Killing Time / Making Friends

You have about four hours to kill before the cyclists come rolling through. Plenty of time to picnic, get some sun, and make some new friends.

Staging Area

Each day begins the same... team buses roll into a big parking lot, pre-race interviews, signing into the race book, and lots of autographs for fans.

Chipotle in The New York Times

"An Olympic Cyclist's Levelheaded Advice" featuring Team Garmin/Chipotle was in today's New York Times. Read it here.

The Name Game

Both of the U.S.-based cycling teams in this year's Tour de France changed their names this week to reflect new sponsorship deals. Team High Road (formerly the T-Mobile team) is now Team Columbia after the Columbia Sportswear Company (article here). More importantly, Team Slipstream/Chipotle (or Slip-Chip) will now be called Team Garmin/Chipotle (Gar-Chip doesn't have quite the same ring; article here). Thank goodness Chipotle is still a sponsor though... whew!

Sponsor Caravan

An hour before the cyclists arrive, the sponsor caravan comes rolling by the spectators. It's a 20 km-long procession with 200 brightly decorated vehicles (see some examples above), with 43 brands represented on average each year they distribute 15 million gifts (see our take from the 2005 TdF above). The whole procession lasts about 45 minutes. Depending where you happen to be located on the route determines how much stuff they distribute -- mountains are better than flats, but you also have more people to compete with for the prized handouts.

Booking the Car

In order for us to follow the Tour the way we prefer -- in the middle of nowhere and often on the side of a cliff -- we book a car to help us get there. We found our vendor of choice, AutoEurope, through Rick Steves' website.

French Tutor

About this time each year before traveling to France, we start to brush up on our French. Our tutor of choice... Michel Thomas. His eight-disc program (sans instruction book), and five-disc advanced program, gives me just enough French to be dangerous. We also travel with Rick Steves' handy little French Phrasebook for all those times when we can't remember fast enough what Michel taught us.

Less Than a Month Away

The fun begins on July 5 and finishes on July 27. We have booked our tickets and will be there from July 16 to 25. Can you feel the excitement?