Saturday 2nd July
Wow, Stage 1 of TDF blew our minds.... We got to rub shoulders with Australian cycling royalty and majority of the peloton at this year's race. There was so much hype around the start, Mont Saint Michel provided a sweet backdrop.
Wow, Stage 1 of TDF blew our minds.... We got to rub shoulders with Australian cycling royalty and majority of the peloton at this year's race. There was so much hype around the start, Mont Saint Michel provided a sweet backdrop.
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Mont Saint Michel - currently 40 people reside there. Its pretty bloody spectacular. The island is full of restaurants and tourist shops. It would have been a site to behold around 800AD (didn't look like this though).
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We snuck into the rider's area, and we well and truly got caught up in the moment. Everyone getting ready, teams fussing and rushing to the start line, hearing Orica's chit chat and just having riders ducking and weaving around you as they made their way to the start was very surreal.
We managed to meet and chat to a couple of Australian cycling heavyweights:
- Mark Ferguson - Cycling Maven
- Rob Arnold (head of Ride Media Australia) - Ride Media
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| The bloke on the left |
I've been watching the Cycling Marven's youtube channel religiously for the last 6 months and following his story so to actually meet him was pretty crazy. He is definitely on the up and will get big in Australian cycling. We had a chat to Mark and he said he'd put us on his vlog (video blog).
I accidentally left the GoPro running while we had a chat to Mark so I've got the full audio for future reference. We were a bit star struck and I didn't really know what I was talking to him about, and after the interview Ame was like "you just talked so much smack, told him your life story". I just went blank during and didn't know what I was saying hahaha....
I accidentally left the GoPro running while we had a chat to Mark so I've got the full audio for future reference. We were a bit star struck and I didn't really know what I was talking to him about, and after the interview Ame was like "you just talked so much smack, told him your life story". I just went blank during and didn't know what I was saying hahaha....
In the start area:
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| Simon Gerrans - surprisingly smaller than I imagined. |
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| Matty Hayman |
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| Michael Mathews |
Watching as they were still in the neutral zone:
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| Rohan Dennis |
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| Geraint Thomas and Ian Stannard (I think) |
Exploring the rest of the Grand Departure zone:
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| The start line about 4 hours before the riders depart. |
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| The big 'pull over' LOL - made it into the Guinness Book of Records I believe. |
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| Mont St. Michel sheep - famous for their meat because they feed on tidal fields |
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| Massive Seagull |
The day as it unfolded:
We arrived near Mont Saint Michel around 9am, found a park and took a bit of a walk to get into the departure point for the race. At 10.30 the caravan parade began and then the race at 12.30. We had a walk around to get our bearings, got a coffee and tried to find the team busses. We learnt that the riders buses come in later (a bit over an hour before departure) and park near the start line for sign on. So we saw a bit of the sponsors parade and had a look around.
When the buses arrived Amy managed to sneak us through a manned gate into exclusively the rider/bus area with the media. This gave us pretty good access to the team's surprisingly. The riders were zipping in between us on their way to sign in, the pre-race chaos between the teams getting bikes ready, UCI sniffing around testing for motors inside bikes, etc. etc.
When the buses arrived Amy managed to sneak us through a manned gate into exclusively the rider/bus area with the media. This gave us pretty good access to the team's surprisingly. The riders were zipping in between us on their way to sign in, the pre-race chaos between the teams getting bikes ready, UCI sniffing around testing for motors inside bikes, etc. etc.
After the hype and the riders left, we got a quick sanga and a couple of beers for lunch. The sun had gone away and we were getting pretty chilly. We were a little underdressed for the day - being summer I thought we would get away without coats for the day.... So we decided to take a brisk walk across the 1km bridge to the island of Mont Saint Michel. After a quick look around the island we headed back to the mainland and sat in front of the big screen provided by the organisers and watched the finish of the stage. It was a pretty good vibe sitting in a small crowd having a couple of beers and watching it all unfold.
Mont Saint Michel was pretty impressive and well worth a look. I'm not sure i'd make the special trip to see it if they Tour wasn't on... However it's a spectacular site and you can see it for a long way away.
We watched the finish of the stage (Mark Cavendish won) and headed back to our AirBnB for the night.
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| Sunburnt with my TDF had and birthday red wine |
We'd told our host my birthday was Sunday so they bought me a bottle of red and gave me a hat they grabbed from the tour as they also went and watched it go through Avranches. We had a couple of champagnes with them before we called it a day.
Friday 1st July
Friday lunchtime we knocked off work at Fresné-la-Mère and hired a car from Falaise. We'd booked an Airbnb in a small village Saint Quentin-Sur-Le-Homme, about 15 minutes north east of Mont Saint Michel itself.
We drove almost as the crow flies, west from Falaise for the 150km to reach Saint Quentin late arvo to meet our host Brigitte. After an hour of exchanging funny conversation through Google Translate (as Brigitte's English is rough, and our French is rubbish), Brigitte was great and booked us a table at a Vietnamese restaurant at the larger neighbouring town Avranches.
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| Fiat Punto hire car - Cost us 230AUD to hire for 3 days, we put 76AUD in it for 37L. $2/L here... |
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