Riding Tour de France Stages the morning of the stage.
woody1545
Posts: 322
Hi,
Some mates and I took our bikes over to France on the ferry and rode Stage 6 of the tour over 2 days.
We did the last 75 miles of the stage on the morning of the stage. From 10am onwards the roads were closed to traffic with Gendarmes at every junction. Some of the spectators cheered us on and the Gendarmes seemed friendly.
We were able to ride the King of the mountains sections and the rest of the stage right into Lisieux until the 2km to go marker.
What amazed me is the whole time we were riding we only saw one other group. I thought every club in Brittany would be out. Whats the deal? Is there some unwritten rule against this? Its a lot cheaper than doing the etape, and you get to watch the pros come in after.
Some mates and I took our bikes over to France on the ferry and rode Stage 6 of the tour over 2 days.
We did the last 75 miles of the stage on the morning of the stage. From 10am onwards the roads were closed to traffic with Gendarmes at every junction. Some of the spectators cheered us on and the Gendarmes seemed friendly.
We were able to ride the King of the mountains sections and the rest of the stage right into Lisieux until the 2km to go marker.
What amazed me is the whole time we were riding we only saw one other group. I thought every club in Brittany would be out. Whats the deal? Is there some unwritten rule against this? Its a lot cheaper than doing the etape, and you get to watch the pros come in after.
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Comments
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No rule - I rode the Annecy time trial course in 2009 on the morning on closed roads - we were overtaken by some of the pros too, but there were quite a few other groups doing the same as us. Like you we were turned off the course near the end, presumably to allow them to work on the finish area, though we sneaked back onto the course and managed to ride to the 100m marker. We were also asked,very politely, to get down from the podium.
Most embarrassing moment was overtaking my mate and his son just before what I thought was the top of the col de Bluffy, but actually turned out to be a false summit, then blowing completely and suffering like a dog in front of several hundred early spectators for the last 400m of the climb :oops:0 -
Hope you had time for a photo on the podium!
I was miles ahead of my mates on the 2nd cat 3 climb so slowed to a crawl so they could catch up a bit, turns out I wasn't as far ahead as I thought. One of them flew past as I was trying to take off my jacket. School boy error. A nice French man did try and warn me but by the time I worked out what he was saying it was to late. :oops:0
