As you probably noticed there haven't been any updates to this blog since a few days now ... Indeed, we're making long days to make sure we get the best bike rides and VIP access possible and it's thus a bit difficult to keep you posted here.
Today was a rest day and while some of us were climbing the Col du Tourmalet in the rain, another part of the group was visiting Pau where the teams were located during this rest day!
We got off on the previous rest day, so I'll now try to update you on what's happened in the mean time.
On July 13th we went up the Col de la Madeleine by bike, to get to our viewing location at 9 kilometers from the top of that "hors category" climb. Some of us went up the 25.5 kilometers to the top before going back down to the viewing location while others just stopped there. For another part of the group, this was "D-day" and they thus continued until the finish line in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne where they got the chance to cross that line just a few hours before the professional riders and climb up the podium where the stage winner stood later on!
From our viewing location we first saw the advertising caravan come by and since we were on the Col de la Madeleine, we thought this was perfect to get some "Madeleines" (some sort of cake) delivered directly by St Michel to where we were standing. After the advertising caravan got by we enjoyed our lunch up there before seeing the leading group including Luis Léon Sanchez (Caisse d'Epargne) and Damiano Cunego (Lampre-Farnese Vini) followed by several other groups and the "grupetto".
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Check out the pictures of this day!
Bastille Day reserved another surprise for us: first the climb of the Col d'Ornon, but more importantly ... the climb of the Alpe d'Huez with its famous 21 switchbacks! Once we got on top of this big one, we jumped in our vans to get to the stage finish in Gap where we got to see the stage finish from the Izoard VIP area and thus Sergio Paulinho (Team Radioshack) outsprinting Vasil Kyryienka of the Caisse d'Epargne team. The glass of champagne after the stage finish made our day complete!
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Other pictures of this day are available here!
The forelast day of the Polka Dot Alps trip was yet another special day: we got to cross the finish line before getting up the podium while the official music of the Tour de France was playing just hours before Mark Cavendish raised his hands crossing the finish line. We saw that from the technical and media area which was our preferred viewing location after crossing the line ... Before that happened, we also got the chance to meet up with Robbie Ventura and Frankie Andreu at the Versus mobile broadcasting unit!
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Check out some of the pictures of this day here
On July 16th the Polka Dot Alps trip ended with a visit of Bourg-de-Péage where the stage start took place. In between our visits to the "Village Départ" (the VIP village at the start of each Tour de France stage), we got to see the riders getting off their buses heading to the signature podium where they signed in one by one before the start of the stage. That was the perfect occasion to get some signatures and pictures with the riders taken ... it was therefore no surprise that the goodbyes early in the afternoon were difficult since this trip ended here ...
Just before we left, we also got to meet with a sportsman we don't see that often in the Tour de France ... Sébastien Chabal, one of the most famous French rugby players!
>> More to follow about our adventures in the Signature Series Pyrenees to Paris ...
