The Night in Notre Dame, the Day in Luz.

Lourdes is an overwhelming place in the parts of the city that are dedicated to Bernadette, the grotto and its mysteries. There is another, more regular part of the city that features just plain old French folks who don’t go around singing repetitive hiking songs and spend a month’s rent on medals and souvenirs. I wandered through that part of the city after descending from the finish area of the Luz Ardiden stage of the Tour. Yes, that one, the one where Lance got his brake handle caught in someone’s souvenir yellow bag and he went down butt over teakettle taking Iban Mayo down in the process. What a great race that was, what a great result. The French television went wild and the papers carried 90 point headlines the next day. The theme of the headlines was appropriate for a stage near Lourdes, RESURRECTED! was spread across the top of more than one newspaper.

We watched the finish from the Villa de Gave, which, despite its grand name, is the two-storey, comfortable but not sumptuous home of Monsieur and Madam Plaire. They were our unexpected hosts as we sought a nice place to regroup and have a picnic after climbing to Luz Ardiden. Geordie Probert, who was leading the ride group today, stopped in front of their place, and basically talked them into having 25 or so mostly foreign bicyclists roam around their yard, change clothes in their parking lot, discretely pee on their bushes out the back, and request that they move their television out of their living room and onto a veranda with a view of the race route just below their front steps. “Mais oui,” came the reply and this they did like many a French family who have the dubious luck of living right on the Tour route. So the Stephen Roche Centennial Tour had a base of operations at the 15 km to go sign and the option for folks to watch on television or to ride to the very crowded slopes of the road up to the Luz Ardiden ski station and thermal resort where the stage was to end dramatically and victoriously for Lance.

The town of Luz Sainte Saveur was where we were camped, and the town was bearing the brunt of the thousands who rode, drove, walked, and helicoptered in to see and experience the race. Luz St. Saveur has three roads in and out, Luz Ardiden has only one road that goes up the side of the mountain and everyone was staging their ascent from the little town at the bottom. In the morning Luz St. Saveur looked as if it was filled with pilgrims headed to the holy grotto, except they were mostly in orange; or red, white and blue; or yellow—and all kinds of spandex. Many carried flags of nations old and new and some yet to be, and it seemed like well over half were drunk or getting to that state with some expedition.

I stopped a bit at the Villa with Geordie and a few others as he went and talked these nice people into a more or less voluntary invasion, and made a fateful half-decision. I’d see what the climb was like for a kilometer or two and then come back to eat the box lunch that was arriving any minute. So, off I went. The climb is one of the “cols” that isn’t a col at all, it’s just a road straight up the side of a mountain. The Alpe d’Huez climb is like that—a road to nowhere. Today, all of mankind seemed to be headed nowhere and the road was packed with more of those brightly clad pilgrims, except their state of drunkenness was a bit more advanced. The alcohol content of the people along the road rose with the altitude and by the time you hit the top, there were some seriously impaired race fans. Most of them seemed to be Basque (judging from their attire) but then the crazy Dutch cycling fans also wear orange.

I was one of several thousand men, women and children who sought to conquer this “mythic col” on a bicycle and we pedaled up and up dodging this or that separatist faction or bike club group, or family out for a picnic, or grand-dad who remembers when you didn’t have more than one gear and was happy to tell you that this wasn’t hard, “pas dur, pas dur” (not hard, not hard) the wizened old French men would mutter, while their wives would quietly call out “courage, courage” (pronounced koo-rahj).

For some reason I have yet to determine, I kept on going. This crowd was a bit more serious and less likely to hail you on than the crowds we’d ridden past so far. These were the more or less professional col-hangers who were waiting for the main event and had seen enough of the amateurs and regarded them as just a passing irritation or low comedy. There were camps with German fans playing that approximation of music that is colloquially called “oompah.” The Dutch were just drinking. The Basque groups were hailing their comrades and each other and singing half-songs and waving the red-white-and-green flag of the Basque people—a flag consciously designed to resemble the British Union Jack but with the traditional colors of the “Vascos.” The Virenque fans were readying their banners, the Armstrong contingent, and there were thousands, were readying their US and Texas flags and checking out camera angles.

The riders moving up the climb in advance of the race were of wildly varying abilities and the road was a weaving mess of people. Every now and then we’d hear the tootle of official cars that were racing to the top so their occupants could stand around and do not much of anything in the fog at the top. The Tour de France has probably more hangers-on than anything save the Super Bowl and it seems they all have to be at the finish, whether they can actually see the race or not. In between them the amateurs pedaled on, weaving and occasionally saying: “enough is enough” and deciding that this little part of the narrow road was the prime spot to stop and watch the race due in a couple of hours.

Camp stoves were smoking up as Spaniards cooked sausages, the Belgians were more or less dour, not having anything to cheer about, the French were busy popping wine corks out, songs rose and fell from the Basques, the Australians slugged back beers, and the weaving riders continued on. At this pace you get a detailed sense of the road and the efforts that go into preparing a run into a finish. Signs were posted regularly, the big Aquarel 5 km to go sign marked the start of a regular 1 km progression of big signs and the road side hoardings announced the Champion supermarket chain every meter or so. The road was getting more crowded with walkers as we approached the finish. At the one km to go arch, the road was almost blocked with spray painters and more artistic enthusiasts with rollers and quick drying paint. The atmosphere was electric but suffused with a mix of paint smells, charred sausage, and an enveloping mist. Just after the one km mark the mist blew away and as I pushed up the last bit I could see the terrace-garden-like road just below the ski-station, jammed with people. This is the daunting sight the riders get when they get near the top. They can see the finish and it’s way up there, seemingly, well actually, up the side of a mountain. I saw the big screen TV mounted above the crowd—a rider could watch his progress if he wanted to. As for me, I never made it to the top. With 300 meters to go the road was too jammed with riders who had made the climb and cars and police and whoever wanted a little nose bleed that day. So I wedged my way into an open space and unclipped from my pedals and managed to stop without falling, something that is not easy in a crowd like this after going up a steep hill. I quickly put my helmet back on, donned my wind jacket, hoiked the bike around to the other direction and began to pick my way down the road. Now this will be fun. Drunks coming up, heavy amateur rider going down.

The ride down was scary and fun, scary when people backed out into the road or quickly turned to say hello to their buddy or fell over on the way up. I’d seen a group of Basque riders in black and red uniforms riding as a group and when one of them saw a friend in the crowd and veered left to greet them, he plowed right into a guy wearing full US Postal kit and riding a carbon Trek bicycle. The US Postal guy was American and he was banged down pretty badly. I was hoping this wouldn’t turn into an incident, there were 20 guys in black and only the single faux Postal. But not to worry, the Basque guys apologized profusely and helped the American up and pushed him on his way to the top; he really sprinted away from the group when he got clipped into his pedals, likely blowing his heart rate well into the red. The mood was one of fairly reckless camaraderie and no one was going to ruin the day for anyone else—except for the person with the musette bag who lassoed Lance later in the day.

I made it to the bottom, amazed that the people kept coming and coming and riders kept pushing up the hill. I rolled to a stop in the driveway of the Plaires’ now crowded home and sat and ate my picnic lunch of supermarket paté, hard boiled egg, orange, chips and bread. These ersatz euro-meals taste great after a big uphill ride. I took the opportunity to ride up into the village along the Tour route and bought a couple of beers and some more fruit.. This being Tour day, I was given a tee shirt advertising the store: 8 à Huit (8 to 8) sort of like a 7-11, but it had real food, vegetables, fruit and things you might actually profit from eating. The French are just getting used to the idea of their regular small stores staying open during the mid-afternoon, I don’t think they’d be quite ready for a standard US quick-mart offering only brightly packaged sugar products, 6-packs and Penrose sausages.

The beers gave me just the momentum to take a nap, which I did on the porch of the house next door. This was where Geordie had placed a blanket and, of course, must be where one lays down for a few winks before the Tour arrived. When the 8-year old daughter opened the door and saw a snoring guy in bright red and yellow lycra on the doorstep, they tell me she screamed. After this slight contretemps, the family got used to my place of repose and simply stepped over my quietly snoozing body I was dozing nicely mixing dreams of conquest of mythic cols with the background noise of the publicity caravan as it came by, stopping now and then as it accordianed up the hill. It was sunny and nice down here and the circus was on again. The riders came by with the lone and soon to be caught French rider, Sylvain Chavenel looking like he was shattered. He had gone over the roughest mountains in the Pyrénées and I turned to Geordie and predicted he would be caught at the 4 km mark. He didn’t make it even that far in the lead. After Lance’s group passed we all crowded around the TV to watch the small peloton grind up the step-like slopes, as much harassed by the crowd as cheered on. The breaks and the challenges of Mayo and Ullrich promised an exciting finish and then the musette bag “chute” with Lance and Mayo falling. You could hear the entire crowd groan. Everyone was either listening to a radio or near a TV and immediately knew what had happened. Hearts sank and expletives were uttered, but the Maillot Jaune got up and back in the saddle and carried on. The “fairplay” of the peloton was once again maintained as Ullrich paid Lance back by holding off from an attack and Hamilton reminded those who didn’t know that a true accident had happened and to lighten up until the Maillot Jaune could recover. And recover he did.

The ride back down to Lourdes for the spectators was another congested but clean get-away. In the village at the bottom of the grade down from Luz Ste Saveur, I was surprised to see the team busses. After climbing up the tall mountains, most of the riders had to get back on their bikes and ride down to this point 20 K from the finish. I carried on past the waiting team supporters, family and press, and picked up the cycling path that runs along an abandoned railroad track and on into the center of Lourdes. For all its weirdness, Lourdes is the ideal base for cycling. You can take the bike path to the foot of many of the major climbs: Tourmalet, d’Aspin, Soulour, Aubisque, among others, and lesser known climbs like Spandelles, which the French in the group seemed keen on attacking.

The second night in the Hotel Notre Dame de Lourdes was as noisy as the first and it was with no little sense of relief that we left the hotel on bikes to take the back way to Pau, picking up the next day’s stage (the l’Etape stage) in the foothills before we headed into the capital of the Béarn and a promised rendezvous with some of the teams on the rest day.

Back to the title page OR On to the next chapter