Stage 8 marked the first day in the mountains for the centennial Tour. Rather than hike up the 6 kilometer climb with an average gradient of 8%, my friends and I hopped a ride up the mountain with the gondola.
Just one of many signs along the way marking the gradient.
We picked a corner in front of a camper van about 3.5 kilometers from the finish and spent the day making friends with the Aussies who owned the van and had arrived 2 days prior.
There is always great people watching to be had at the Tour.
Shortly before the publicity caravan chugged up the mountain, various team cars drove past on their way to the finish. Loyal to Garmin, I always wave my Canadian flag and cheer when I see them, even if it’s just one of their vehicles. This time I had 2 other Canadians with me, also waving flags and a Ryder t-shirt. The car stopped and the driver rolled down the window to ask how many we were. We responded and she promptly handed us 3 orange VIP bracelets, instructing us to hoof it up to the finish if we were to get there in time. Dilemma! Was it better to stay put and see the riders climb or head to the VIP area (somewhere I’ve never been) and catch the finish? Complicating the decision was logistical reality: we faced a 3.5 kilometer walk uphill and would have to squeeze past an unknown number of people in minimal time if we were to beat the riders, not to mention the caravan. One of the guys offered to run ahead, check out the VIP area, and call us with a final decision. While he was gone, the 2 of us who stayed put independently concluded it was best to keep our great curbside view rather than swapping it for an exclusive and fancy spot. This turned out to be the best decision as our runner turned around shortly after taking off to say the road was far too packed with fans for us to get through.
I had periodic updates about the peloton from the Irishmen down the road via text messages, the Spaniards next door who had satellite TV in their van, and an enthusiastic Frenchman on my corner who relayed the action from an unnamed party on the other end of his cell phone, so I knew to expect Froome on a solo breakaway.
The Sky captain was closely followed by his Australian teammate, Richie Porte.
Spain’s Alejandro Valverde of Movistar was in third place on the final climb.
Nairo Quintans of Movistar and Laurens Ten Dam of Belkin. Quintana is such a petit and compact person, it’s incredible to see how he has so much climbing power in such a small frame.
Roman Kreuziger ferried his Spanish leader, Alberto Contador, around the corner.
Several cyclists rode up alone, including a rider from Euskaltel, Astana’s Jacob Fuglsang (pictured below) of Denmark, Rui Costa from Movistar, and Jean-Christophe Péraud from AG2R.
When the first cyclists from Garmin appeared, Dan Martin of Ireland and American Andy Talansky, I yelled and yelled and yelled some more. Meanwhile, the Canadians I was with took off and ran alongside the Garmin pair.
Spaniard Haimar Zubeldia of RadioShack Leopard Trek came next.
Nick Roche, the other Irish rider in this year’s Tour, was eagerly chased by the Irishmen down the road who had updated me on the race earlier.
At the sight of Frenchman Pierre Rolland of Europcar, the road erupted in shouts.
Having just finished one long climb before starting this one and it being the first mountain stage, everyone was suffering on the final kilometers to the finish. The expression on Cadel Evans’ face said it all.
José Serpa was shadowed up the mountain by his team car.
Andreas Kloden, with another rider trying to grab his wheel.
Thibault Pinot.
Maxime Monfort of Belgium.
Darryl Impey in the yellow jersey.
Another half dozen or so riders passed before I spotted Ryder Hesjedal with Przemyslav Niemic of Lampre and Alexandre Geniez of FDJ. I’m a little surprised my pictures turned out at all since I was too busy screaming to make sure I was aiming the camera at him.
Daniel Navarro of Cofidis.
Wout Poels from Vacansoleil, Ruben Plaza from Movistar, and Estonian champion Rein Taaramae of Cofidis.
Tejay Van Garderen and BMC teammate Steve Morabito. A rider from Sojasun and AG2R passed before another BMC rider, Amaël Moinard, rounded the corner.
Garmin’s Tom Danielson and RadioShack’s Tony Gallopin led Uzbek Sergey Lagutin, American Brent Bookwalter of BMC, Jerome Coppel from Cofidis, and Lieuwe Westra from Vacansoleil.
Current French road champion Arthur Vichot led Bart De Clercq.
Thomas Voeckler checked over his shoulder to look for the oncoming group.
Breathing down his neck was a large group which included a few of my favorite riders: Marcus Burghardt, Jens Voigt, and David Millar.
Meanwhile, the riders who had already finished were starting to descend from the mountain. The number of trucks required for the Tour and the media was staggering, leaving no room for team buses at the summit, thus requiring riders to bike down the final climb to find their buses in town.
Another group approached, including Simon Gerrans on the far left. If you look very carefully, you’ll see 2 Katusha riders descending.
Wearing the world champion stripes, Philippe Gilbert.
Peter Sagan in the green sprinter’s jersey at center.
In the same pack was Yukiya Arashiro, Japanese road champion, and one of my absolute favorites, Jack Bauer. I picked Jack out from the bunch early on and yelled his name as loudly and as often as I could. I always imagined the cyclists were either too focused to actually hear what was going on around them or that it all just sounded blended into a steady roar, but I learned that’s not the case. My proof? Jack Bauer waved to me–while climbing!
And I can’t believe I managed to get a picture!
Kazakhstan’s Assan Bazayev of Astana.
Maciej Bodnar of Poland.
Michal Kiatkowski descended wearing the white jersey, but my photo was out of focus. A moment later, Ryder came around the corner, accompanied by a BMC cyclist and Sylvain Chavanel. I lit up at the sight of Ryder and called his name a couple of times, to which he responded by lifting his fingers to wave and saying a mellow, “Hi.” Yup, he appears to be the calm guy the media make him out to be.
Cadel Evans descending.
Navardauskas on the climb.
Participating in a record tying 17th Tour de France and looking relaxed as ever while everyone around him suffers, Stuart O’Grady, center.
In the same groups, Blel Kadri in the red polka dot jersey of the king of the mountains with Andre Greipel just visible over his left shoulder in the German champion’s stripes.
Still in the same group, Mark Cavandish, with Canadian Svein Tuft a few riders behind.
Niki Terpstra with the stripes of the former Dutch national champion on his sleeves. (Side note: if you want to see more of Terpstra’s Dutch champion jersey, watch Omega Pharma-Quick Step doing the Harlem Shake on YouTube!)
I had only counted 7 Garmin riders and knew that there couldn’t have been more than 1 or 2 riders total still on the road. As we started to walk down the mountain, Rohan Dennis was the final Garmin rider and the final rider still on the course. I was relieved to see him and cheered him on. He shook his head a couple of times, perhaps in response to something said in his earpiece or just out of general exhaustion. In the back of my head I hoped I had somehow missed seeing Christian Vande Velde go by even though I suspected he had either abandoned or not started that morning due to injuries.
A modest exodus began once Dennis had gone by. Spectators fled the mountain on foot or by bike. I wanted to show just how busy the scene was, so I took a picture just as David Millar happened to also be on his way to town.
As we trekked down the road, countless bikes passed us by. After just a couple of minutes, I had learned to distinguish the whistle of an approaching pro bike (smooth, narrow, and tight) from a fan’s bike. This made the walk down much more exciting as I turned around in time to see Jens Voigt riding down while gabbing away in German with a BMC rider, and identify riders like Tony Martin, half of Garmin, Peter Sagan, Gert Steegmans, Stuart O’Grady, the polka dot jersey, and probably a dozen other riders. Below, Philippe Gilbert.
What goes up must come down and we were temporarily delayed as the caravan made its way down the switchbacks.
We made a beeline for the Sky bus as it as the only team bus we had spotted on our long walk down. The cyclists had already found their hotel rooms for the night but the mechanics were busily washing and inspecting every bike.
The mechanic cleaned the grit out from the gears before thoroughly soaping it and power hosing down the bike of Richie Porte, who took second place on the stage.
After a time, we went to find somewhere for dinner but stumbled upon the BMC bus and mechanics instead. I walked up to watch the mechanic work on Quinziato’s bike and he right away started to chat with me. Everything about BMC felt friendly and approachable compared to Sky which as been interesting but seemed coldly methodical and uninviting.
Bikes belonging to 32 Brent Bookwalter, 31 Cadel Evans, 39 Tejay Van Garderen, 33 Marcus Burghardt, and 34 Philippe Gilbert.
The washing machine was cleaning the day’s kits in a small room near the front of the bike truck.
A minivan with an inflatable individual pool and several robes hanging on the side wall.
After we ate, we found Omega Pharma-Quick Step’s vehicles. Several of the staff were sitting behind one of the trucks eating their dinner and they all eagerly greeted me in French as I walked by. I politely responded and laughed to myself that all the OP-QS men completely ignored the 2 male French speakers I was with.
Argos Shimano was tucked away in a quiet street just outside the town center.
Taking the shortcut path back to our hotel, I couldn’t believe I was so lucky to see 4 teams in town, so I stopped dead in tracks for fear of tripping over my jaw when I saw the Saxo Tinkoff bus parked in front of the hotel.
As I turned to tell my friends, I suddenly saw the Europcar bus was parked directly in front of our room. From our balcony, I watched Europcar’s laundry go round and round.
Pierre Rolland had earned the king of the mountains jersey for 5 of the stages and his trophies, along with Jerome Cousin’s award for the most combative ride from stage 1, were displayed in the bus’s front window.
When I walked in my building, Thomas Voeckler passed by me on his way to team dinner. I couldn’t help myself and eventually headed in that direction myself where I got a picture with Davide Malacarne.
In the morning, I saw Voeckler a few times, though each time he seemed gloomy and unapproachable so I left him alone. Kevin Reza, who I like because our last names use the same letters, greeted me with a cheery and unsolicited, “Bonjour!” this morning. I was hoping to see David Villeux and when I had talked with a couple of the team staff the previous night and in the morning, they told me which room he was in and that he’d love to meet a Canadian fan. I saw him at breakfast but I wasn’t going to disturb him as he and Arashido chatted in French while carb loading with cereal and pasta. They both picked up their freshly laundered kits from the team hamper and left the breakfast room. Meanwhile, Contador, Tosatto, and Roche were sitting with their Saxo teammates filling their plates with rice, thinly sliced lean meat, and avocado. Now that I’ve sat 10 feet away from him and listened to him talk with his teammates, I can report that my impression of Contador is even more accurate than I had previously realized! I left my table and wished the Saxo boys buenos suerte on their ride today. I was just in time to see the Europcar bus pull away and was bummed to have missed getting a photo with Veilleux. Saxo was still around and I got a photo with Contador as he finished his morning coffee. Regardless of your opinion on Contador, he’s a great climber and I was happy to get to meet him.
