David's Diary: Sunday, July 29, 2001
Tour de France
Le Tour de France
Le Tour De France, the bicycle race that covers France ends today in Paris. Yesterday, when Karalee and Jocelyn were at the market, they discovered that the race would come right through the tiny village of St. Rémy-lès-Chevreuse. The exact route changes every year, but with the chance to see the tour in person just a short drive away was too tempting to miss.
The Le Tour De France Web site is quite good. It offers multiple languages, including English. With the help of the Web site we were able to get the entire route plan for the day, including the time that the racers would be passing through St. Rémy-lès-Chevreuse.
We were away in good time and outside the village Gendarmes were positioned to keep the cars away. We found a parking spot and walked into town. The race was going to pass right through the center of the village and we found a good position where we could see the racers approaching. Then we waited in 35C sunshine for the racers to appear. First a few cars arrived, then a few more, then motor cycles, then more cars. Excitement built as the time approached that we thought that the racers would appear. Then we waited. Then we waited some more. Then more cars -- cars with radios, cars with bicycles, cars with celebrities. But no racers.
Finally, almost forty minutes after the time reported on the Web site, the racers appeared. More than a hundred of them all bunched together. I had time for a few quick clicks of the camera, then a couple of blinks, and then the racers were gone up the hill leading out of St. Rémy-lès-Chevreuse. Then the cars really came -- it seemed like there must have been as many cars as bikes on the road for the race.
Support Vehicles
After stopping in the village for an ice cream we returned home and watched the finale of the race on TV. It was exciting to see the crowds of bike crazy people lining the streets of the Champs-Élysées and know that just a short time before we had seen them in person. The camera angles took in many of the sites that we had seen only days before and the children recognized many of the sites by name. Who won was almost anticlimactic since for us it was the experience that counted.