PARIS, FRANCE
Ah, Paris. The city of lights.
Another early morning wake-up call, this time in Bordeaux. I slept in until 5:15 a.m. One thing about this Trek Travel tour is that we were kept moving with little downtime. Although we had one lunch and a couple of dinners “on our own,” it was nice to have some private time or grab something quick without having a group dinner that lasted two to three hours.
We boarded a bus at 6:00 a.m. for transport to the train station. We were on a private train1 that was very long. Breakfast was served by the Trek Travel staff – quiche and a chocolate croissant, plus orange juice and coffee. Ed Karrels had his Garmin bike computer out, and at one point, we were doing 300 kph – about 200 mph. The major differences I noticed compared to Amtrak in the Northeast Corridor were that there was no rocking back and forth, no clickety-clack of the train on the tracks, and the bathrooms did not smell of urine. And it was one place you could pee for free in France.
Arriving at the Gare train station in Paris, it was immediately noticeable that Paris was more “English-friendly” than Toulouse, St. Lary, Lourdes, or Bordeaux. Most signage had English here as well. That was not the case last night when I went out in Bordeaux and found a place to eat. The menu was only in French, and the waitress spoke less English than I spoke French, which is only a few phrases or words. But we managed.
We boarded a bus from the train station that took us to within three blocks of our hotel, then we walked the rest of the way. The street was too narrow for the bus to maneuver through the turns. After storing our luggage at the hotel, we walked 5-6 blocks over to the Automobile Club of France. I need to find out more about this “club,” but we were told this is the one day a year women are permitted in the club. No jeans. No shorts. I always envisioned this as the AAA of France. Guess not.
We had to go through a security checkpoint as we got to the block in which the club was located. Then we passed through a second checkpoint and finally, once inside the building, a third check. It is a stately building with wonderful balconies overlooking the Champs-Élysées.
Today was the day Ashley joined me. Her plane was delayed by four hours, so she did not arrive in Paris until 1:30 and then had to make her way downtown. And at the worst possible time. But she had met a couple2 from Tucson, Arizona, on the flight, and they had hired a private car to take them from the airport to their hotel. As it turned out, their hotel was right across the street from our hotel. I had left the club and walked back to the hotel to wait for her.
After Ashley arrived, we went to the viewing at the Automobile Club. We jockeyed around trying to see if being at ground level, the outside balconies, or the higher floor windows offered the best view. We ultimately settled on the highest view and then watched the big screen TV coverage of the final lap.
While we were on the balcony, one of the riders in our group, Paul Sommer, asked me to take his picture, framed with the Eiffel Tower in the background. As I was, a woman and her daughter were about to cut through the picture. We politely asked them to hold up for a second, and they did. As it turned out, it was Johan Bruyneel’s wife and daughter.
After the race, we went down to the Radio Shack team bus. We waited, along with many other people, to get one last glimpse of Lance Armstrong participating in his final Tour de France. I passed my copy of Johan’s book, We Might as Well Win, to Hollie and Dave Eenigenberg, who got him to sign it. But, unlike some in our group, we didn’t go through the rope line and get a picture with Lance, Chris Horner, or Levi Leipheimer.
Guide to Photo:
Front (starting with woman in black dress): Stephanie Chapman (guide), Susan Alexander, Scott Spector (kneeling), Anne Mader, Donna Thackrey, Dave Edwards (Guide, kneeling)
Middle (beginning with woman in white dress): Marquette Kelly (guide), Hollie Eenigenburg, Aimee Cutright, Deirdre Mullaly, Debbie Jaudon, Todd Mader, Nancy Karrels, Ed Karrels (with arm around Nancy), Barry Sherry, David Thackrey, Paul Sommer, Nicole Kimborowicz (guide)
Back: Dean Cobble, Burt Piper, Peter Pellicano, David Eenigenburg, Tom Michaud, Deron Cutright, Richard (Rich) McCrea, Mike Bandemer, Matthew McDonald, Dennis McDonald
Missing: James Hartzberg
After returning to the hotel, we went to the final Trek Travel event – a dinner cruise on the River Seine. A long day, especially for Ashley, who didn’t get to bed until midnight after flying in from the U.S.
By the way, there was a race. Alberto Contador finished first in the 2010 Tour de France by 39 seconds over Andy Schleck, the same 39 seconds Contador gained on Stage 15 when Schleck threw his chain. Denis Menchov was third. Levi Leipheimer, 13th, was the highest American finisher.3 Mark Cavendish won Stage 20.
- Although it was described to us by Trek Travel as a private train, it very likely meant that we had private cars on a public train ↩︎
- The woman was a Vice President at Amgen and seemingly wanted to talk about cycling with Ashley. She asked Ashley what she thought about Lance being clean and then told her that Amgen supplied him EPO. A completely reckless conversation to have with a stranger, and I never repeated what she told Ashley. (This footnote was added not at the time of this entry, but 15 years after the conversation and long after Lance admitted to using EPO.) ↩︎
- Four years after this post, we can state that on February 7, 2012, the Court for Arbitration of Sport stripped Contador of his 2010 Tour championship after a positive for Clenbuterol, a banned drug, during the rest day in Pau. Schleck was elevated to the winner of the Tour. In 2014, Menchov was stripped of his 2009, 2010, and 2012 Tour placings because of irregularities with his biological passport.
↩︎
Recent Comments