Thursday, July 24, 2008
Jour14
After the Izoard yesterday, we decided to do an easy ride today, and then head into town to see the Alpe d'Huez stage. We decided to ride straight up the road that our hotel is on, which was one of he most beautiful rides yet. It ended up being about 22km to the end of the road, and climbed about 3000ft. It is a dead end road, but for some reason, the French just repaved most of it. The first 10-12km were a pretty big climb, and then it was a nice fairly flat ride the rest of the way. There were waterfalls all over the place, and a super blue/green river running all the way down the valley. I have pictures on my camera, but my camera is upstairs at the moment, so no photos yet.
After the 44km ride, Kevin and I put on some real clothes and hopped back on the bikes and rode down into Bourg d'Oisans to watch the tour stage. We sat in a bar for a few hours, watching the riders go up the Lauteret & the Col du Galibier & the Telegraph, up the Croix de Fer, and then hum into Bourg. When they we're about 2km from town, Kevin and I ran outside to the street and waited for a minute for them to cruise past, and then we ran back inside to watch them fly up l'Alpe d'Huez. I was an impressive ride by CSC - Cancellara was amazing on the front of the Peleton. After Sastre won and the the Yellow Jersey group cam through, Kevin and I hopped back on our bikes and rode back up to the hotel, so I ended up with about 60km for the day, and 3500ft.
More later.
