stages are accessible either by bike or a combination of bike & local train). We’ll be seeing all of the Alps stages, plus the finale in Paris, as well as a stage or two that end near the foot of the Alps. Hopefully I’ll have good connectivity while there with frequent updates here! –Mike–

What’s your cadence?

Tdf trip planning, Uncategorized
As we head up Kings, a pair of riders in front of us is turning left onto Tripp. I didn't know you could do that! Not climb Kings? That's un-American. Especially when you turn tail right in front of it.
As we head up Kings, a pair of riders in front of us is turning left onto Tripp. I didn’t know you could do that! Not climb Kings? That’s un-American. Especially when you turn tail right in front of it.

It’s January, getting pretty close to the middle of winter, so it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise if it’s 34 degrees in Woodside as we start the regular Tuesday/Thursday morning ride, but it really didn’t seem right that it was only up to 39 when we got back! Good thing modern cycling apparel lets you ride comfortably in weather like this without dressing up like an eskimo.

Kevin, Kevin, Eric, Marcus & Nigel joined me this morning for what all agreed ahead of time was going to be as easy ride up the hill, but younger Kevin decided to end the truce as soon as we started up through Huddart Park (via Greer). Things started coming apart after we got back onto Kings; I held on until about half-way up at which point Marcus, younger Kevin and Nigel rode away from me. Kind of getting used to that. Marcus was pretending to have a nasty cold but not pretending so much that he didn’t kick the pace up further, dropping Nigel and challenging Kevin to successfully charge past him on the final part of the climb. At least that’s what I’m told; I was quite a bit further down the hill at the time.

The high points were Kevin not having a seizure and noticing that he’s bringing his cadence to a literally-higher level. He’s always known that my too-low cadence can be improved upon, but today we joked that riding with the older Kevin, who’s cadence is ultra-slow, is convenient because he can use older Kevin’s cadence like a metronome. He just has to exactly match each of older Kevin’s pedal strokes with two of his own.