Le Tour de France 100



The 100th Tour de France was in July, 2013 and I went to Champs Élysées to see the the finish.  This was my first year watching the tour de France.  It's a lot more than you think.  Its a team sport.  Sacrifices are made, strategies are built around a single rider, patience is needed, and also the breakneck speeds.  There are fans littered in the streets waving flags and tossing beverages.  There is the Peleton (the pack of riders behind the leader) phenomenon.  There is attacking, sprinting, team cars handing off sports drinks to 1 rider who sprints ahead to distribute them to the team knowing he will never see glory at the water boy.  You see detailed topographical and elevation maps of the terrain, some of the peaks in the alps are so extreme they are Hors catégorie (not categorizable).  You see scenery of a lot of france in helicopter flybys.  If you ride a bike you will appreciate the tour de france more, I recommend it for you next year.



is Carrefour the sponsor for the whole polka dot jersey thing?  There are 6 jerseys that riders wear at the end of each stage.  The Yellow is the overall leader.  The green is the points leader.  The polka dots is the best climber who gains the most points on climbs.  The white is for the best young rider.  





a Norwegian fan.



the last section of the final stage is comprised of 53 km of laps around the charles de gaulle etoile, down champs elysees, down to the pyramid at the Louvre and back again.  Here is the peleton on the other side of champs elysees.



Mark Millar was ahead for a lot of the time but ended up falling back.  The crappy thing about riding on champs elysees are all the cobble stones.



the peleton





got a decent spot on a railing right at the front of the Charles de Gaulle etoile.







guy wearing hat from that bike cafe in London, "Look Mum No Hands"





they lit up the Arc de Triomphe with a light show accompanied by tons of dubstep.  Looks like dubstep is commercial music now





this woman in the front is an example of French trash.  She was with her family and they all resembled American trash so I'm assuming they're French trash
 


Here is some British trash.  they were so loud and annoying everyone and making everyone uncomfortable after the Brit Chris Froome won the whole tour de France.  After this I rode my bike over to Bastille for dinner.  They just opened the road up that all the riders had just been riding on so I actually rode that route as fast as I could on my bike to Bastille.  On the way people in cars cheered me on.  I gave them a fist pump.  pretty funny.  I rode like 3km, I can't imagine riding 53 km on that route let alone 228 km which is the longest stage. 

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