Tour de France

"Prior to Positive Steriod Sample"
After leaving Turino on Sunday morning, we headed down towards (towards being the operative word) to go watch the end of the 15th Stage of this year's Tour de France. The finish line was in an Italian ski village, Prato Nevoso. We stopped briefly in Cuneo, another stop along the Tour (Cuneo will be the start of Tuesday's Stage 16) where we snapped some pics, walked around, and couldn't find lunch (everything is closed on Sundays in Europe, including McDonalds in some towns). We eventually got out of Cuneo and ate at a hotel along the way. It was at this point that Alli suddenly learned Italian and was able to successfully communicate with our waiter that I was a moron, but to bring me a Coke and some risotto anyway. Yes, they charge you for the bread on the table so unless you want to buy it, don't eat it.

It was a fairly easy drive with some pretty country-side scenery, winding through village after village until we made our way into a little town about 20km from the finish line. It was at this point that we realized that we would probably not be witnessing the finish of this stage.

At every possible point from this town on there were road blocks, police, and barriers preventing any automotive traffic from going to the finish. It appears that if we wanted to see the finish we would have had to arrive at least one day prior to the stage as our mere four hour cushion of time wasn't enough (or more likely there wasn't any room at the mountaintop judging by the reports from TV). Thus, we were forced to park our car and walk up a Grade 1 climb (the hardest with the exception of the hors catégorie climb which means (beyond classification). So you can see what we were up against 20km for the finish with three hours until the peloton arrived.

Needless to say we decided that walking 20km (or running for that matter) was out of the question so we walked about 6-8km (not exactly sure) up to a little town at a decent spot along the route that was relatively uphill (to provide better photography). After reaching our spot we waited for about 1.5-2 hours for the excitement to begin....

About a half hour before the riders came the caravan, replete with obnoxious horns honking from every model of Škoda automobiles (official partner of Le Tour) you could imagine, interspersed with other Le Tour sponsors vans, Team/Rider buses, VIPs, police, tow trucks, medics, etc. I kind of felt like I was at Mardi Gras, only minus the inebriated college kids, and without the inappropriateness; actually, it was nothing like Mardi Gras. In reality, the sponsor vans/wagons/floats/ATV's/vehicles would drive by playing music, throwing keepsake collectibles such as cycling hats, inflatable tires (courtesy of the tire sponsor), keychains, bottle openers, pens, fridge magnets, gummy things (sour gummy worms, gummy fruits, black licorice), and weird little sausages called "Croc'sec" (insert inappropriate joke here). I ate a few of them, they were kind of like mini salami with lots of salt. If anyone wants some let me know, I've got about 10 bags of these things (4 to a package).

So now the croud is pumped. Mind you the riders are merely another half hour away. Occasionally you think the riders have made it until you realise it's just a Tour Wannabe who is trying to show us how awesome he is by making the climb slightly faster than I can walk. As the time approaches we can see helicopters coming up the mountain. There were eight. You could hear the helicopters before you could see them, causing further excitment and wonderment as you figured with each helicopter would come the riders. Finally the excitement peaked as the last helicopter slowly made it's way overhead and hovered while the motorcade of AP photographers, video guy strapped to the back of a motorcycle, police motorcycles and cars came wizzing by at quite a pace. Had I not had been taking photos one would have barely noticed the four real Tour de France leaders in the midst of all the craziness. These guys cruised up the mountain faster than I think I could ride down it. These guy's calf/thigh/abs of steel/Alli could comment on the buns/stamina was amazing. They had been riding for about 170km when they reached us, ~105 miles, through unbelievable climbs (which included 1800 meters of elevation gain over the first 60km climb to start the day, yea, that's over a mile) and yet still seemed to fly by.

My big moment was when the leaders came through and I yelled GO USA! (as did my wife) to the Team Garmin/Chipotle rider Danny Pate, who at the time looked like he was melting with the amount of perspiration running down his body. Hopefully the unexpected American supporters were enough to give him the energy to finish the climb (although I think he wound up 3rd on this stage).

It was probably about 5 minutes or so before the bulk of the riders came through...it was quite the site. Following them were cars with spare bikes, tires, water, more police, and then another 10 minutes later they bulk of the remainder of the riders. We walked back down after all the riders went by and decided we'd try to drive to the top. (Although at first I thought I lost my wallet and ran about a km back up the mountain where my wallet was not, which made me panic a bit, but after Alli settled me down and told me it was probably still in the car, we thankfully found it back in the car where I left it...I always lose stuff, it's a neverending battle. M: Where's my keys Alli??? A: Did you look in the door honey? M: Why would they be there? You must have moved them foul temptress! Fine, I'll look in the door...Thanks honey, found them! - And that's the story of how I lost argument number 8,389; current score Alli 8,387 - Mark 2)

So we drove a couple km back up the mountain now as the nefarious roadblocks had been lifted, although now we reached a new roadblock that we hadn't seen before, only this one had Italian military stationed at it. As I pointed to the soldier with the gun that I intended to go further up the mountain, he used his very nice gun to point me in the correct direction (back down the mountain). Oh well, so we didn't get to see some dude get kissed by two Italian babes wearing yellow, but we did get to see the Tour de France ride on by; complete with lots of muscle-laden, sweaty dudes."You can't pay for excitement like this"