|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Dave | profile | all galleries >> France & The Tour de France 2012 >> The Tour de France >> TdF Stage 11: Col du Glandon | tree view | thumbnails | slideshow |
|
On our first day we had our first chance to watch a Tour stage—and it was a complete surprise. When our guides picked us up at the hotel in Grenoble we were expecting to do a warm-up ride up to our hotel atop the Col du Lautaret. But then Dan, the chief guide, explained that the Tour was going to go by very close by that day—up the Col du Glandon and over the Col du Croix de Fer. When he asked us if we wanted to ride up THERE instead and see an extra stage, he didn’t have to ask twice. As it turned out, it was the steepest ride of the whole trip . . . 15%, 17% and one (mercifully short) ramp of 28%. Fortunately, the guides had made a mistake this first day and given me the wrong bike—so I had a triple front crank to make it all survivable. When we got up to the top we had to leave our bikes at the intersection with the guides—the race was so close they wouldn’t let us ride on the course. So we walked down the mountain to the first switchback and waited. The race caravan parade had already gone by, so when we saw the hovering, buzzing helicopters coming up the mountain toward us we knew it was almost time . . . The racers trickled by in small groups, the peloton torn apart by the steep climb up the Glandon, one of the most legendary climbs of the Alps. All the stars were there—Wiggins, Evans, Froome, JJ Cobo, and Jens “Shut up legs!” Voigt. Finally, Mark Cavendish struggled by, accompanied by his assigned “baby-sitter” Bernie Eisel, and that was it. We struggled through the crowd trying to come back down the road we had just ridden up and it took us almost 45 minutes before we could actually ride for any distance. But as the traffic thinned out we enjoyed the glorious descent down the valley to our van in Allemonde. |
| previous page | pages 1 2 3 ALL | next page |
 P1050313.jpg |
 P1050315.jpg |
 P1050317.jpg |
 P1050318.jpg |
 P1050321.jpg |
 P1050322.jpg |
 P1050330.jpg |
 P1050334.jpg |
 P1050336.jpg |
 P1050343.jpg |
 P1050344.jpg |
 P1050349.jpg |
| previous page | pages 1 2 3 ALL | next page |
| comment | share |