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!