a.k.a. "Jim and Kendall's Excellent Adventure"
My dad and I had the pleasure of doing a "bike and gawk" tour with Graham Baxter Sporting Tours out of the UK. We had a fantastic time - met lots of new people, biked a ton, took in the beautiful French countryside, and gaped at all the insane pro bicyclists biking 5 times as far as we did and twice as fast. (Hence the term "bike and gawk.") Not to mention burned my legs off going up those numerous "undulating" hills.
Most of these were taken with my Minolta A1, which unfortunately broke somewhere in Burgundy. The other smaller photos were taken with my film camera (and subsequently taken off Snapfish), hence the not-so-great quality.
By the way, I highly recommend Graham Baxter's Tour de France package - it's reasonably priced, and the guides are hilarious!
Outside a village en route to Stage 15 finish - Villard de Lans. |
Nearing Villard de Lans. |
We made it! |
Notice the cute decorative bicycles in the background. |
USPS bus... With Sheryl Crow in the front seat. No joke. |
Dang, that's a big lion. |
Dad next to some angry, freebie-hungry people. |
Giant animals abound! |
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Devil dude - they were throwing out keychains to the crowd. I still have no idea what the company sells. |
Stephane Goubert - AG2R. |
LANCE!! |
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Santos Gonzalez - Team Phonak. |
Some guy and Thomas Voeckler (yellow jersey). Voeckler lost the jersey to Lance in this stage. |
One of the 6 or 7 helicopters buzzing around to cover the Alpe d'Huez stage. |
Warming up for Alpe d'Huez. |
Viatcheslav Ekimov. |
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Order of go - starting times for the Postal riders. |
George Hincapie. |
LANCE!! |
Not sure who these two are... I believe that's one of the USPS coaches. |
Sheryl Crow getting hit on by the Trek rep guy. |
Hi Sheryl. |
One of the many, many spare USPS team bikes. |
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Treks are very photogenic. |
Blurry photo of Jan Ullrich. |
Can we say "liability?" These guys were hovering about 200 m above the ground, I swear. |
Francisco Mancebo. |
Andres Kloden. |
Lance is coming... |
...and he is DETERMINED to win this Tour. |
Lake Annemasse. |
Dad and I on Lake Annemasse... talk about a hazy day. |
Richard Virenque (Quickstep)... what a great smile, eh? ;) |
Map of Stage 17, one of the most difficult stages of the Tour. We were about halfway up Col de la Forclaz, a Cat 1 (8% grade) climb. It's amazing how these guys are able to fly up these "hills" even with the three previous climbs on their legs. |
King of the Mountains (Richard Virenque). |
Rolf Aldag (T-Mobile), with Dad running alongside. Fool. |
Here comes the blue train. |
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Lance and teammates in the second breakaway group. |
Posties George Hincapie (#5) and Lance (yellow) with Santos Gonzalez (Phonak) on the right. |
Jorg Ludewig (Team Saeco). |
I wonder what they're talking about... |
Laurent Dufaux (Quickstep) in blue and Walter Beneteau (La Boulangere) in red, followed by Bert Grabsch (Phonak). |
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Laurent Brochard (AG2R). |
Dad, you're going to get punched... |
Benoit Salmon (Credit Agricole #59), Marzio Bruseghin (Fassa Bortolo #42), Claus Michael Moller (Alessio #137), David Loosli (Saeco #176), and Egoi Martinez (Euskaltel #37). |
This was probably the longest water bottle handoff in the history of the Tour... the guy was hanging onto the bottle for waaaaaay too long. |
Erik Dekker (Rabobank). |
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My bad attempt at a panning action shot. |
In a little village in Burgundy. |
Some horses chilling out... I couldn't resist. :) |
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Still very hazy in France... |
Cemetery in Burgundy. |
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Burgundy vineyard. |
In the warm-up area at the final time trial. |
Camp USPS. |
Robin Williams. |
Outside Camp USPS. |
Waving the "Order of the Yellow Jersey" flag on the Champs Elysees. |
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A peek inside the USPS "bike bus." |
...and this is where the close up photos of the USPS team would be. Their bus parked 10 feet away from our table at the restaurant in Paris. Unfortunately, we used up the last of the film 5 minutes before on the bike bus photo. :(