This will be my brief attempt at summarizing my week at the Tour this year. It is tough to put into words the experience of not only getting to spectate the race, but get an inside look into what a team of riders and staff go through during a grand tour. I’ll attach a dropbox with some photos as well.
I got into France on the 21st during the 2nd rest day and we geared up for a Ventoux ride ahead of the riders on the 22nd after being off the bike for about 9 days, a great way to ease back into things! Ventoux lives up to the lore and history, a truly beautiful climb that lives up to the “martian landscape” moniker on the upper slopes. It’s definitely no joke averaging 7.7%, but it is a very consistent slope which made it easier to find a rhythm and just chug along. Rode with my Dad and Jonathan Vaughters who was the one time record holder, though he won’t claim that due to the asterisks of that era. Being my first day out, I was eager to ride and set a hard tempo on the steeper lower slopes. Though we were 6 hours ahead of the riders, the road was filled with fans who had been camping out for days in advance, often with pretty nice looking road side setups, cooking and drinking wine at 8:30 in the morning, god bless the French. The cheering is a major boost, and it is funny seeing what names you get called based on the generation of fans along the way. I counted about 40 Ben Healy’s, a few Nielson, Carapaz and then a lone Rigo. At about 600m from the summit the gendarmerie had closed the road to cyclists despite us being about 6 hours ahead of the riders. I was able to sneak by after JV did some sweet talking- but we had to walk our bikes up and I think I missed out and even getting a time on the official strava segment (would have been about 1:42:00 without the hold ups).
We descended down the Malaucène side and holy hell these descents are no joke. Having grown up riding in Colorado, I consider myself a solid descender, but this just blows anything I had done out of the water in terms of its steepness and technical corners. Quick change post ride and then back to Bedoin to watch the race go by right before they started the climb. That evening we linked up with the team and I got to get my first real look behind the curtain that powers the chaos that is the TdF. From soigneurs, to social media teams to chef and team doctor, everyone is together at these small french hotels buzzing around to set up and organize around getting the riders recovered and prepped for the next day. I met Thiago, a young guy who had gotten his MBA, worked in private equity and then left it all to join the EF team and live out his dream of working for a World Tour team. Thiago gets every rider's room ready with an air purifier and sets up their eight sleep mattress cover, scoping out the best place to fill their portable basins that pump water into the cover to cool the bed. Take them down the next day, and repeat at the next hotel. Many of the staff were incredible riders in their own right, racing at a very high level with pro dreams, but not able to make that last jump.
On Thursday's stage I got to ride in the team car with DS Charlie Wegelius. It is pure insanity. Team cars, medics, flocks of police motorbikes and broadcasters scream down 1.5 lane French roads that they treat like they are 3 wide. Charlie is whipping down windy roads at 70 km/h, one hand on the wheel, one on the radio while monitoring a live race feed and looking at the coming road segments on an ipad that has comprehensive notes of feed locations, climbs, technical turns etc. Meanwhile, through the mass of cars, riders are dropping back and making their way back up to the peloton, sitting about 4 inches behind the cars before peeling off and moving their way back up. It’s like its own race amongst the team cars back there, everyone jockeying for position, making questionable passes and hitting random brake checks. Somehow it all works out though, they have their own “rules of the road” that were incomprehensible to me. Sitting there was its own workout, and my hands and legs were cramped up by the end from pressing so hard into the floor, and hanging onto anything I could to keep myself stabilized as we whipped around the country roads. This wasn’t even a steep mountain descent day, you could not pay me to go back into that car on a proper mountain stage. I could go on about this experience forever, will tell you all about it more next time we ride.
Queen stage, and an early morning start to ride the Madeleine and then over to Col de la Loze. Madeleine was maybe my favorite climb of the trip, absolutely gorgeous views for the majority of the ride with a breathtaking summit. This was also probably the scariest and longest descent (25 km). Thankfully we avoided the rain, but there was haze and fog that made the road wet and slick in some parts. Pair that with hairpin turns, variable pavement quality and this one made for a nail biter that left my wrists and forearms sore from all the braking. My di2 also died at the top, but not much need to pedal on the ride down. I had to stop in a shop at the base of Col de la Loze to (hopefully) get enough juice for the next climb. Let my dad go on ahead and then TT’d my way back up to him once I got the bike sorted. This one is brutally long at 26km, hitting the 20km to go banner I was already cooked and in my head knew that I still had to ride the length of Madeleine and Ventoux, ouch. The fans here were insane and it was much needed motivation. This day ended up being just over 10,000 feet of climbing for me.
We ended up getting about 4km from the top before turning around to try and beat the caravan, otherwise I’d be stopped on the side of the road for at least an hour as they passed by. Got back to where we were staying in Courchavel by the skin of my teeth and watched the race come by from the hotel. These ski towns are dead in the summer and the hotel had opened for this one day to host riders and flew in their staff from all over other locations in Europe for one night. This was also my dads 69th Birday, can’t imagine there were too many folks older than him doing that ride. Pretty special to get to celebrate with him, and the team made it a special night with some cake at dinner.
Will post a pt. II later if anyone cares to read more 
