The 100th Tour de France: stage 1

I won’t tell you exactly how many hours before the cyclists even started I arrived at the finish and I won’t tell you how many before my alarm went I was already awake (don’t worry, the sun was already up…I think), so I’ll just say that I’d left the Corsican town of Bastia and walked the final 2 kilometers of the route of the centennial edition of the Tour de France to grab this picture perfect spot 5 meters past the finish line with plenty of time to spare.

I passed the hours the way I usually do: making friends with my fellow cycling enthusiasts who arrive way too early and watching the crew finalize everything for the afternoon. The Tour also has fantastic people watching so here are a few of my favorites.

Among the uniquely Corsican things going on was what the French gentleman next to me said was a new local sport. I don’t know what it’s actually called but it seemed to involved an aquatic jet pack! The man in the superhero (or villain?) costume would rise higher and higher until he was easily 15 feet in the air, supported by a waterfall cascading from his feet. It was odd but really cool.

There are plenty of TV broadcasters doing interviews and filming pieces in the morning. I was excited to see Irish cycling legend Sean Kelly being interviewed just a few feet away from me but I was even more excited that he happily came over when I called to him to take a photo together!

I also spotted Phil Liggit (in the purple shirt) taking a break with some colleagues. If you’ve ever watched the Tour in the states, you’ll recognize his voice.

There are often former cyclists at the Tour and this being the 100th edition, both Mario Cippolini, an accomplished Italian sprinter, and Bernard Hinault, 5 time Tour winner, gave the crowd friendly waves.

Slowly the team buses trickled in well ahead of the athletes and made their way to a field that would serve as the parking lot for the day.

On the opposite side of the barricades, just before the finish line was the inevitably swanky VIP area. Believe it or not, I personally much prefer to spend the whole day sitting in the sun and chatting with other fans instead of mingling and eating hors d’oeuvres, but the good thing about the VIP area is that there was a visible screen broadcasting the race.

After the publicity caravan passed, fans had crowded in and the photographers took their places.

And then about 15 minutes before the cyclists were due to arrive and amidst reports that the peloton was speeding up, disaster struck disguised as the Orica Green Edge bus. Shortly after the publicity caravan had passed, the finish line had been mechanically lowered down a couple of feet. In the back of my head, I kept thinking that I hadn’t yet seen the Orica Green Edge bus pass. I’ve been a huge Robbie McEwen fan for years now and as he now works for the team, I was hoping to wave to him on the bus. Unfortunately, these 2 thoughts of the lowered finish line and the missing bus didn’t connect in my brain.

CRASH. CRUNCH.

The bus was too tall for the shortened finish line and threatened to pull it completely off its posts.

In no time, everyone had their phones out to take pictures and tweet what had happened.

I felt so badly for the driver. He kept burying his face in his hands and clearly just wanted to crawl under a rock and hide, probably thinking he’d just ruined a Tour stage. Poor guy.

The police were on the scene and, since no one was hurt luckily, they pushed the crowd back–and I do mean pushed. One policeman in particular was not at all hesitant to shove people back and one spectator in particular was a little too keen to push back so I did my best to get away from those 2 hotheads, though it wasn’t easy.

There were more rumors and speculation than the morning after prom: would the stage be shortened? Did the peloton know about the large bus smack in the middle of the finish line? Would this muck up the stage? Was the finish line stable enough to not fall on the riders? Would the cameras mounted on the finish line’s posts still work?

The bus was stuck for about 8 minutes and, incredibly, they managed to unstuck it without doing too much more damage about 8 minutes before the cyclists burst on the scene.

Of course, in the chaos of moving a few hundred spectators back, I lost my beautiful spot I’d worked so hard to protect all day (there was a tired French woman who did not share my same idea of personal space) so when I knew the riders were approaching, I put my camera on rapid fire, aimed, and hoped for the best!

I lucked out and got some great shots of Marcel Kittel (Germany, Argos Shimano) celebrating his stage victory! I don’t know how it happened (there was word some of the cyclists thought the 3km to go mark was actually the finish line) but Kittel beat Cavendish (UK, Omega Pharma-Quick Step) for the 2nd time this season (Kittle out sprinted Cav at Scheldeprijs in Antwerp in April).

I did a sprint of my own and headed deeper into the finish area, hoping to grab a couple of photos of the riders coming in. I immediately happened upon Ryder Hesjedal (Canada, Garmin), who was closely examining his bike. I knew there had been a bad crash with about 4km remaining, but I didn’t know who had been involved, so I was relieved to see Hesjedal appeared to be in 1 piece. With my Canadian flag in hand, I started yelling his name and, to my total astonishment, he turned around and said, “Yes?” Uh. Um. I was so focused on getting his attention that I hadn’t thought any farther than that! So I just said, “Hello from Canada,” and he said something along the lines of, “Hi, thanks,” before turning back to his bike.

The cyclists–and the fans–poured in. Philippe Gilbert (Belgium, BMC) below in the stripes of the reigning world champion.

Marcel Kittel was still celebrating his victory and the press and fans mobbed him on his way to the doping control tent.

Markel Irizar (Spain, RadioShack Leopard Trek) cycled to his team bus showing evidence of the crash.

Shortly after, Murilo Fischer (Brazil, FDJ) appeared to avoid putting his right hand on his handlebars, suggesting a possible and highly dreaded collar bone injury.

Poor Tony Martin (Germany, Omega Pharma-Quick Step) was so banged up in the crash, he couldn’t help but moon everyone.

I headed for the Garmin bus (as I tend to do) and saw Hesjedal cooling down alongside teammate Dan Martin (Ireland).

Jonathan Vaughters came out from the bus and gave a couple of brief interviews. But most importantly, I got a picture with him! Since Hesjedal didn’t seem to be in a talkative mood, I told Vaughters that if Hesjedal wanted Nanaimo bars, to let me know through twitter and I’d gladly bring them to the team time trial next week.

It always surprises me how just a couple of teams will have huge crowds around their buses while others are completely ignored. OP-QS, Sky, and Cannondale were lined up next to each other so it seemed to form one continuous mob. Despite the people, I still got a shot of Froome (UK, Sky) cooling down.

I ventured over to the Euskaltel-Euskadi bus just to see what was happening. I hadn’t heard at this point who had won the other jerseys, so I was happily surprised to see the polka dot jersey of the King of the Mountains entering the Euskaltel bus. Unfortunately I was so surprised that my camera was turned off and I missed him. I started to walk away and made it a few paces before I saw a guy heading in my direction holding the king of the mountains flowers and trophy! I made myself patiently and politely wait until he was done talking before asking in Spanish if I could take a picture with the flowers and trophy. He was happy to let me hold the flowers but thought it best for him to hang on to the trophy.

At some point, I added to my water bottle collection, this time from the Russian team Katusha.

I happened to pass by the back of the OP-QS bus just as Cav, holding his daughter and accompanied by his girlfriend, got in a car, surrounded by press and fans.

Not long after, I started to make my exit from the parking lot, but not before an unidentified Vacancesoliel rider winked at me. Of course I made one last stop to the Garmin bus as I’d just heard from new friends that they’d just shaken hands with David Millar (UK). Millar was gone when I got there a minute later, but I did get to wave at Jack Bauer (New Zealand) who was sitting up from in the bus…although I honestly didn’t realize he was trying to put on a pair of pants at the time. Sorry, Jack!

I did get to redeem myself a little later, thank goodness. For the buses, getting out of the parking lot was, well, a parking lot, so I was we’ll up the road by the time I saw the Garmin bus approach. Traffic forced them to slow down so I give them a big wave of my Canadian flag and got big smiles and waves from the staff and riders sitting in the window.

And that was just the first of 21 stages!

Results

1. Marcel Kittel (Germany, Argos Shimano) 4:56:52

2. Alexander Kristoff (Norway, Katusha) +0

3. Danny Van Poppel (Netherlands, Vacansoleil) +0

4. David Millar (UK, Garmin) +0

5. Matteo Trentin (Italy, Omega Pharma-Quick Step) +0