On the Road ... Tour de France

Driving the Tour de france 

LA TOUSSUIRE, France — Driving the Tour de France course as a member of the media provides a moveable movie — shot from behind the windshield. The "film" is an ideal documentary of what the Tour is really all about. The last two days, my colleague and friend Bruce Aldrich and I have driven the entire direct mountain course routes. It was four hours to L'Alpe d'Huez on Tuesday and then another three hours Wednesday to the stage finish at the small, unheralded ski resort. Tour organizers provide three types of driving stickers, green, blue and orange. The green sticker allows media representatives the most access, the blue the next-best access and the orange sticker the poorest access. We have a blue sticker, which allows us to drive on the course. But we're not allowed to pass the caravan publicity. It's the long parade of sponsor vehicles that distributes trinkets to spectators, and it negotiates each day's route 90 minutes before the riders. Instead, on both of the last two days, we've avoided the course start and started our drive to the finish ahead the publicity caravan. It never falls to amaze me the patience of the French fans. While driving through dozens of small villages, there they are: families with picnic baskets and umbrellas and recreational riders who've ridden for hours to find a perch along the route. In many instances, the riders won't arrive for hours. But the fans are willing to wait. They paint the roads with the names of their favorites and they buy Tour merchandise and food from street merchants. They even cheer the press corps. On the mountains, it's the same, but intense. Trailers are squeezed into precarious positions on hillsides and rowdy fans stand around, sometimes oblivious to approving vehicles. As the highest climbs approach, cyclists who've already climbed the mountain can speed downhill and within inches fans and race vehicles. The riders have to ride the course, of course. But it's not easy driving the route, either, particularly on steep ascents and with sheer dropoffs, sometimes on both sides of the road. My colleague, who's a first-time Tour visitor, compares Tour de France fans to Grateful Dead fans who used to spend days following the band city to city. And it's a good comparison. Some Grateful Dead fans know every note of every song; others are just happy to be at the show. It's the same with Tour de France fans. Some are passionate. They know every rider, every team and all the records. But it's apparent many Tour spectators are also just happy to be at the show, whether it's under a tree in the countryside or screaming and waving a country flag on a steep ascent in the Alps. It's the Tour de France and they're in the movie.

posted by dave kellogg at 2:20 PM

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