July 2...
It was 10:00 last night when I was still pulling my suitcase around...after the missed flight, after landing at 8:00 am and after waiting for two hours for the lost luggage, after realizing that Verizon screwed up and I had no phone service, after waiting in the train line for 45 minutes, after sprinting (lost) thru the maze of the Les Halles station, after not finding a single person that spoke English, after so closely almost missing my train from Paris...(by less than a minute), after mistakenly going to Monaco for a three hour diversion and waiting at a taxi stand for 45 minutes only to find out that the train had passed thru where I needed to be, after the heel strap on my Croc broke, after almost peeing myself when all the pissers were closed, and after not having had anything to eat for hours, after realizing that the $100 Euro note I had was actually a worthless $100 Franc note, and after begging for spare change from some helpful Brits to buy a ticket to get back to the correct town on the last train, and after trying to find the hotel and walking up & down some steep roads w/ no clue where I was going....that I FINALLY cracked & gave up. Time to get a cab, but after I found a taxi stand thinking this would be the final chapter...they would not give me a ride!!!! Instead they pointed me in the right direction and I was back walking once again...and still sweating & stinking profusely. And after not jumping in the ocean to end it all....I finally found the hotel at last and just as I was w/in 20 feet the lights were turned off, the gate was locked & they were closing up shop...I literally screamed "NO!!!" and started shaking doors and windows. A striking, young lady finally came out "Mr Espinoza?"
The day finally ended with my trucking the bags up three flights of stairs and finding the three things I needed most: a hot shower, quick and immediate Internet service, and a bed. Yes!
July 3.....
Friday morning dawned with construction workers getting to it just outside my window at 6:30. Still, I was prepared to put it all behind me and start anew. I met Chris on the veranda for some much needed food and coffee and after installing our new Garmin 310 XT GPS unit (Chris did that while the Mexican in me clamored for the job of washing the windows and applying the Presse stickers) we were off to Monaco. The Garmin was sweet...super easy to install and within minutes the satellite coordinates get fixed and off you go.
Columbia/HTC/Highroad Press Conference
Team owner Bob Stapleton kicked it off with a stellar race recap video that really captured the essence of the sport (albeit another video using U2's “It's a Beautiful Day” as the theme music). Besides the high impact race action, a really cool part of the video was all the man love displayed by the riders following their mass of 2009 wins (49 so far this year). Lots of hugging which only reinforced the team aspect of the sport.
QUOTE: "We come to race everyday!" Bob Stapleton.
Kudos to Columbia/HTC for being the only media scrum to offer coffee and pastries.
Sitting behind me is Samuel Abt, the famous journalist from the Herald Tribune and New York Times. After 31 years of covering the Tour, Sam has finally called it quits and has retired from the July beat. A great, great writer with marvelous instincts...it's an honor to sit next to him. With his signature pack of cigs stuffed in his shirt pocket, Sam comes to the sport not as a former racer or hard core cyclist, but as an authentic old school journo. His only prediction for this years's race is, unfortunately, that there will be another drug scandal. “It happens ever year,” he says before running outside to light up.
Speaking of national treasures, standing nearby is none other than John Wilcockson from VeloNews who is covering his forty first Tour this year. JW is here to not only cover the race (from beginning to end as usual) but to receive a coveted, and well deserved medal from the Tour organizers recognizing his four decades of reporting. John said his first TdF was as a fan in 1963 when he rode up the his first major climb of his his life - the Tourmalet - aboard his steel bike with panniers (“Anquetil won that stage in a sprint,” he throws in for effect.) When asked what one of the most memorable years was, he wastes no time in saying “1986- the first year an American won.” John attended his first four as a fan & spectator and he been on the beat ever since.
AG2R Press Conference
Not much to report, they had the nerve to conduct it all in French. The whole thing ended as quick as it started. Next.
Astana Press Conference
The Astana show was a Johan & Alberto deal only – no Lance. The question of the day, and one that Johan had to answer repeatedly (in three languages) was about the inter-team rivalry between Lance and the Spaniard.
“We have our selection, the leader is Alberto,” said the eight time winning team director. “He has won the last three Grand Tours that he's competed in and so out of respect for that he is our number one rider. I have discussed it with Lance, it is not a problem. Everyone asks about Lance and Alberto as rivals, why not the rivalry between Alberto and Levi. Look what happened at the Vuelta last year...Alberto was the leader and then he had a stupid crash, not his fault, and then Levi was in contention. Also, what about the rivalry with other teams – nobody ever asks about that and to me that is the main question. I think Saxo is of course strong – and what about the rivalry between the (Schleck) brothers? Sastre too, I think the 2009 Sastre is stronger than the 2008 Sastre.”
The bigger news of course was the story in today's L'Equipe (as related to me by someone who speaks French) that has the Kazakh owners of the Astana team planning to get rid of Johan Bruyneel to make way for the return of Alexandre Vinokourov – wow! With national pride and possibly a fat contract for Contador to keep him around, the Kazakh's have added a great deal of last minute intrigue to this year's race.
Okay, it's almost 8:00 pm and Chris (you know, the guy who has the ocean view from his room) and I have to go off in search of dinner. So, except for a soon to come tech piece on new TdF specific Sram components that I'll have to post from my hotel room, that my friends is all there is to report from day one at the Tour.
NOTE: LANCE GOES OFF AT #18 IN THE TIME TRIAL.
Now for a quick photo gallery...