-Guest blogger Matt here. Let me start by admitting that I've never posted a single thing to 'net before, That said, the final stage of the Tour deserves sharing, if anything. So here goes.
Whoa! My first whoa goes to Kristin, who braved a pretty serious head cold to stand and wait with me all day on the noisy, polluted, crowded streets of Paris. Fortunately, we caught not one, not two...but eight exciting, first-hand glimpses of the most exciting bike race in the world, so I think she would definitely agree that it was well worth it.
Looking back now, I don't think we could have timed things any better if we tried. We ended up leaving our apartment at about 11am to find one of the few brasseries serving breakfast on Sunday. It was a little trying on our patience to have to wait over an hour for a tiny cup of espresso, some baguettes and OJ, and a couple of croissants, but it gave us the fuel we needed to walk more than three miles down the Champs Elysees from L'Etoile to the Louvre and back up through the Tuileries to our spot. I was also encouraged by the sleepy faces on everyone who got up earlier than me only to stake out a spot hundreds of meters away from the finishing line where they would be lucky to catch an errant glance from one of the riders who had already finished the race. -Suckers. Plus, we got to buy the same fresh TDF swag (like yellow musette bags and Skoda bears) as everyone else. -Suckers...err...oh, well.
Let me stop a minute and give credit to a random online discussion board that we found to be super helpful in finding a much less-crowded view on the garden-side of the Rue de Rivoli just across the street from the Westin Paris. For future visitors, definitely check out this LINK. The tip about crossing over the tunnel from the Louvre to the gardens is particularly useful. I have no idea why other people found it so difficult to cross the street, but it was absolutely true! Maybe they need more jokes about chickens and less jokes about what is in their pants. For the time being, or at least until Kristin gets her camera cord, you can imagine our approximate view up the Rue de Rivoli toward the finishing line (sans cycling madness) by clicking here: GOOGLE STREET VIEW. Another reason why things probably worked out so well for us is that at about 900m to go from the finish (YEAH! Inside the final KM!), there was a rather large air vent coming up from the Metro tunnels that no one else seemed to want to stand on - at least until the other spots were taken. Not so for us, though - the breeze ended up being rather welcome on an overcast, but stuffy afternoon.
Enough about getting there, though. On to the race! Well, on to the parade at least. The race wouldn't pass us by for another three hours or so. Another good tip for future race-goers is to lie to your (girl)friends about how long it takes between the parade and the actual race. An occasional "I think it's only another twenty minutes or so" goes a long way toward contributing to morale. Actually, the caravan was kind of entertaining even if it was just a bunch of sponsors and ads with dancing girls and loudspeakers playing the same pop music tracks over and over. It was certainly colorful and provided for good people-watching. From what I had seen on TV, I certainly wasn't expecting the huge number of "floats," but it did get old after a while.
Finally, after what I'm sure seemed like forever for Kristin, and after all the team buses, all the King's men (gendarmes), and all the official red Skodas passed by, we caught our first sight of the cyclists. It reminded me of the wave that you often see fans doing at a stadium event the way that the noise and motion in the crowd slowly built up and crested over us. The second whoa goes to the awesome speed that the first break-away riders had when they rushed passed us. As we were leaning over the barrier trying to get a good look, it was jaw-dropping just how close they came to us. My most vivid memory from that first pass is seeing Astana's turquoise and white lead out team, including Contador all decked out in yellow with what I'm sure was a menacing grin on his face (damn you, Contador!). It was all over in less than a minute, at which point, Kristin turned and asked "Was that all of them?"
Besides Kristin's surprise that it would be over that quickly (fortunately, we had seven laps to go at that point), there were two other things that struck me most: First, out of 180 or so riders, I think I managed to recognize the faces of maybe a dozen as they went by. Besides Contador, I'm sure I saw Levi and Lance a couple of times (I got to point him out to Kristin in what I hope will be a more recognizable picture to be posted in the coming days), Petacchi in green, and Thomas Voeckler, the champion of France, in what I couldn't help but think was quite a show-off move hanging about five meters off the back of the pack on just about every lap just so all the Frenchies could see him. I had a hard time picking out the eventual stage winner, Cavendish, or a couple of my favorites, Schleck or Hincapie, even with their special jerseys. It was also pretty amazing that on the third- and second-to-last-laps, the break-away group's seconds-only lead looked insurmountable. Having a good straight-away view really made it seem doubtful that they would be caught the way I knew they always would.
From the hours between parade and race to the nail-biting final lap, it was clear that they really knew how to build the suspense. I'll end there for now. It was a great show and definitely made the trip for me. It also made me miss riding my bike.
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