Tour de France Stage 16

Our Tour de France portion of the trip begins! Stage 16 brings the riders in from Martigny, Italy to Bourg St. Maurice, France over the Cols St. Bernard and Petit St. Bernard. Our group rode up the back of the Col de Petit St. Bernard from Bourg St. Maurice to catch the riders coming up this last climb. Our climb was a total of 1,326 m (4,350 ft) from 862 m (2,828 ft) to 2,188 m (7,178 ft) over 30 km (18.6 miles) - an average grade of 4.4%. This would be considered a Category 1 climb from the France side as well as the Italy side (the way the Tour riders came), so we can reasonably say that we tackled a very solid Tour de France climb. Most of us split to climb at our own paces, but Seth, Laurie and I ended up together for most of the ride. There were spectators, tour benchmarks, and gorgeous views of the Alps to behold.

We parked ourselves on the Italy side of the Col to await the riders, getting updates from Kevin's mother via cell phone. Kevin is a Colorado guy too, and friend of Tyler, bike mechanic with Experience Plus, who happened to have the same great idea we had: bike portions of the Tour stages and watch some of this fantastic race first hand!

The scene was as exciting as it appears on television with spectators lining the sides of the road with all manner of flags and costumes. There were an amazing number of riders out to enjoy the course and make their way up to the summit unencumbered by a car.
We watched the riders come through in many groups, the climbs having splintered the peloton. The video below has Alberto Contador clearly visible in his yellow jersey. Lance follows in the same group. You also get a feel for the ridiculous number of support vehicles that ride with the Tour: police motorcycles to move the spectators back, team cars for communication and mechanical difficulties, and press vehicles. Not to mention the so-called caravan that travels ahead of the race with all the Tour sponsors throwing schwag (mostly useless crap) out to the spectators. The best of the schwag was the cycling caps (polka dot ones seen in the video) and snacks by Haribo.