Le Tour Part 5 - Col d'Aubisque and Pau

PARIS (Reuters) - the number of accidents and of died on the roads increased in July, with 478 people having being killed in one month.

Well, I saw two of those I suspect on the highways, but generally I had no problem with the drivers in France. And I certainly saw a lot of French roads – I ended up driving nearly 4000 km in my two weeks.

Right, back to the tour! After Plateau de Beille, it was time to head to Col d’Aubisque. With a rest day and another big mountain stage in between, I wasn’t too hurried so I could enjoy the scenery, mind blowing as always! We got up to the top of the mountain in good time, and had the chance to go for a nice hike up the nearest peak.


And then there was the astounding Astana news! I couldn’t believe it!! So very disappointing, I had really hoped that Vino was clean. You’ve got to ask some serious questions about Kloden. I think I’ve already talked a little bit about how hard it was to get the overall picture of the tour when you’re actually on the tour. There’s no wonderful Phil Liggett to give you all the information you’ve ever needed. So it was really exciting just to find out what the latest astounding scandal was going to be each day.

The night before the tour was due to arrive, I met up with the guys from the pink combie van again, this time in tiny bar where groups of Basque and Aussies were competing with every available local instrument (various types of drums and stringed instruments, with a few cow bells and of course the big cow horn) to see how much music they could make! In amongst this we all had an amusing time as a French lad tried to coach the ultra ocker Grant on the best method of seducing the sexy bar maid. There were a lot of traps for the unwary!

The next day I was having lunch in the same place, watching the race progress on the little TV (no big screen on top of the hill this day due to space limitations), heard some familiar accents, turned around and met a couple of guys from Mossley. Now, there have been a few other things happening in my life besides just le Tour de France, one of which has been buying a house in a little village called Mossley. So little that these guys could pinpoint exactly where I’d bought. Le monde est petit.

Back to the hill as the race got closer, and surrounded once again by aussies we watched Rasmussen’s final victory for the tour, followed shortly by Contador and then Levi, who Cadel (go Cadel!) hadn’t quite managed to hang onto the back of (something that was to cause a few scary moments in the time trial). Once again it was fascinating watching the behind the scenes action behind the finish line, and this time I spent a while hanging onto a fence where the media were, next to the control doping van. Cadel went in, as did Rasmussen and a few others. They were in there for ages, and my experience watching people after a marathon was that if anyone was expecting a urine sample, then sit back with a good book. Even just to find a vein must have been hard the state these guys’ bodies were in.

I’ve said it before – I don’t want to cast any aspersions, Rasmussen and Contador did look a tad fresher than Evans, who I thought wasn’t going to make it down the steps for a moment. Boonen looked fine of course, flashing those white teeth at the cameras and interviewers who were lined up for their turn at an interview.

This mountain had two roads, one for the tour vehicles and one for me, so apart from a few curious locals and a million camping cars, there weren’t too many problems getting out.

A quick change of plans, and we managed to make it down to Pau to see the next day’s Village Départ!

On the way, a quick stop at the oh sooooo yummy boulangerie for breakfast (those almond croissants are heaven), pick up a paper and OMG!!!!! Rasmussen – gone. Cofidis – gone!!! OMG.

Pau seemed like a nice little town, or at least the area set up for the Départ was a lovely park.

I hadn’t realised that for this year’s race, the riders all had to sign on at the beginning of the race. So one by one they wandered down on their bikes and went up onto the stage to sign that day’s pledge. There was a big cheer for Cadel – aussies everywhere again. Not as big though as the one for the local lad born not 500 m from the line. Most of the riders seemed pretty relaxed compared to the end of the race… except for Rabobank. Those guys just looked bewildered and very tense. It was disappointing to hear some in the crowd give hooeys (French equivalent of a boo) given the very brave decision they’d made. Much later, on the Champs Elysée we (the big group of aussies I was with at that stage) gave them a big cheer as they went by on the lap of honour, and although the likes of Menchov gratefully acknowledged, they still looked very down.

Another interesting point was that of all the teams, Discovery team hung together (that was then, this is now of course given the latest Discovery news!). Levi, Contador, Big George etc all came up to sign together. I noticed that they all trained together before the time trials too.

Suddenly the riders were all lined up at the start line (sans yellow jersey of course), with such absolute chaos ahead of them it seemed incredible that they were ever getting out of there!

Then very quickly the road cleared (sort of) and away they went.

Of course, now Soler had that maillot a pois all sewn up. And didn’t Barloworld have a ripper first tour? And isn’t that just the least European team name in the field?

And that was the end of that day’s stage for me at least

Alas, I worked out that there was just no way I was going to make it Cognac for the time trial if I wanted to be in Paris the following day so I’m just going to have to go back to le Tour one day to see a time trial and I also never got to a feeding zone as I wanted. So instead I headed up to a small medieval town east of Bordeaux for a sunset over the vineyards, heritage listed village, more fantastic food in a courtyard with the light gently disappearing – magic. That was St Emilion.

Then it was back on the autoroute to find a place to sleep, headed for the coast. The lonely planet guide didn’t have much to say about it, but I thought I’d check it out and see if was marginally better as a beach than on the Med.