The IT Nerd

My wife and I started out not doing a whole lot today. But things got busier at the end of the day when we started to notice that our window for seeing a Tour de France stage was closing. Our plan was to go to the start of Stage 18 in Moûtiers in the Savoie department. And we would do that by leaving at dawn on the day of the stage and drive 2.5 hours to Moûtiers. But we started noticing in the early afternoon on Apple Maps that roads were starting to close and traffic was increasing. So we made the snap decision to pack a change of clothes and some of our tech and drive there that night. Not to mention we also needed to find a hotel to stay in.

One challenge that we had was the fact that Apple Maps was showing us times as long as 5.5 hours to make a drive that should take us 2.5 hours. That’s where I flipped over to Waze which is a Tour de France partner. It not only gave us a route that took us just under 3 hours, but it directed us to a parking lot recommended by the Tour de France organizers which was 3 minutes away from the hotel that my wife found en route via her Expedia app. More on the hotel in a bit.

The drive took us along two highways that were toll highways. And the way they did the tolls was kind of cool. When you enter the toll highway, you take a ticket that is barcoded. When you get to the end of the toll highway, you put that ticket into a machine which calculates the toll that you owe and you can pay by cash, or by tapping your credit card. I chose to use Apple Pay and that worked fine. Though I will note that Apple Pay did not work everywhere that I tried it. So make sure that you have your physical credit card on you just in case.

We arrived in Moûtiers just after 10 PM local time and parked in the location that Waze told us to park. Then we walked to the hotel. When we arrived there it seemed closed and we were really confused until we saw a sign that was written in French (of course) and told us to dial a number after 9PM. We did that and we were directed to a door that had a keypad on it, we then punched in the code which was “1234” which is super secure, and then we were directed up to our room which was open with the key inside.

Interesting.

The room itself had a bathroom that was recently renovated, but that was the high point of the room. Other than that, there was really nothing special about it. Or the hotel in general. Other than this view:

Given that the hotel cost us 235 Euros for the night (which dropped to 80 Euros the next day because the Tour de France wasn’t in town), I would expect that we would get a good view for that kind of money.

Moûtiers is in a valley surrounded by mountains. In fact in stage 17 of the Tour de France which happened earlier in the day, the riders went through Moûtiers and went up the climb of the Col de La Loze which tops out at and elevation of 2,304 meters or 7559 feet. The race as cyclists would say “exploded” on that mountain with all sorts of action. If you want to know exactly what happened, this quick video from YouTuber Lanterne Rouge will help you with that as he does a great job of explaining the nuances of bike racing.

After eating breakfast (which was another 32 Euros for both of us) at the hotel, we checked out and headed to the start area for Stage 18 of the Tour de France. If you travel to see the Tour de France, you really want to check out the start areas as they tend to be the most interesting. And you have the best chance to see the riders in a more relaxed environment. Let me walk your though what I saw:

The teams come from their hotels to the start area via buses that are fully “pimped out” as the kids say. You can find out what I mean by that by watching this video by Global Cycling Network which walks you through the Team UAE bus. But in any case, this bus is the one that belongs to the Spanish team Movistar. The riders will get dressed on the bus, be briefed by the team managers about that day’s stage, and prepare to sign in and go to the starting area from there.

The bikes that the riders will use in the stage are also laid out and ready to go. The team mechanics would have worked all night outside the team’s hotel to get them ready for today, and then those mechanics will go to the finish of the stage to do the same thing to get them ready for the next day’s stage. In this case, you’re looking at the bikes belonging to the Belgian Soudal/Quick Step team.

The only thing that needs to be done is that the mechanics make sure that the tires are at the pressure that the rider of the bike wants, and as you can see above the mechanic puts a sticker on the handlebar that tells the rider where the feed zones are, where to eat and drink, and what the course looks like. While that information is often programmed into the bike computer that the riders use, it’s often easier to look down at the sticker in the middle of a race. I’ll also point out what looks like to be pink tape on the fork of the bike you’re looking at. What that actually happens to be is a piece of a latex inner tube that covers the race transponder that keeps track of the transponder that keeps track of where the rider is on the course.

Fun Fact: Latex inner tubes are used by some teams because their light weight leads to lower rolling resistance. Or put another way, you go faster with the same level of effort. But unlike butyl inner tubes, if you puncture them, you cannot patch them easily. Thus teams recycle them to cover up the transponders.

On the seat is another device that sticks out from it that is another transponder that broadcasts anything from speed, to other metrics like cadence, power and heart rate if the teams allow that information to be broadcast so that TV viewers can see it. In most cases, the teams don’t allow anything other than speed as they are afraid that other teams will watch the race on TV (which they do) and see how hard riders from opposing teams are working.

The team cars that follow the riders have spare bikes in case the rider has a mechanical issue. The most important riders on the team have their bikes on the outside so the people in the car can get to it easily. The less important riders have their bikes further towards the middle of the car. And there’s usually a sheet of paper in the car detailing where all the bikes are located on the roof. In this case, you’re looking at the spare bike of cycling superstar Mathieu Van De Poel or “MVDP” as he is also known as. Fun fact: This bike is the Canyon Aeroad, but this specific one is a model that is not currently released for the public to buy and he is the only one on the Dutch Alpecin Cycling Team that gets to ride this version of the bike. His teammates must “make do” with the version of the Aeroad that is available to the public.

Speaking of “MVDP”, here he is riding to the sign in area on a copy of said unrelased bike.

His teammate Jasper Phillipsen gets a green bike because he is the leader of the points classification which is the completion for the sprinters. Because he leads that classification, the Tour de France gives him the green jersey so that fans know he’s the leader of that classification. Canyon who sponsors the team gave him a bike to match the jersey. Bike companies will often do that if one of their sponsored riders leads one of the Tour de France classifications.

Fun fact: The version of this bike that Phillipsen is riding is the one that you that you and I can buy and not the version that “MVDP” gets. Here’s a write up on what is different about “MVDP’s” bike. The differences a very minor. But at this level of the sport, those differences matter. Highlighted by the fact that “MVDP” has won two of the biggest one day races on that bike this year. Specifically Milan San Remo and Paris Roubaix.

Speaking of unreleased bikes, the black bike on the roof of the French AG2R team car is an unreleased bike from BMC that was designed with the help of the Red Bull F1 team and is likely the spare bike of Ben O’Connor who finished fourth overall in the 2021 Tour de France. You can read more about this bike here.

The protocol for Tour de France riders at the start is to ride to the sign in area, sign into the race (you have to sign into any bike race that you participate in), go on stage to be introduced to the crowd, then eventually make their way to the start area before the race starts. This is the sign in area where the is a stage for the riders to be introduced to the fans.

The media is out in force at the start area getting interviews from riders and team managers alike as well as filming bits of video to be broadcast during the race. In this case, former cycling superstar Alberto Contador is filming a bit of video that was used during the race broadcast on sports broadcaster Eurosport.

This is Bryan Couquard of the French Cofidis team being interviewed by the media outside the team bus. He’s one of the top French sprinters and was considered to be a favourite to win stage 18.

This is French cycling superstar Julian Alaphilippe of the Soudal/Quick Step cycling team. He’s a superstar in the sport of cycling having finished fifth in the Tour de France in 2019, won numerous stages at the Tour de France over the years, and having won 2 world championships back to back among other big wins. As a result, fans always want to get autographs and pictures from him.

This is 2019 Tour de France winner Egan Bernal of UK based Team Ineos riding to the sign in area He’s wearing a cool vest to keep his core body temperature down as it was 35 degrees celsius that day. For the riders, keeping cool is a priority to ensure that the perform at their best.

This is 2020 and 2021 Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar of Team UAE riding to the sign in area and also wearing a cool vest. He was the odds on favourite to win the race this year. But he broke a wrist a few months ago which hindered his preparation for this race, and he appears to be sick as he lost six minutes to the race leader on stage 17 when he couldn’t keep pace. He was second overall when this picture was taken. He was also wearing the white jersey as he’s the leader of the best young rider classification (which is for riders under the age of 25) in the Tour de France for the third year in a row.

This is Simon Yates who races for Australian team Jayco. He was fifth overall having finished stage 17 in second place.

And this is his identical twin brother Adam Yates who races for Team UAE. He was third overall when this picture was taken. Fun Fact: Both brothers on stage one got clear of everyone else and battled it out between themselves to win the stage. In the end Adam won the stage and got to wear the race leader’s yellow jersey until stage 5.

Speaking of the yellow jersey which is what the race leader wears, this is Jonas Vingegaard of Dutch team Jumbo Visma who is the current race leader. He grabbed the lead on stage 5 and on stages 16 and 17 all but put the race to bed by putting in incredible performances to widen his lead. He’s the defending champion of the race.

Here’s another picture of Jonas Vingegaard in what is known as the “mix zone” where reporters get to interview the the riders prior to them heading to the start area which is to the left of him.

Once you get the start line, you get to chill out for a bit before the racing gets going. Number 111 in this picture is Biniam Girmay who races for the Belgian InterMarche team. He’s the first person from Africa (he’s Eritrean) to win a big one day race which was Gent–Wevelgem as well as being the first person from Africa to win a stage at the Giro d’Italia which is another “Grand Tour” like the Tour de France.

This picture was taken just before the start of the stage. Now the stage start is ceremonial as the riders will ride behind the official’s car at a slow pace on the way out of town until they reach “kilometre zero” where the actual race starts. In the case of today’s stage, that was 16 kilometres outside of town.

Just after the start, the thousands of people who were in this town to see the start quickly left town. Essentially emptying the place out. We stayed for another 90 minutes to have lunch before returning to Gilhoc Sur Ormeze. And that’s where we checked out our haul of swag. The Tour de France is a massive commercial event and sponsors of the teams as well as the Tour are known to give away a ton of swag. A lot of that is given away via the “publicity caravan” that precedes the riders by approximately 30 to 40 minutes.

And if you’re quick enough to grab the swag that is being thrown out to the fans at roadside, you’ll get a haul like this:

Not pictured here are two polka dot t-shirts and one polka dot hat. The polka dots are on the jersey for the best climber in the race who unfortunately I did not get a picture of.

That was our Tour de France experience. And we’ll likely take it easy tomorrow as a result. But I will be posting about the tech that we used and how it’s worked for us. Stay tuned for that.

This entry was posted on July 28, 2023 at 9:02 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.