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7/23/06 - Day 7 - Paris

Today we did 2 rides. Doug and I got lost in Paris for a couple hours. Funny story. My injuries on this ride were nothing compared to the two hospitalizations that occurred but mine was kind of funny. The drawstring on my shorts wrapped itself around me in a most hazardous fashion causing what can best be described as a very small, very nasty rope burn. I'm glad today's rides were short. Motionbased.com has the rides.

Then we did a group ride about 9:00. Great time. Culminated with some laps with a bunch of other cyclists on a bike track.

Watched the final laps for the Automobile Club on the Champs.

The access we had to the riders at the end was unbelievable. We jumped a couple barriers c'est voila! That's me at the Phonak team bus. Don't remember who's bike it was next to me.

Doug disappeared for about 12 hours and pretty much drank everywhere in Paris. One member of our group got lucky enough to go to the Discovery Team Party but she's not sharing any stories (or pictures) with us.

7/22/06 - Day 6 - TV time

Today we took the TGV to Paris after taking a little boat and walking tour of Annecy. We fixed another bike for another local.

Once we got to Paris we checked into the rooms and watched the Time Trial on TV. Very cool thanks to the hosted bar by Trek Travel.

That night we were on our own for dinner. A few of us went to a great local place where I had some Steak Tartare. Love the French! Then we walked around Paris for part of the night and ended up in an Irish pub that went gay at 1:15 am.

We left soon after.

What a great night!

7/21/06 - Day 5 - Col de Leschaux Col de la Forclaz Lake Annecy

OK. Stupid statement here. I know that when you are a husband and a father you have to say that your wedding day and the days that your kids were born were the best days of your life. But if that's true, then following a micron behind that was July 21, 2006. I truly cannot remember a better day. As a matter of fact, when you talk about BEST DAYS, we had 7 of them in a row. This was the best of those days though. I did not bring my handlebar cam on this ride. I don't know why. I wish I had.

The day started out, as usual with a great breakfast. We were sort of on our own here for this ride. I think that if you wanted you could have ridden out around the lake and had lunch and ridden home and it would have been 20 or 30 miles. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to someday tell the story of the ride I didn't do in France.

The first climb, again, looks bad on paper but really was very easy. Due to a condition which made it very difficult to sit on a bike seat I was forced to do the climb very slowly while standing so that might have contributed to its ease.

We all gathered together at the top of the climb for some pictures and a snack and then attacked what was supposed to be the easier of today's climbs.

HA!! HA!! The temperature rose with the humidity and this ride was darned uncomfortable. Fortunately my little condition seemed to fix itself so I was able to sit comfortably again.

At the summit of the climb Doug and I stopped for some ice cream in a quaint little village. I don't think anyone in that town has ever eaten as much ice cream as I consumed there. The seemed really surprised when I kept asking for more.

The descents were getting better and better every day and this was the BEST. Rolling turns where you barely had to touch the brakes. At some point I turned and spit right on a beautiful girl on a motorcycle flying down the hill. I say she was beautiful but I never really saw her but I bet she was.

When we finally emerged from the descent we stopped at a little church along the road. The churches patron was St. Blaise who is, among other things, the patron saint of diseases of the throat, wild animals, and young girls seeking a husband. (that's a private joke).

Then we rode around the lake. What a spectacular ride. We stopped at one point to fix a flat for a local on a bike.

Afterwards we bought some beer at a local market and jumped in the lake. I tried to convince the girls that they'd be more comfortable going topless with the locals but they declined.

We all went out drinking that night and took some great pictures (which I don't think I'll post). They roped off the sewers that I almost fell in the night before. I think we almost jumped in the lake again but I don't really remember most of the night.

7/20/2006 - Day 4 - Col des Aravis to Menthon St. Bernard

In spite of the profile of this ride, I found this to be one of the most comfortable climbs that we had all week.

The idea here is that we climb to within 5 kilometers of the summit of the big climb. We'd be taking the same road that the tour would be riding later in the day. Then we watch the tour go by and ride to the top of the climb and then it's all downhill to our next hotel.

As I said, the climb was fantastic. We stopped and had a great lunch, enjoyed a couple beers, and settled in to wait for the riders.

If you don't already know, today is the day that Landis launches his attack after faltering the day before. We were at a perfect spot to watch it but we really didn't know. When they went by he had just caught one group that he was attacking. I thought he looked terrible. Like I said, watching the tour live can be a little deceiving.

After the tour went by we climbed and then did a great descent. We lost one rider that day to a bad accident. He ended up spending the rest of his trip in a neck brace. The downhill and the fans combined for some very tricky maneuvering.

There were some very strong riders in our group. I couldn't keep up with them even on the downhill and got a little lost on the way to the hotel. It worked out though because I got to see an honest to goodness castle.

The hotel we stayed in, The Palace de Menthon, was not just the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in, but probably the nicest hotel I've ever seen. I'll post pics tonight. More about the area tomorrow.

That night we had some pretty good pizza in France. Better than just about anything you can get in Phoenix anyway. Had a few drinks with the locals and some other Trek Travel tourists and I almost fell into a sewer.

7/19/06 - Day 3 - Col de Glandon

Today was the hardest ride of the trip in my opinion. Even though the mountains kind of screwed with my GPS reception you get a feel for what this was like. Almost 4,000 feet of climbing in 10 miles. Brutal.We had a nice surprise with Kevin Livingston being our guest tour guide today. Before the ride I asked anyone who was listening what the weather was going to be like. This guy shouts out that it's going to be pouring. I looked up at the clear blue sky as far as the eye could see and said, "Are you sure?" He said, "POURING."

I said to the guy next to me, "I think this dude is fucking with me but I think it's Kevin Livingston so I don't want to say anything. After the ride started I told him that and he said that it was going to be pouring sweat today. He also offered to carry my rain jacket if it was too heavy for me to carry. Just a scenic shot here.
We rode up to the Col de Glandon and hung out there for a couple hours and waited for the tour to come through. Good times.


Afterwards we rode back the way we came. It was as if Moses and his people had RVs at the time of Exodus in the old testament. It must have taken an hour to ride past them all in the traffic Jam that followed.We finished at the bottom of big climb and took a bus back to the hotel. The bus driver was a maniac.

7/18/06 - Day 2 - Alpe d'Huez

Alpe d'Huez. Mythic.

Actually it was pretty cool. We started the day with a 12 mile fast descent from our hotel to the start of the climb.



After that you pretty much know the story: 8 miles, 21 switchbacks, 3,500 feet of climbing. It's tough. It's not the toughest climb we did but it varies in grade so much through the switchbacks that it's tough to get a rhythm going.

It was kind of erie because the road was packed with RVs and campers and tents but there were few people. We climbed it at 6:00 am and I think everyone was asleep.

I have only two disappointments about the entire trip and one of them is that I didn't get to meet the devil. If you don't know who he is I can't tell you because I gave away my copy of Bicycling magazine which contained his profile. I wore my ASU Sundevils jersey and I was going to stop and get a picture with him.

We got to the top but they stopped us about 50 yards from the finish. That's me on the left with Doug. My ass really isn't as big as it looks. I had a couple cameras with me (one of which I dropped and broke) and some cold weather gear.

At the top there was a bit of a traffic jam. Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwin of OLN TV got stopped in it for a while. They were cordial at first but Phil looked like he was ready to chew somebody out for making him sit out there so long.

Afterwards we had 8 to 10 hours to kill in Huez before the ride came through. This is where the Trek Travel people really shined! They took our bikes and handed us our day packs. A quick shower and change and we were ready for the day. You've seen the picture with me, Doug, and Lance already I guess but we got this other one as well.


Doug was like a groupie walking around showing everybody the picture.

We had a fantastic lunch with the other Trek Travel teams and some people from Discovery Channel and OLN.

Later we watched the race finish from a special Trek Travel only area. Nice but really the race viewing aspect of the trip was the weak point. It's like going to a golf tournament and sitting at one hole all day. It would have been nice to have had a TV there with OLN.

After the riders came through the Gendarmes closed the road down so we had to take a different route down. Try to picture 7 miles of switchbacks dropping 3,000 feet and then ascending 2,000 feet over the next 8 miles all in a freezing rain. That's what the afternoon was like. And let me tell you it was AWESOME!

7/17/06 - Day 1 - Berade Valley

The day started with a quick meeting at the train station and then an hour bus ride to the park where we were fitted with our bikes. Trek Madone 5.2s with an Ultegra triple.

Most people had a detailed set of measurements but I figured that my bike is so screwed up anyway that I'd just go with their recommendations.

After that a leisurely lunch and we were off. My GPS kept dropping the signal in the mountains so although motionbased.com says it was 20.75 miles with 2,000 Ft of climbing I think it was more. The first part of the ride was a little busy because people were already parking for the next day when the tour would reach the summit at the Alpe d'Huez. We finished the day with a ski lift ride up to a hotel in the town of Duez Alpes and a swim in what their heated pool.

Although the ride was billed as a warm up I was shocked at the intensity. The nice thing about the ride was that the physical exertion really knocked down any social barriers between people and we all became close pretty quick.

We're back!

That's it! Trip's over. For those of you who were trying to follow the trip, I certainly apologize. They never heard of the internet in the first hotel we stayed in and we had some connectivity problems in the second one. By the time we got to Paris our schedule was so hectic that I didn't have time to get to this.

So, while not exactly a blog, I'll try and capture what it was like...

Paige was very excited to see me by the way. She's much older than this now but I love this picture of her and it sort of goes with the trip.

A Photo in the Alps

Marc and Doug with Lance Armstrong. Marc downplayed getting this picture, but I know he was excited.

Marc's in France

Marc is in France and having a fabulous time! Would you expect anything less? He is doing what he loves and doesn't mind the crowds because they are all cyclists and cycle fans.

Marc is experiencing some difficulties with accessing the internet though. He blew out the circuits on their hotel floor three times before admitting defeat with getting online.

Here are some of the highlights of his trip so far:

Marc climbed Alp d’Huez and loved it! He also did another ride in the afternoon in the rain and had a great time.

Kevin Livingston led them on a ride.

Marc has seen Lance Armstrong twice and he and Doug got their picture taken with him.

All the best,Katie

Almost ready...

Was a bum again this morning and didn't ride. Pretty tired. Also, I don't think that I'm really going to get much more benefit from contuing to ride. We leave Saturday.

How this started...

For those of you who don't know all the stories, let me just stipulate that my wife has not been the most supportive person of this obsession of mine, riding a bike.

So it was pretty surprising at after a Christmas party in 2005 that she told me that I should go on one of those Tour de France trips in the summer of 2006.

The most difficult part of this really was convincing my friend Doug to go with.