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Unlike a rock concert, the crowds
for the Tour are more subdued. Of course, it might have had something
to do with the fact that the hotel was a sulfer bath spa resort for
the elderly with arthritis! The gentlemen with the yellow sweater and
I conversed in the lobby in broken French and English, both of us like
small children waiting for Santa Claus to come down the chimney. Lance
did come down in the elevator and just as quickly disappeared into the
private dining hall for cyclists. Over the 2 hour period we milled around
waiting for something to happen, a lone waiter must have made about
a dozen trips back and forth from the kitchen with plates of pasta,
potatoes, and eggs! A sneaky glance through the crack in the door revealed
about 2 dozen boxes of American breakfast cereals! I wondered what they
loaded onto those trucks besides the bikes!
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The French girls were great! They were in the parking lot early that first morning and gave me ideal tips on how to become a Tour groupie.
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Yes, that is me, the ultimate groupie! The Team Bianchi guys were all Europeans and I never developed that French and Spanish, so the best I could do was jump into the picture and look as ridiculous as a school girl in love with her gym teacher. On the other hand, my Russian came in handy on my second day. I met Vyatcheslav Ekimov from the US Postal Service Team and we chatted in Russian for a while. Nice guy. |
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le TOUR de FRANCE
The Groupies
