Le Grand Depart: Day one of the 2010 Tour de France

In the past couple years I have really taken to cycling and triathlon and have gotten to the point where I can watch people ride bikes on TV for 6 hours a day for 21 of 23 days in the month of July.  Last year was the first year that I was glued to the Tour de France, thanks to Tivo, and inspired to some degree by the comeback of Lance Armstrong. I had thought it would be a great bucket list item to see the Tour de France, maybe expedite the trip to catch Lance before his second retirement but for many reasons it would not be in the cards.

I had a brief discussion with a work colleague a couple weeks ago and we thought the World Cup and TdF were intentionally staggered for TV viewership reasons. I can't quite remember exactly when it occured to me after arriving in the Netherlands, maybe in the airport, as I came across a poster advertising the Grand Depart being in Rotterdam. I remember knowing this many months ago (that the start was in the Netherlands) when they revealed the route. For those unfamiliar with "Le Tour", it is typically not entirely in France and is not a contiguous route. They even had part of it in England and in most tours, at some point, the bikes take a plane.

I had a "holy f$@^%ng shiat" moment when I realized I would be spending a weekend here in the middle of this business trip and even though the World Cup was still ongoing, the TdF would be starting in Rotterdam, about an hour away by train! The first day is called the "Prologue" and it is an individual time trial. They set up a short course, 8.9km in this case, and one at a time, the riders take off with a one minute interval between each. There is no teamwork, no drafting, it's man against wind and road for 10-11 minutes of whatever strength he can muster. Being from the U.S., I never quite realized how late the TdF stages start. In this case, the prologue was starting around 4:30 PM.

I got to Rotterdam around 3:30 and as soon as you left the station, there were folks handing you a schedule, a route map, and a sweet bucket hat from Skoda, one of the main sponsors. The hat had a tag on it and just to mock the whole, flatten the brim and leave the tag on your hat thing, I left the tag on. Several older folks gave me grief for leaving the tag on. Not sure if they don't realize that it's some trend or if they think the trend is as stupid as I do. Anyway, the tag is still on. I told one person that it makes it more valuable as a souvenir.

There were signs everywhere directing you to the race course, on the ground, on street poles, and many of them told you how much longer the walk was. The forecast was for mixed rain especially later in the evening and the teams scrambled their rosters to let some of the better riders go early and they were hoping to be able to scout the course for the later riders who apparently would have wetter conditions. Luckily the printed schedule was recrunched to the current planned starting order.

I bascially took the shortest route from the rail station to the course and, to no surpirse, it would be pretty crowded there. They had a jumbotron set up (the Dutch have really mastered the daylight jumbotron) and the audio was blasting, partially in Dutch, partially in French. I could make my way through a chunk of the French but in all my travels here, I haven't been able to pick up much Dutch; it just sounds like sneezing to me and I have to resist the urge to say "gesundheit". Although crowded, I was able to walk up to a railing a basically be in the second row when they announced that Iban Mayoz has just left the starting gate.

Four minutes later, a motorcycle with "Gendarmerie" on it went whizzing by, and a few seconds behind, Mayoz went whipping by as everyone cheered. The great thing about the individual time trial is you really get to see your favorite riders isolated from the pack. It takes about three hours for all of the riders to participate but it goes by very quickly. By the time a rider passes, you scan your sheet to see who is coming next, then you listen for the time of the next rider to cross the finish line, then the Gendarmerie are upon you leading the next guy. Every rider has a lead motorcyle in front making sure the course is clear.




It was a light drizzle and then the rain really started picking up as I was walking the course catching a glimpse from different angles. I sought refuge under a building and then the rain stopped. I went back to my previous spot and it really started coming down again. Turns out there was a storm cloud parked right over that spot so I just continued walking and basically found a drier part of the course. I found an underground passage to get to the infield part of the course which was a great idea as there was now plenty of space where I could be on the railing with an unobstructed view. I cheered for riders in the following order of enthusiasm:

• Lance Armstrong
• Andy Schleck (should have the best chance to beat Contador)
• Anyone on Team Radio Shack
• Any American riders
• Anyone on Team Garmin (Christian Vandevelde, in particular)
• Any Dutch riders (since they were on home turf)
• Guys that I just like (Jens Voigt, Cadel Evans, George Hincapie)
• Anyone else NOT named Alberto Contador

Lance was scheduled to start about 3rd from last, and about a half hours ahead, I grabbed a hamburger (one of only 5 things available for purchase) and found a good spot. I was next to a rabid Belgian fan who had the whole starting order memorized. After Juan Antonio Flecha passes by you could hear everyone murmuring that Lance was next, then the place fell silent like the calm before a storm. The lead motorcycle came within view and you could hear the crowd  in the distance start to roar and it approached like a wave. Lance may be a polarizing figure in cycling, but people are still in awe of his presence in the sport.




Everyone was cheering and some maniac (me) screamed "Go Lance!" as he flew by. I caught a really quick glimpse of his face. He was sucking wind, in a good way, pushing it hard. Most guys just candy ass the time trail because they know they have no chance to win and figure they'll just start a minute back and deal with it. Lance has always been one of the best at the time trial, but on this course, the Swiss Fabian Cancellara was by far the favorite. He followed Lance and got big cheers, followed by defending champ Alberto Contador.

After Contador went by, everyone up and bolted for the jumbotron about 100 yards away so they could see the actual finish which was about 4km down the road. Lance was in 3rd place when he crossed the finish line, but Cancellara would, of course, crush the field. Then Contador, Lance's "enemy" of sorts came down the home stretch and finished 5 seconds behind Lance. The big question is how he and Lance will fare against each other and the rest of the field for that matter, so this was a huge victory for Lance.

Professional cycling is a very strange sport. For me, the most difficult thing to grasp at first, was that you have almost 200 riders in an event like the Tour de France, yet, only a handful can conceivably win the race. There are teams, but an individual winner is crowned. There are riders on a team that are just there to carry water bottles for the leader, they are called "domestiques". Some teams have a sprinter specialist, who could never with the Tour, but on a flat stage, he has a chance to win that particular stage and get the sponsor's name in the media. And that person comes along with the intent on outperforming the field on ony a few stages.

Then there is the community aspect of it. The term "peloton" means "ball" and describes the formation where the riders cluster together to more efficiently share the wind resistance. A single rider can never outride the peloton except over very short distances. On any given stage, a small group of riders will attempt to defy the odds and break away from the peloton but they are most often caught, in the last few kilometers, and passed like they are standing still.

Then there is the timing. All of the riders in the peloton receive the same time for that stage, whether they are at the front or the rear. Anything else would be way too dangerous and within the realm of a 21 day bike race, the safety is more important than a second here and there. In what other sport can the particpant that finishes first receive the same "score" as the one that finisheds 194th?

If you find this at all interesting, read this book:

23 Days in July

It's one of the best sports books ever and goes into extreme detail of the in's and out's of the TdF, as seen in a year that Lance won it.

Experiencing the prolgue was something I will never forget. I totally lucked out with the timing and location of this trip. The next day would be the first stage, from Rotterdam to Brussels and I am thinking I might take the trip down to Antwerp to see the race. I wonder what it's like to see the whole peloton rush by. Must be intense...