Alpine Crossing

This video is from our private ride on the gondola from Aiguille du Midi, France by Mont Blanc to Helbronner, Italy. (Actually, it's the reverse trip, so we're headed from Italy back to France.)

Col de la Colombiere

This is the video we shot from stage 17 at the base of the Col de la Colombiere. You can see Andy and Frank Schleck, Andreas Kloden and then Alberto Contador.

Cliff Hanging

It's a little difficult to see, but this is a video of people climbing from the glacial base to the top of the Aiguille du Midi. It was an impressive site, but I can't imagine with the wind and cold that it was very enjoyable (or safe).

Rocks and More Rocks

The giant field of rocks that were left in the glaciers wake. Hiking over these in Sketchers proved to be quite challenging, see earlier post.

La Mer du Glace

This is the La Mer du Glace (glacier) at the end of our hike from Mont Blanc down to Chamonix. Look how much it has receded.

Garmin Team Bus / TT Stage in Annecy

Hiking Into Oblivion

We caught these two guys as they started out from Aiguille du Midi down the steep slopes to the glacier near Mont Blanc. It's pretty much a sheer drop-off on either side of the thin path.

Back in NYC -- More to Come Soon

We're back in NYC now, landed last night at midnight, and I'm leaving for work in just a few minutes. It's always a little disappointing when the official Tour de France ends in Paris after three weeks, but don't despair, we'll be posting a few more things over the next day or so. We have some videos from the road (of the race and our antics), the URLs for most of the Chambres d'Hotes where we stayed, and a map of our personal Tour de France -- I think we drove close to 2,000 km over the past 10 days in our little car.

I still need to go through the caravan booty that we picked up from the road in addition to the two waterbottles we scored, but forgot to tell you that I sliced my finger this year using the wine bottle opener knife to "recycle" one of the TdF direction arrows. All is good now -- it happened very early on and has healed.

I've included a photo from our hike near Mont Blanc... not that it has anything to do with this post, but I really like the image. After traveling for nearly two weeks with our Canon G9, the Altoid box camera (Pentax Optio S4) and a small Netbook, it was fantastic to see some of the photos we took on a large screen this morning.

Calling London

We had a 12-hours layover yesterday in London traveling from Lyon to New York. Thankfully, our friends Mikaela and Zsolt moved there recently so we were able to meet up with them and their kids for a few hours. Above Angel and I with something royal in the background and Angel and Mikaela opting for a more contemporary method of communication.

Cornish Pasty Shop for Mom Lowery

Also on our layover, we found the Cornish Pasty shop near Covent Garden -- the pasty is popular in the UP of Michigan. Last time we were in London, we saw a place similar to this around the corner but didn't get a photo.

L'Alpe d'Huez Revisited

We drove up L'Alpe d'Huez yesterday morning before heading down to Provence and Ventoux. It was our plan to drive both mountain passes but the crowds on Ventoux scuttled that plan.

What a fantastic thing to do in a car! The road was littered with cyclists on their way up in various states of exhaustion. We've seen a number of mountain passes that they include in the TdF, and this one was pretty fantastic. Officially there are 21 switchbacks, but we counted several more towards the top.

Above you can see me standing relatively refreshed in my 2008 TdF Alpe d'Huez t-shirt by the Arrivee sign, as well as an exhausted rider rolling across the official finish line used in the Tour. One of us biked up, the other, nearly blew out the car's clutch.

Ventoux and Ready to Roll

Photo from this morning at the foot of Mont Ventoux, well, at least as close as we could get. It was windy, and I truly mean windy this morning. If it weren't clear and sunny, you probably would have thought a tornado was in the area. Our little car was blown all over the road, and for a minute I had visions of us rolling down the autoroute and a big gust of wind flipping it. No worries, we made it safely to our final pit-stop in France right outside of Lyon.

What a stage today! Instead of fighting the crowds in the heat to see only a glimpse of the riders, we decided to drive the hour to Lyon and camp at a cafe with television to see the entire Ventoux climb. Our plan was nearly scuttled when we hit some incredible traffic on the autoroute just north of Ventoux. Today's stage passed over the autoroute, so people were stopped or slowed for miles to catch a glimpse. Once drove over that road (we just missed the riders but saw the helicopters take off), we counted stopped cars for at least 40 km afterwards trying to go the other direction!

We made it to the the town where the race started yesterday and grabbed a table indoors by a television. I mean, wow, what a stage, I'm glad that we chose to skip it live, especially after seeing the coverage of the area where we would have positioned ourselves -- it was wall-to-wall people.

Alpen Navigator

That's right, this lady with the trusty Michelin 2008 map of France is the person who navigates this tour de France. Right here, she's standing on top of L'Alpe d'Huez.

The Giant of Provence & The Line of People Trying to Drive Up It

Mont Ventoux, Kilometer 0

This is how close we got last night to Ventoux before they shut the roads down. Good thing we were just going there to see what it looked like and had reservations at a place down the road.

Classic Frenchman

A few nights ago after the Annecy stage, we stayed with a lovely French family. The Chambres d'Hotes was actually run by the parents, but the daughter and her kids were in "town" from Paris visiting.

They were all fascinating people, and once they learned we were from NYC and following the TdF, really excited to talk (the daughter spent a year at Purdue University in Indiana). The father, probably now in his 70s, was a classic Frenchman -- loved cycling (and cycled), drank pastis and drove like a bullet.

You know in movies where the old French guy goes blazing through the countryside in his car, well, we took part in one of those excusions. We needed to eat dinner so they offered to drive the route to a nearby Grill. As soon as we pulled out of the country driveway he flew up the road leaving Angel and I in the dust. I had to turn off the A/C in order catch up with him, and then the road started zigzaging. Wow, happy to report we made it there in one piece.

After learning that Angel was a teacher, they wanted her to have a photo with the grandkids to show her students next year -- real, live Frenchkids.

Stage 18

A few more photos from Stage 18 today. Danny Pate in the start house, Dave Z warming up, and the Versus truck overlooking the lake.

Astana Mob

This was the mob around the Astana bus. Can you see Lance? Neither could we.

Bob and Chris

Amazing position for us today in Annecy lead us to meet the Versus guys again and Chris Carmichael. Above I'm standing with Chris and Angel with Bob Roll -- made the entire TdF right there getting to meet Bob Roll (well, not quite, but it was pretty great). My photo is here. That guy is a rock star in the cycling / commentary world. We were sitting on the lawn and looked up to see him walking by. Asked him how his rental car was doing (diesel / unleaded debacle). He said that they pumped it out and it's running better than before. (Robert, it made me think of your sister's experience.) If you haven't read Bobke's book, check it out. There's one story in there that makes me laugh out loud, literally, every time I read it, even in public places like the Union Square Barnes and Noble.

Sea of Humanity

And after the riders passed by us on Stage 17, this is what it looked like outside the bar where we had spent a few hours earlier in the day. They put up two flatscreen televisions and were attracting spectators on their way back to cars, RVs and buses. What an exciting thing to be a part of!

Stage 17

Above are photos from our position on the Col de la Colombiere yesterday. Hincapie and Sastre. After spending a few hours at the village bar, for both the beverages and bathrooms, we hiked up a kilometer or to to get this position -- it was fantastic! By this point in the day, after biking over four mountains, the riders were spaced out over at least 30 minutes and slowly rolling by us. From our vantage point, we also could see them at four spots along the route -- coming down the previous mountain and in a few places coming back up before they got to us. We're pretty sure this is before Hincapie wrecked, and incredibly relieved that he didn't break his collarbone. By the way, also happy that Jen Voight's wreck wasn't worse.

(For those who are interested, I will post of video when we get back to the States of the lead group of Contador, Kloden and the Schlecks passing us.)

Friendly Gendarm

As you might have read on the Twitter feed yesterday, we were making good time from the end of the stage 17, to our Chambres d'Hotes until we ran smack dab into a closed road 4K from our pit-stop. They were clearing all of the TdF vehicles out of Le Grand Bournand so everything else couldn't move for a few hours.

Angel called ahead to let them know that the road would be closed for two hours, but was pretty sure that there was a little of confusion. Not wanting our reservation to be canceled, she asked the Gendarm, who was keeping the road closed, if he could call and make sure we still had a room. He was very friendly, as each of them have been on our travels, and called for us. The photo below it is of the view from our private balcony once we arrived. And the room, plus breakfast, was only 47 Euros. The harrowing mountain drive up to the place once we got moving again, a few years off of our lives.

[Uh, yeah, Carol reminded us that we didn't provide an update after Tweeting that we were homeless in Laussane. We secured a room at a Movingpick Hotel, and were so exhausted from it all, also ordered room service. I ended up with what was a plate of lox for 33 Swiss Francs, Angel had a burger.]

Alex, France for our friend Alex F.

Our friend Alex just ran her first half marathon in Napa, CA last Sunday. In honor of one of our athlete friends (and a tad bit by coincidence since we drove through this village), a little piece of France for you, Alex -- Congrats on your event, we're really proud of you!

Mountain Madness

We're at 7,5 km to go to the summit of Col de la Colombiere -- today's final of five climbs, and it's going to be intense. From the pictures, you can see that we're parked in this field by the town of Le Reposoir, eating delicious pizza made fresh by Lino in his truck (four cheese brick oven pizza for 8 Euros), and enjoying beers with these crazy Dutch guys dressed in costumes that you'll no doubt see featured in the Versus TV coverage today.

It's been raining on and off today (now featuring thunder), and currently, we're back sitting in our car waiting another hour or so for the caravan to roll through town.

We stopped at one of the cycling jersey vendors on the road into town, and I found one of the increasingly rare Slipstream Chipotle jerseys from last season... you know, the one with the burrito in the back pocket. Well, on our way back to the car, we saw one of the Garmin vans driving up the road and when Angel held up the jersey, he stopped and handed us a used Garmin waterbottle, and those are nice waterbottles (check them out on the Slipstream website). Typically I don'ttake someone's used dishware with such excitement, but (1) it's a Garmin waterbottle and (2) I don't plan on using it until we've washed it three or four times.

Now, how long does it plan on raining, and how wet will be get today?

Playing Hooky (do people even say that anymore?)

We had such a great time yesterday (and our clothes were really dirty), that we decided to take the day off from spectating to use the free detergent we scored from the caravan and do our laundry (see photo on Twitter of the laundry shack next to the Intermarche). We also wanted to see what else our pit-stop town of Saint Gervais (vintage poster photo) had to offer. And, I really want to go down the luge run in Chamonix.

While we were enjoying a nice relaxing lunch in St. Gervais's town center, all of a sudden, all the TdF support vehicles started rolling by us. Every team bus except Garmin's, drat! Come to find out, the only road leading to the finish line in Italy today (that the cyclists aren't biking on) is the one we're sitting next by. Nice little treat on our "day off."

Too Many Texts

One of the fun little things that happens when you move from one phone network to the next is that they send you text messages saying, "Hi, you're on our network." And T-Mobile sends me messages saying, "Hi, you're on their network," as well as, "Thing might cost more on this different network."

Typically this happens in the States when we travel, but being situated on the border of three countries (France, Switzerland and Italy), and going to each of these countries, we're constantly moving in and out of different networks (even within the same country). Anyhow, even though these messages are free, could you please stop sending them to me? I already have literally over 100 in my deleted folder. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the notice, but get disappointed when I go to check my "12 New Text Messages" only to find out they're not from anyone I know really.

Boiling Pot of Cheese

We ended our terrific day around Chamonix and Mont Blanc with some fondue -- burned my mouth a few times but it was delicious (and when is a boiling pot of cheese not delicious?). It really was quite stunning to take the tram over to Italy, even the video we shot can't truly relay how awe-inspiring it was. It was freezing up there and the snow was blowing up at us from the viewing decks, but there wasn't a cloud in the blue sky and the views were spectacular. Rick Steves was right when he said that the money you spend for the gondolas on a clear day is worth every penny and more.

I can't imagine what it must be like for the people hiking below us to look up at the mountains and across the vast snowy landscape. Or how cold it was a night for those that chose to camp on the mountain. We've included some photos here and might upload the video we shot from our trip in the cabin (where we had the best breakfast nook view ever!). Might even upload the video of the two guys we caught hiking out over the snow cliff on their way down to the plateau. Uh, yeah, probably won't be doing that anytime too.

[We close this with a shout out to our friends who live in Colorado (hey Hoyt!), who get to see, bike and hike in this stuff a lot more than we do. Don't get me wrong, it's impressive to stand at the base of the Empire State Building and stare up at that too.]

Vera Bradley on Mont Blanc

Hi Mom, this one's for you. Angel brought along the Vera Bradley bag you gave her for Christmas -- thought we would include this photo of its travels for you.

Extreme S.L.U.M.S.

OK, S.L.U.M.S., this is the trip we need to take... Brasserie du Mont Blanc makes beer from the glacier water of Mont Blanc and then sells it at the very top of the mountain. We'll come to Chamonix, take the tram to the top, buy one of the three varieties of the Brasserie du Mont Blanc beer that they sell and then take the 40-minute ride over the glaciers to Italy. At the little station in Italy, we can pick up an Peroni for the ride back. It's that or Bermuda -- Randy, I'll let you figure out the micro brew situation there.

And why wouldn't you want to see Ben Hur live?

Sketchers & Asics vs. Glacier Rocks

Yesterday following our excursion to Mont Blanc, we hiked for about three hours (can't find the distance right now), to Montenvers- Mer de Glace, or the rapidly receding Sea of Ice glacier. As always, we came amply prepared for our journey sporting the latest in hiking footwear (Dick, I hope you and Doug had better footwear for your hikes). Glaciers sure leave a lot of rocks in their wake -- lots of them, that it seems you need to hike over to be able to view the glacier itself. For a second there I thought that might shoes were going to break in two; however, I was already contemplating the story that I was going to tell the people at Sketchers about why they should give me a replacement pair of shoes (I mean, come on, we "hiked Mont Blanc" in Sketchers). Even so, we made the spectacular journey from the mid-point tram station to Aiguille du Midi to the glacier. The weather was beautiful! Below are images of us by the glacier and the rocks we walked over. You can find out more about the places we went by visiting this site.

TdF Rest Day - On Mont Blanc

It's rest day #2 for the Tour, so we decided to spend it in beautiful Chamonix and take the gondola to Mont Blanc and Helbronner (Italie). A photo from our journey is on the Twitter feed, more later. It's absolutely beautiful here and a perfect day weather-wise. On our way back from Helbronner we scored our own cabin and had a fantastic private 40-minute trek over the glaciers and through the mountains... Stunning!

Chasing Waterfalls

This morning, we left Laussane and drove to the top of Col de Mosses. Once there, decided that we weren't very excited about our position. So, we drove back down the mountain and headed up the route to just outside the city of Martigny, the launch point of today's final climb. We're positioned across the street from this waterfall (see if you can find Angel at the base of it) and the La Cascade restaurant (see Twitter feed photo).

Spent about three hours relaxing on La Cascade's patio looking at the mountain, drinking a little abricot eau de vie and having lunch. Can't wait to see how the race shapes up on the mountains today. Hope everyone enjoys the stage on Versus -- it looks to be a terrific one!

Also saw the Livestrong chalk bot and crew again today chalking the roads of Switzerland.

Just Spinnin' in the Rain

On one of our many trips into Intermarche today, we saw this image on the cover of L'Equipe. We think it really captured yesterday's festivities, so we bought a copy. You can probably see it better on their website but thought we'd share it here (including a shot of the Garmin baseball hat).

HINCAPIE!!

Above are images from our Stage 14 vantage point today in Delle. There's the one of George Hincapie in the breakaway (Go George!), and one of the green and yellow jerseys flying through with the rest of the riders in the peloton.

We've never positioned ourselves on the back side of a small roundabout, and it was quite exciting as each rider in the peloton had to ride single file passed us. We had enough time to recognize, and cheer, for many of our favorites individually.

Chicago Garmin Store Shout-Out

From my friend brian -- the Chicago Garmin store's (does NYC have one of these?) window display. Need to get one of these to hang in our livingroom. Note: First need to get 14-foot ceilings.

Stage 14

It's raining and cold again today, so instead of battling for position on a category 3 climb, we instead opted to position ourselves in the parking lot of the Intermarche in the town of Delle. The peloton will be moving pretty quickly by this point, but we're right next to our car and have quick access to the supermarket's restroom. If the gendarme don't block off the rear exit for this place, we should also have quick passage to the tunnel into Switzerland. We're interested to see what this thing is like as we have to pay 40 Euros to drive through it (about $60, yes?). Hopefully this tunnel isn't the same underground place in Switzerland where they house the CERN reactor.

The other photo is of one of the Carrefour cars in the caravan (sponsor of the polka dot / king of the mountains jersey). Pretty decent take today considering we were standing in a crowd of kids, and yes, we let the kids have first dibs.

Singing John Denver songs in French

Last night, our Chambres d'hotes (I'm pretty sure each time I write those words I'm changing the spelling) recommended that we eat dinner at Les Amis de Georges. It was a small place in a small town with about twenty locals who became our friends by the end of the evening (notice the photo where they insisted we hold the guitars).

It was the kind of joint where the host (above), waiter, server, and performer was the same guy. He also was a cyclist and a big fan of Lance Armstrong. His daughter battled cancer and the whole Livestrong campaign touched him personally.

It was all-French, all-night long and quite terrific, especially during the performance portion of the evening / sing-along when he/we sang a John Denver chart in French -- you really haven't experienced John Denver until you've heard it in the "original" French.