It was a man from Bossost who picked me up off the side of the road early Wednesday morning for no reason other than the fact I had a Spanish flag pinned to my back. He had a wife at home and a child's car-seat in the back but I did not learn more, other than his desire for the calm and quiet of the Pyrenees. From Vielha to Bossost we went, and then about ten minutes further on winding roads to the top of a mountain. Where the road becomes flat, Spain ends and France begins. I shut the door with a thank you and when he was out of sight I walked across an invisible line. An old French cyclist greeted me with bonjour. I smiled and said in Spanish that we are in France now. He said oui and smiled also and then turned and descended without anything else. Shortly I followed him and this was my start to the Tour de France.
The Tour de France lasts three weeks and occurs in many cities and in countries outside of France itself. Most of it is in the remote countryside and so to spectate the Tour, at least any large amount of the Tour, is very difficult. It is because of this most people find themselves picking sections, times, routes and stages to which they will make the Tour a part of their lives and it is in this place a found myself from months ago up until the day of. It was the same strategic orientation of Bagneres-de-Luchon that brought me and thousands others to this small skiing village in the middle of the French Pyrenees for stages 16 and 17 of the 99th anniversary.
In Luchon, the Tour ends one day and begins the next - the only time this happens. It is the last two mountain stages before the entire race finishes in Paris. It is probably the best place in all of France to see what I wanted to see.
Stage 16 is one of the most grueling of the entire race, lasting 197km over four horrific climbs. I was situated on a downhill, 3km from the finish and when the peloton flew by it was not one but many and Cadel Evans had lost 5 minutes with a stomach bug. I still told him I loved him and waved my Australian flag but he probably had other things on his mind. The Frenchman continued to dominate with an impressive win, almost too good. What happened with Cadel, as one spectator put it, is what you would expect of someone who was not on some sort of performance enhancing drug. He is human. He is not perfect for three weeks straight.
Stage 17 was shorter (less than 100 miles) and I placed myself on a large incline, 15km from the finish. Cadel was doing better but it was a Spaniard I saw first, and he remained first until he crossed the line. That gave my Spanish flag value. These are the shortened technicalities of the Tour, and I will keep those at a minimum.
I camped out in Luchon with two Americans. We found a trailer park full of spectators and put down blankets and sleeping bags and talked for a little while until everyone was silent and I just looked up at the big sky that was very dark and full with stars. It was not very cold and when I woke up sometime early in the morning the stars were gone and it was very cloudy and a little colder but still not as cold as I expected. A French family in a nearby trailer gave me an extra blanket the night before and another one in the morning gave hot coffee and a cup. There was nothing I could say but merci and nothing they could say but cafe but I smiled and they smiled and I think we all knew what we meant.
The clouds remained that morning into the afternoon and the mountain stages felt much more like mountain stages because there was always a peak shrouded in mist. I saw Cadel Evans very closely that second morning before the race. Gilbert and the rest of the team also, as they descended BMC's bus and got on their bikes to warm up and do interviews. I saw Cavendish get driven to the starting line through the window of a Jaguar. Wiggins rode by at one point. I was ten feet away from a face of Australian sports television I remember seeing when I lived there but still cannot give a name. There were other important people too. There were thousands of dollars worth of beautiful bikes, tuned to perfection. There were buses with tinted windows. Police officers looking intimidating and some not so much. There was a lot. But the crowds remained very collected and calmly watched from behind the lines. Occasionally someone would yell something out and sometimes the riders would turn and look over and give a wave. My Australian flag joined me with lots of happy Aussies who were happy to have me join even though I do not speak like them.
Walking up a particularly difficult stretch of road, an Australian girl from Melbourne asked me if I had been following the Tour much. It seemed a strange question. I had traveled hundreds of miles to see the Tour. Of course I was following it. But I wasn't really, because one of the innate qualities in coming to these remote places is that you will lose track of the Tour at some point. Waiting hours on the side of the road, your favorite rider could have crashed out and you wont know. The riders could be ten kilometers or thirty and the only way you know it's coming is when a helicopter emerges from behind a mountain and you know it is close. Every major move of the stage passes by completely unnoticed to the people quietly lining the roads, standing poised and ready with flags and signs in hand.
Maybe not if you are like that man from Belgium, satellite television and all inside your trailer, but that is not me now and I would not want it to be. Maybe it will be in a different time. When I glanced at the flatscreen quickly and saw 50km to go, it was however, a little helpful.
It was a running joke among numerous others. We are standing in beautiful scenery that people all over the world watch on television every year and say to themselves how great it would be to see the Tour de France and meanwhile, we have no idea what the hell is going on. But it didn't matter anyways. We were there and people saw us somewhere in the middle of all the rest. And it was the thousands of other connections and conversations, not just the cyclists streaming by, that made the days what they were.
And so the Tour de France moves North while I go back South. The clouds have lifted a little with a few pockets winding through the passes. It was sure something to see. It was sure an experience. Next year I will probably be in a warm little house watching highlights each night, maybe alone and maybe with good company. I will think about the whole thing very differently. I will think about France differently too. I do hate the language gap. It still kills me. But when people are exceptionally and needlessly kind, that neither matters nor exists.
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