Tour de France - Stage 20 - Champs Elysses

As we previously mentioned, we really wanted to see the Tour de France while in Europe. A couple of weeks ago we watched stages 7 and 8 in the Brittany region in western France. Now, as the tour drew to a close, we were in Paris to see the final stage.

Without a real plan as to the best place to see the stage, we made our way to the Champs Elysses and found a place with a good view in both directions. It was a hot summer day in Paris. Not hot like a Queensland summer, but still warm enough when you are sitting on a black road. We setup camp around 11:30 and kept ourselves amused until something happened.

The tour caravan came past at about 3:00. It was the same as the one we had seen a couple of weeks earlier, except that the people on it looked very relieved to have finally hit the Champs Elysses and didn't have to do this too much longer. There were no freebies this time, either because they ran out or because everyone couldn't be bothered.

Competition for a view was fierce. We were second off the rails with short people in front, so we did quite well. Others were just plain rude about it. One fellow used his child as a wedge to get onto the rail - ask some sucker if your child can be on the rail an hour early, then once the riders come push your way through to the front under the pretence of rescuing your child from being crushed!

About an hour later we heard the TV helicopters overhead and the cyclists made their way up from Place de la Concorde for the first time. As expected the yellow jersey Phonak team of Floyd Landis led the peleton. The peleton was moving fast. Real fast. The Champs Elysses isn't a flat road, it rises steadily up to the Arc de Triomphe, but these guys make it look like a downhill. As the 8 laps progressed breakaways formed, but were quickly reeled in, and the pace consistently rose.

In the end it turned out to be a sprinter's finish, with Robbie McEwan, Thor Hushovd, Stuart O'Grady and Erik Zabel fighting it out. Go Aussies! In the end Hushovd won the sprint and stage with McEwan and O'Grady closely following. Maybe next year for an Aussie 1st and 2nd in Paris. McEwan retained the sprinters jersey.

As the last lap went by we made our way down to the podium, along with plenty of others. Hushovd got his stage prize, McEwan the green jersey and Landis the yellow jersey. And then it was over. Masses of people flocked to public transport or gave up and walked. The Tour de France had come to town and was now being rapidly disassembled.

It was a great day for us. We really enjoyed the tour.

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TdF 2006 Stage 20 - Paris

Tour de France - Stage 8 - St Meen le Grand

This morning we woke up in our accommodation in Rennes. Sunday is a funny day in France. If you are looking for an early start and a bit of breakfast you are way out of luck, unless you get breakfast at your hotel. Having already experienced this in previous trips through Benelux and Paris we stopped at the first McDonalds that presented itself on the road to St Meen le Grand - the starting town of Stage 8 of the 2006 tour.

Stage 8 is a normal road stage of 200.5 km down to Lorient in the south of the western tip of France. Road stages present a different start to a time-trial. While the TT is an all day event for the starting town, a road stage is a short morning sprint. This didn't deter St Meen le Grand though. The whole town was a carnival atmosphere. We walked into the town from the parking area past houses that were decked out in tour supporting colours and decoration from top to bottom. The team bus enclosure was a more guarded area this day and we were unable to get much of a view without passes. We watched a bit of the official sign-in where the riders clunk up to the stage in their cleats and then avoid slipping down the wet stairs on the way down.

Apart from the cyclists, the other main event of a stage is the promotional parade. All of the official major and minor sponsors of the tour drive along an hour before the cyclists and through free, somewhat useless, marketing trinkets at you. The sheer uselessness of the objects doesn't stop people from clambering over their own offspring and grandmothers to get. The moment it hits the ground feet stomp on it, people dive on it, until one person emerges with the tightest grasp on it. Our team was well composed - Jonathan was the quick-reflex catch man, Kelly was the behind the crowd runner and Liam would go down low covering the ground. What are we going to do with all of the stuff that we got?

Anyway, an hour later the cyclists actually start out. We found a place about 800m after the start, on a wall on the small hill up into the centre of town. This gave us a good look over the bunch as the crawled up the hill. The bunch was led by the jersey wearers - Honchar, McEwen, Pineau and Fothen. Everyone else followed behind chatting to their neighbour or adjusting this or that piece of clothing. The real racing wouldn't start at least until the other side of town and probably not for a few kilometers after that.

Walking up into the centre of town, Jonathan stumbled across another sausage and crepe stall and we had a bit of lunch. The town was still abuzz as the tour had come and gone, but that wouldn't stop the party for the next couple of hours.

TdF 2006 Stage 8 - St Meen le Grand

Jul 9, 2006 - 15 Photos

Tour de France - Stage 7 - Rennes

One of the things that we definitely wanted to do on this trip this year was to see some of the Tour de France. The second weekend of the tour gave us the opportunity to see two stages without doing too much driving around.

On Friday afternoon we flew into Paris and met Jonathan at the airport, he had already caught the Eurostar to Paris on Thursday and spent the day looking around. We picked up a car and set out west towards the Bretagne region. After negotiating the Paris ring roads, belting rain, flooded roads and Parisian drivers, we ended up on the A11. Driving in France is not a bad experience. The main motorways (Autoroutes) are well maintained and the speed limit of 130km/h is not unwelcome. We drove west for 3 hours until we found our first night's accommodation in Laval.

On Saturday morning we drove into Rennes, the town where Stage 8 finishes. Stage 8 is an individual time trial that starts in a little town called St Gregoire four kilometres to the north of Rennes. Rennes is not a huge town, but with all the road closures we had a bit of trouble finding our way to St Gregoire. Once there though, we were greeted by a little town that had been completely taken over by team buses, corporate areas and the race. The sleepy little town had awoken to a mass of people and a carnival like atmosphere. Fortunately the team busses were strung out along a narrow road in the town - so even though we didn't have passes to get into the team area, we were close to the mechanics and team busses.

We hung around and watched a few of the starts before making our way along the route back to the car. It is just an amazing sight to see the riders winding up their gears and settling down into a rythem that they are going to maintain for the next hour. They really are machines. On the way Jonathan found a stall that sold local sausages wrapped in a crepe. They were really tasty and we finished off a few of them for lunch.

We drove back into Rennes to find the finish line. Luckily we were able to park right at the 400m mark from the finish line. The crowds on the edge of the barriers were generally four to five people deep. We walked around and watched a few riders come up the finishing straight before heading down towards the media finish area. As soon as each rider crossed the finish line they were mobbed by media. Photographers and reporters shoved each other to get photographs and shove microphones into faces. A lot of the riders aren't too interested in talking to the media after the stage, especially if they posted a bad time. These ones would just ride straight through the media without stopping - this included some of the big names - Landis, Hushovd, Evans.

Results for the day: Serhiy Honchar won the time-trial stage and took the Malliot Jaune. Robbie McEwan kept his Malliot Vert. We watched the presentations. Robbie McEwan didn't want to talk to the media today and after receiving his jersey he weaved off through the crowd and was picked up by his waiting car.

And then it was over. As soon as the last official stepped off the podium, the cranes had already removed the finish banner and the barriers were being picked up by a truck. Hundreds of tour roadies streamed out of somewhere and each got to work on their specific job like a pack of worker ants. Everything was torn down within the hour and packed up into the waiting trucks, ready to roll out to the next town that the Tour de France tornado would blow into. As for us we walked back to the car and set off to find our nights accommodation.

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TdF 2006 Stage 8 - Rennes

Jul 8, 2006 - 28 Photos