It’s that time of the year, that time I leave the shop and head to France to LeTour. Something I look forward to for the longest time, spend untold hours planning and getting everything together, and still, the last couple days before I leave, I’m a stressed-out mess.

Tomorrow is one of those endless travel days, starting with a 10am flight from SFO to Chicago, then head to Munich and finally to Lyon. Three flights (4 hrs, 9 hrs, 1.5 hrs) with about 90 minutes between each. Then a train from Lyon to Avignon, rent a car and a short trip to our hotel 4 miles away. Leave on Thursday, arrive Friday. Settle in, then Saturday we ride from Avignon to Orange to see the old Roman Amphitheater, a check-out ride before the main event… Sunday’s ride up Ventoux. I wish I could say I’m looking forward to Ventoux. That this 4th time up it will be the time I’ve tamed it. Instead, I’m thankful for SPD pedals and shoes that allow me to stop and walk up sections if I have to. We’ll see!

The next day we drive to Grenoble where we stay for 6 nights, visiting all of the Alps stages (including the infamous day on Alpe d’Huez where the racers climb it twice!), then a Sunday morning train to Paris for the finale, and Monday morning, early, another train from Paris to Brussels where we catch a plane home.

And of course, it will all be documented here! –Mike–

There are days when you wish you didn’t get out of bed. Today was one of those days at the Tour de France, when Team Orica’s bus snagged the finish-line banner (not really a banner but a substantial piece of hardware) driving through the course just 25 minutes ahead of the racing riders.

Was the structure set too low? Should the bus have been turned off the course beforehand? Why was it in that position so close to the time the riders would be coming across the line? A whole lot of questions. Looking at the TV coverage, the Caravan, the colorful collection of advertising vehicles that precedes the race, came through immediately beforehand, but the time schedule says they should have come through an hour and a half earlier. Sounds like things were not going as planned!

The result of all of the confusion was an initial decision to finish the race 3 kilometers earlier on the course, because they couldn’t extract the bus from the structure, but eventually they did get it moved, within minutes of the riders coming through. The conflicting messages given to the riders caused yet more confusion, which led to a number of crashes that likely wouldn’t have otherwise happened. The three favorites for winning today’s stage, Cavendish, Greipel and Sagan all went down in crashes in the final kilometers of the race. Not a great way to start, but not unusual either; the first week is often a crash-a-thon due to nervousness and Darwin working to thin the herd. It was interesting seeing how many riders crossed themselves (the Catholic ritual) as the rode over the line, relieved to have come through in one piece. Never noticed that before.