Tour de France!!

Last Thursday, 23 July 2009 we went to Annecy to watch the individual time trials of the 2009 Tour de France. We came in from the south and drove up to the lake along the eastern side, right at the beginning of the climb of an otherwise flat 40 km loop around the lake.

We sat near the where the arrow is pointing, at the zig-zag along the hill right where D42 tees into the route.

This is our view looking down on the lake and the route before it climbs the hill.

We sat on this hillside between the 2 sharp corners.

View of Lake Annecy.

We arrived around 10AM and the caravans were just coming up the hill at that time.

Many were quite strange, these had giant bikers on top.

The Carrefour caravans had guys on stationary bikes on top biking while they drove up the hill. We just liked the hats they threw out to the crowd.

Boys sporting their Carrefour hats.

We collected some fun goodies from the caravan, then waited for the bikers to come.

We parked down this road, the D42. It was good we got there rather early because the boys didn't make it all day. About 1PM we took Piper back to the van for a nap and an hour later the other two also took a turn resting in the van. It was also the hot and sunny part of the day, so they had a nice break from it all.

The road here says 'Les Z'Americains'

The crowds grew bigger as the day wore on. The riders ride individually from last to first, so the best guys come last, later in the day.

There's really nothing to say about this. Kevin thought I needed to take a picture of this guy and include it as part of the 'French culture awareness'.

This guy, on the other hand, was pretty funny. He had a whole gang of bell ringers traveling with him and the crowd loved him.

Mostly the guys came one at a time since they left a few minutes apart. Occasionally someone would be catching the rider before them, and we saw some close runs and passes on the hill.

Sylvain Calzati, a French rider catches David Zabriskie, an American. You can also see the crazy motorcycle television crews.

Tired from a long day.

Excited and cheering the riders on!

Eating a PBJ while watching the Tour de France. What an American ;)

The following are pictures of the top 10 riders in the Tour de France on July 23rd. I put their names and final Tour de France finishes below each.

Mikel Astarloza from Spain. He finished 11th.

Christophe Le Mevel from France. He finished 10th.

Christian Vande Velde from the USA. He finished 8th. Check out the cheesey smile ;)

Vincenzo Nibali from Italy. He finished 7th.

Bradley Wiggins from the UK. He finished 4th.

Andreas Klöden from Germany. He finished 6th.

Lance

Armstrong

Seven time consecutive winner of the Tour de France from 1999 to 2005. Lance Armstrong finished third in his first comeback year.

Frank Schleck from Luxembourg.

Frank Schleck finished 5th.

There was a lot of television crews riding and flying over us during the final riders. This is how close they were!

Andy Schleck, younger brother of Frank and also from Luxembourg. He finished second. He was smiling riding up this hill at an amazing speed as well. Lunatics.

And last but not least, wearing the winner's yellow jersey, Alberto Contador from Spain.

Alberto Contador won the 2009 Tour de France with a time of 85 hours, 48 minutes and 35 seconds. whew. This was his second win of the Tour de France, his first time being 2 years ago in 2007.

It was definitely worth the long day in the sun (from approx 10AM to 5:20PM!). It was especially fun to see the riders come by one at a time. The crowds were great, enthusiastic and fun. The one thing we noticed was that a large percentage of the spectators came to the race on their bikes, a truly French sporting event!

Parting shot - an official 2009 Tour de France t-shirt, because you weren't really there unless you have a souvenir ;)