What This Site Is About
My initial goal is to make this a comprehensive guide to spectating the 2007 Tour de France.
For the time being, I will log my experiences, and that of others, for the reader to reference. Sort of another generic guide to the tour and how to watch it.
Eventually, I will add more info about the teams, riders, stages, and other related topics.
Then, as the 2007 tour draws near, I will try and keep the links up to date and add more info about how to stay informed while there.
Perhaps some foreign language support, at least for German speakers….time will tell.
This will cover the who, what, when, where, and why of spectating the 2007 Tour. Oh, the good, bad, and ugly as well.
After my first tour, the only word I can think of to describe it is the German word begeistern, which roughly translates to inspired or WOW.
I got my tail kicked this year by the loooong climbs in the Alps. It is amazing to climb for 20 miles at 6-8% or so, and still not be at the top of the "hill".
Hot hot sunny days, cool nights, wonderful people from all over Europe and the rest of the world, and thousands of people coming out of the woodwork to support an event of amazing proportion.
Clearly, I have passion for bike riding, and racing. I stood on the Col du Joux-Plane with my heart pounding in anticipation of watching Floyd Landis staging the comeback of his career.
Since I am a spectator, and an American, then this site will be from that point of view. But, I need to say early on that I hade an amazing time at the 2006 TdF. We met so many people from all over Europe (Denmark, Belgium, France, Italy, and Germany specifically) who were very nice. The notable exception is the one (Belgian or Dutch, not sure) woman who told us to "go away, we don’t want you here" when we tried to park on her territory. Oh, and French waiters can be a little bit put-out by your presence.