Jamie Thingelstad

The thing that I liked most about coming to see the Tour de France in person were the sights and sounds that you never get to see on TV. The energy of the people on the roadside. The caravan coming through. The thrill of the peloton. Running the Tour de France is an amazing job. The race is assembled like a rolling caravan throughout the country and as soon as it goes by the roads are restored to normal circulation. One of my favorite things in watching the tour was the special truck that drives right at the end of the race behind everything. It’s a non-descript vehicle and on the back with red letters on white are the words

Fin de Course

I don’t know exactly why I found that so special. I told Tammy it was like a classic movie where they actually put “The End” on the screen before rolling the credits. It just seemed well suited.

If I can extend the metaphor, we have finished the first course of our trip and are sending off the hectic days of the Tour de France in favor of relaxing days of strolling the streets of Paris and visiting museums.

Before we leave the cycling, a couple of notes:

• If you plan a cycling trip to the Alpes, be careful. You do not want to go through the expense and hassle of coming here only to be stupid on a mountain descent, go down and hurt yourself. A decent number of people had accidents and in nearly all cases it was a lack of IQ and skill. Remember, you didn’t grow up descending alpine roads.
• Packing your bike and lugging it around is a pain in the neck and very heavy. We’ll be glad to drop them off at UPS today.
• The French are amazingly nice and considerate to cyclists. The only time I ever felt the pressure of traffic was a short jaunt on a freeway when we were lost on a ride. The drivers in the country and villages are amazing and even though there are no shoulders, you feel completely at ease.
• Seeing the Tour de France in person is amazing, but I missed OLN. The daily TV coverage is so much more informative. If you love the tour and do not at least read French, be ready to have very little information. While there is ten times the coverage here, it’s entirely French. (They show the tour live on three channels all day!)
• Bikestyle did a great job. The accommodations were fine, travel was well managed and Tammy and I both felt comfortable at all times.

That’s all for that. We’re going to transfer to our next hotel and I’ll probably post some more frequent notes before we head off to Switzerland. I’ll try to get some photos up as well. I’ve been copying all the photos we’ve taken so far to the server at home but it takes some time to transfer 2.5 gigabytes even on the high-speed in the hotel.

Today we saw what we came here to see, history being made. Lance crossed the finish line on the Champs Elysees this afternoon to become the first person in the history of cycling to win six tour victories. We really wanted to make the Tour de France trip this year on the chance that this may happen. I was skeptical, but was proven very wrong with Lance’s commanding victory this year.

We had to leave early from Beaune and get back on the bus for the trip to Paris. The stage was the most attended by far. People were eight deep along the barricades on the Champs. Tammy and I tried to find a good spot but were unable to get situated really well. We ended up walking a few kilometers and got off of the Champs to a point where we could at least see over the barricades.

There was a break in the group but the peloton caught them. The speed of the group was incredible.

Today was the best ride of the trip. Tammy and I figured that while we had suffered up some mountain climbs we hadn’t really gotten any distance in. We decided that since today’s ride would be “flatter” (this is a relative term) we would do the 115km option. We left on our bikes straight from Beaune and rode to Besancon for the time trial. We rode with a fast group in a huge bunch for the first 70 k’s and then fell off the back. The speed kept getting faster and it was very hard to stay on. We’d get shot off the back and then have to kill ourselves to get back on a wheel. Then we realized that we were on vacation and I could stare at a rear wheel in Minnesota. Time to smell the flowers!

We let the group ride off. It’s amazing how fast they ride off, in minutes we weren’t even able to see them. We pedaled along and had a simply great ride along the valleys in rural France. We went through so many small villages, stopped at a bakery for some pastries, went along rivers. It was simply wonderful.

We ended up clicking off 125 km which is I believe 78 miles or so in the Queens measurements. That is the longest ride Tammy has ever done topping her previous 67 mile record. She’s now saying that she might do a century with me. She’s doing great on the bike. Clearly the running and workout out she’s done has paid in spades.

The time trial was great. Lance pounded a resounding fist of authority on the tour besting Ullrich by just over a minute. I was able to see the podium presentation for the first time. It was also the first time I heard any booing. There are many people who believe that Lance dopes and there were a number of boo’s as he received the stage victory.

We headed back to the bus and rode back to Beaune. After a banquet dinner in the hotel we took a walk in Beaune. I just couldn’t live with the idea we would be at this great village and not even see it! I wish we would have had a day to spend there as it looked like an incredible town.

I’m writing this entry on the bus ride back to Paris. We got up again at 6:00 am so we could head into Paris for the final stage of the Tour de France. I’m looking forward to seeing Lance win a record setting sixth tour. This leg of our trip is about to end and that will be fine. We’ve been up at 6:00 am every day, riding, standing outside watching the tour and typically not getting back until 9:00 pm for a quick dinner and back to sleep. The next few days of more leisurely activity in Paris will be appreciated. I certainly will not miss this bus either.

Today we left Grenoble and departed for Beaune where we will spend the next 2 nights. We rode on the bus to the stage about an hour from Beaune and got our bikes to ride the last big climb of the stage. There was a category 4 climb at the end and we planned to ride from the stage finish to the 20km to go banner and back going over this climb both ways.

Unfortunately for us the climb was an absolute brute going opposite of the race. At least twice as steep than the other side so I would say we did a category 3 and a category 4 climb. 🙂

It was great countryside and we turned to head back. We cut the time a little short though and the jandams (the Frnech cops that line much of the route) kept on stopping us in the last 5k making us walk. It turned out to just be a section as we got on after a while and were able to get back into town.

The stage finish was extremely crowded. We waited in the finishing chute and saw the riders come through there. It was an interesting spot to be in since they weren’t going crazy fast which resulted in some nice photos.

Today was the dreaded day of the tour climbing two Hors (beyond) category climbs. Tammy took a sick day today and stayed in the hotel to accelerate her recovery (I’m glad to say I think it helped a lot). I took the shuttle to the stage. The plan was to ride about 40k to the base of the Madelaine and then climb up a ways to watch the tour. We ran short on time so we just ended up going to the base of the mountain and climbing.

The Madelain is a beast. It’s a 19.8 km climb with an average gradient of 7.8%. Technically it doesn’t pitch up the way Alpe d’Huez does but it’s nearly twice the length. A fit recreational rider will take 2 hours to climb the Madelaine. Two hours. That’s two hours of going up, constantly. The roads in Alpes are never flat. They just go up at a constant rate. There is no recovery flats, just up. You look up the road panting and sweating and it’s just more up. Forever.

I didn’t finish the climb. I ran low on water after an hour of climbing. In that hour I made it about 7 km up the climb and 600 vertical meters. The entire climb is around 2000 meters so I did about 1/3rd of the climb. That was enough. I am after all, on vacation.

It was another great day for the tour and I got to watch “le train bleu” on the front. Floyd Landis did a piece of work for Lance today that will redefine him as a domestique. It was amazing to watch.

We watched the stage on the tour bus as we drove home. There was a huge roar in the bus when Lance sprinted in the last 100 meters to take the stage from Kloeden. He seems to be incredibly on form this year.

What happened to refrigeration when Europe got their hands on it? There is nothing that is really cold here! I’ve been on a search for “la glacie” (ice) and anytime I get my hands on some I drink a half-dozen glasses of cold water. Even the soda out of vending machines isn’t really cold, but just cool.

I’m trying not to be an ugly American on this one. I’ve found France to be great. But c’mon, bring on the ice!

Tammy is obsessed with water.

Today was the most hyped stage of the 2004 Tour de France. When the tour route was announced last fall they had placed all the mountains and the individual time trials at the last half of the race. This would leave the race very open until the end. As it turns out, Lance was able to get good time in the Pyranees so it wasn’t as open as hoped.

We skipped riding today because of the insanity of the crowds and Tammy was coming down for real with the cold I came here with. We took a shuttle bus up to Bourg d’Oisans which is at the base of the L’Alpe d’Huez and watched the stage at the start.

I wont go into all the details of the stage since you can go to a Tour de France site to read about that but Lance won the stage with command and I was able to experience my defining moment of the Tour de France.

Tammy was feeling quite bad so before the stage ended she took the shuttle back to town. I stayed and took pictures as the riders started the time trial. The crowds were enormous even on the base of the climb. As Lance went past and the procession of what must have been 30 cars behind him went by, a number of us ran across the street to this little bar to watch the stage. This is where I had my “tour moment”.

I was under the awning of this little bar. There were probably 40 or so people crowded under and there was a 13" TV on a stool on one end. The rabbit ears were stuck up to pull in the race coverage. Under this little awning at the base of the mountain were French, German, Italian, Americans and more countries. Everyone spoke different languages but all we’re passionate about the tour. We stood there in a group glued to this tiny TV watching the race progress up the Alpe.

I think part of the reason why Americans don’t get bike racing is we need an us versus them. Yankees versus the Dodgers. Ali versus Foreman. If you remove the “versus” we don’t get it. We are a very bivalent country (republican or democrat, pro this or anti that, yes or no, black and white). As this international group watched the race everyone was cheering for everyone. Ullrich came through the first checkpoint with the best time and the group roared. Lance came through and bested the time and there was another roar. It was a celebration of the achievement, of what is possible. Not a celebration of the defeat of another.

I’ll remember standing in that bar watching that crappy 13" TV every time I watch the tour.

I didn’t get an opportunity to climb the L’Alpe, but that’s okay. I will come back some other time to do that. This was just as good.

This is the first day that we actually get to see the Tour de France on the road. We went out for the short ride option today since I was recovering from my cold and Tammy was of course starting to get the early symptoms of it. There should be a way that you can trade vacation days for sick days! 🙂 We took the bus from Grenoble and cut out a moderately steep and very long climb out of the town to make our ride a little easier. We rode the bus up the switchbacks of the mountainside and got off near the top of the climb and spun along with a bunch of about 20 riders. We headed out a few kilometers and got onto a loop that Lonely Planet describes as the most scenic cycling route in France and one of the best in Europe.

We did a steep and fast descent into a canyon on a road that was literally cut out of the side of a sheer face. The speeds on the descent were a taste of what we would get coming up hitting around 60 kph (sorry, all my computers are set to kilometers for this trip so you will need to do the conversion on your own). While that isn’t terribly fast for a descent let me describe the conditions. The road was very windy. It was maybe 10 feet wide but somehow was a 2-lane road with active oncoming traffic and you couldn’t see around the sweeps because as I mentioned it was cut into the side of a rock face. Oh, the other side over the barrier? Few hundred feet to a nice R.I.P. Yeah, I took it easy. Little did I know this was easy compared to what was coming up. Tammy took it even easier. She learned through this trip that there is something she hates more than climbing - descending.

We then climbed out of the canyon and I found out this was another preview of things to come. This was just some road climbing out of the canyon. Please note, this is not climbing a mountain as I thought it was while doing it. When getting to the top I asked the ride leader and he kindly informed me that “no, the mountain is coming up”. And did it ever…

We stopped in a small village in the foothills of the Alpes and filled our water bottles. Many of these old villages have a public fountain or spring in the middle of town which makes it great for cyclists. You just fill your bottle up with great, cold spring mountain water. Wonderful. And thankful since none of them have any stores. The houses and buildings were amazing.

After trying to figure out where we were, we descended a few kilometers and for the first time, turned onto the course of the Tour de France. Let me take a moment to pause here.

I now fully realize what an intimate sport cycling is. Imagine going to the Indy 500 and being able to drive your car around the track a few times before the race, just for fun. Or going to a baseball game and hitting a few balls at the plate while the crowd streams in. That is what you can do at the Tour de France. Riding your bike on the alpine climbs of the Tour hours before the race itself comes through with the huge crowds on the side of the climb was just incredible.

We got to the bottom of the descent and turned left to climb the 1,374m Col de Chalimont. The climb was 11 km with an average gradient of 5.8%. The first few k’s (kilometers) were steeper than the top. After about 3 km I had given up on “keeping a gear in reserve”. You see, cyclists will usually not shift into the easiest gear on their bike when climbing mostly to have a mental reserve if it gets really hard. Forget that! I was panting my way up the side of this mountain going about 8 kph with my heart racing a 100 yard dash! Tammy who was lucky enough to have a triple chain ring (she has a whole set of gears for climbing which I do not have) was spinning along working hard in her “granny gear”.

I did have to stop after about 8 km and 40 minutes of climbing. The entire climb took around an hour. Tammy didn’t stop and actually made it to the top before I did. The crowd on the side of the road cheers on anyone climbing. Allez! Allez! It really does make you go longer and harder than you could otherwise. Of course watching the tour riders ride up this mere category 2 climb afterwards is a little humbling. 🙂

We then did a 10 km descent into the village where we stopped to watch the tour. We settled in a round-about that the tour would cross twice. They would come off a steep descent rocketing along and do a 180 degree turn into the town. Do about 3 k’s and then come back through the other way to do a quick 3k climb to an uphill finish.

Before the tour the caravan came through. The caravan is essentially a parade that drives about an hour in front of the race in part to clear the road but mostly to give more opportunities to the sponsors. The Tour de France is free, 100% funded by sponsors. The fans love the caravan and it provides a good diversion after you’ve been waiting there for 2 hours in the baking sun.

The tour experience on this first day was really amazing. It’s not like any other sporting event I have ever experienced. First, the race goes by you so fast that you see it for minutes, yet thousands crowd the road as it goes by. The electricity in the air and the love that the people have for this event drowns out the commercialism of the sponsors. I was perched in a spot waiting to see the riders come down the descent and around me were men and women, young and old and everyone was eyeing a tiny piece of blacktop at the top of the descent. At the first site of a rider the group erupted in a roar as they came down. It was amazing to experience. The lead group came through as the crowd cheered. Personally I could hardly get a picture off. I was just fumbling around at the first site of the tour, Lance in the lead group down the descent, the speed and power of the race. It was amazing.

A few minutes later the yellow jersey group came down with Thomas Voeckler still in yellow. Voeckler at this point had held the yellow jersey longer than any French rider in the last two decades. He’s under 25 and looks like a kid. And, the French love him. Another roar erupted as they went by. It’s hard to describe the energy and experience of such a brief event. I’m simply not a good enough writer to do it justice. But it was amazing.

We ended our day with a very long and fast descent back to Grenoble. Tammy described that descent as the hardest thing she’s ever done on a bike. Your hands and arms ache on these descents because you must brake smart and hard at the right times. You cannot brake all the time or you will blow a tire. So you must let your speed get up to 50-60 kph and then as you get to the switchback brake hard and come out. It rained a little on the descent making it even worse. We had dinner around 9pm in Grenoble and called it a day.

Tammy and I are in a smoky Internet cafe in Grenoble…

Sounds like the beginning to a good novel. :-) However, this keyboard is french! And it is shockingly similqr yet different. Forget qwerty, it’s azerty!

Anyway just letting people know we have arrived. The keyboard and smoke are too much! We ride tomorrow…

Au revoir!

I was pleased to wake up this morning feeling better than yesterday. A good nights sleep thanks to Nyquil and variety of other incantations seemed to have helped me out. Hopefully Tammy wont get any whiff of this quick cold.

The car is completely loaded and we’re just waiting to head to the airport. Tonight we sleep on the plane and wake up tomorrow in Paris! Tammy is starting to get really worried about the flight. She hates flying. It seems like we have half of our house with us for this trip. Putting both cycling and hiking in a vacation means you end up needing to bring a lot of stuff with you.

The Tour de France has been awesome the last two days with Lance showing that he does indeed have what it takes. I’m terribly excited about seeing it all in person!

The next time you hear anything from us will be from France!

I got a cold the day before we go to Europe! Argh!

It’s Chris Tersteeg’s fault – he gave it to me. I’ve got a depth charge of vitamins, medicine and other herbal things trying to get me better. Hopefully it’ll pass soon.

Bikes are boxed up, bags are 95% packed and carry-on is ready to go. Tomorrow we sleep by the Eiffel Tower.

Way back in February I submitted my entry for the Chequamegon Fat Tire race. I’ve done the “Fat 40” for the last three years and it’s always a great time. Of course, while I’m slogging myself across the 42 miles (there are 2 more miles at the end just to slap you around a little bit) I don’t always think it is so much fun.

The Fat 40 is limited to 1,700 riders (there is a shorter 12 mile race that comprises another 800 entrants but I’ve never applied for that one). This year I received the wrong notice back – the one telling me I did not get selected in the drawing! See, over 3,000 people applied and there is a lottery. I was not one of the lucky ones.

There was only one more option. They have an essay contest “50 Ways to Ride the Chequamegon”. I entered it months ago and have been waiting, and waiting. I just got my letter today telling me…

…your essay was selected as a winner in this year’s contest.

Yes! Now I get to suffer with everyone else. I also get to suffer with my brother-in-law who I convinced to enter for the first time ever (he of course got selected in the lottery right off).

Time to start training! Eek!

Tammy and I dropped our bikes off at Erik’s Bike Shop tonight to get them packed in the Trico Iron Cases that I got on eBay what seems like forever ago. I had also just gotten a tune-up on my bike and replaced the chain which led to the unfortunate issue of realizing my rear cogs were all worn out so my new chain was slipping (always take some test rides!). So, new cog set is going on and I’m taking the opportunity to go from a 12-23T like I usually ride to a more “Alpe d’Huez friendly” 12-27T. I think I’ll be very thankful for those four additional teeth when suffering up the climbs.

Will pick the bikes up on Thursday. Rest of packing will be happening soon. Need to download French and Swiss maps to my eTrex Vista GPS (yes, I will be posting some GPS data as well – I can’t help myself). Fly out on Saturday!

I also got one of my books to read during the trip. Amazon delivered Heft on Wheels today by Mike Magnuson. Looks like fun reading, and probably some stuff I can relate to.

Tammy and I went and helped my mom today with the demolition of her kitchen. She’s been working on her new house for the last year and this is the start of probably the biggest project, but also the one with the most impact, a new kitchen. We went over to help her gut the room to the studs and got plenty dirty in the process.

Tammy and I did the ALARC Legends 5k this morning. Tammy has just started taking a running class with ALARC and they had an included pancake breakfast after the run which was enough for me to get on board. 🙂

Tammy ran it in 25:13 and I around 26:30. It was a nice run, a little humid and I was glad it started at 7:30am to avoid any heat.

This run is called Legends because they invite a number of Minnesota runners that have had an impact in the running world. A number of marathon record holders were there as well as a 90 year old dude out running with all of us. I hope I’m so energetic at 90!

We had our second “on the water” session in our Learn to Row class tonight at MRC. Tonight was significantly better than the first night. We did a much better job of setting (leveling) the boat and we had a more authoritative coxswain (she said it was her first time, but I find that hard to believe) which gave me more confidence. We did a number of drills tonight. First we rowed four at a time. In this configuration either the bow four or stern four will row while the other four level the boat. This is nice as even if you really mess up the four that are leveling will keep things generally stable. We then did six at a time, which is the same story just with six rowing and only two leveling. I was in seat 6 tonight on port side. I liked that spot better than seat 5 that I was in last time (the bow seat is seat 1 and the seat in front of the coxswain is seat 8). Tammy was stroke seat or seat 8 tonight and did an awesome job setting the stroke for the boat.

At the midpoint of our class we actually started rowing all 8! That was very impressive. The first stroke that you all make together just launches the boat forward. It wasn’t pretty at all times as we are very, very green but it was pretty good. Apparently our class is progressing fairly quickly.

Tammy and I are both enjoying the class. I really like the team atmosphere of rowing. It reminds me in many ways of riding a pace line on the bike. I find the technical terms enjoyable (again, like cycling) and I like how you work together to create such amazing speed on the boat. We are both interested in continuing into the novice program at MRC which allows you to row in eights for the season. Who knows, maybe we’ll get in a league. 🙂

See first class and rowing pictures.

Tammy and I are taking the “Learn to Row” class at the Minneapolis Rowing Club. Tonight was our third class which was our first class to really get out on the water. We are taking the class with 10 people and learning to row a sweep eight. We will also have one day where we will scull which is the one-person boats.

I got a little uneasy when the boat got wobbly (not set). Our instructor reassured us that it is very hard to flip an eight, but I wasn’t buying it.

Rowing is pretty fun so far. I’ll try to get some pictures on our weekend classes.