Tour de France: stage 20

I've got to say my heart sank a little when I arrived at the sign on in Annecy this morning. The way the barricades were set up wasn't very fan friendly and pretty much minimized the chances of meeting any of the cyclists. Oh well, I figured. I resolved to find a decent place where I could at least wave my flag and I found Gerrie to say good morning.

 

And then Gerrie came to my rescue! He was able to get me a VIP badge that would give me access to the team buses. I was pretty damn excited but also nervous to meet cyclists without Fien. It's much easier to work in pairs!

 

There were a couple of hours yet until the sign on so I went to check out the village which was open early today. It had a carnival atmosphere and was full of free food and gifts from the various sponsors. I managed to find the one and only fruit stand and ate the best peach of my life. Under any other circumstances, it would have been a good peach, but knowing I was lucky enough to meet cyclists yet again made it taste even better.

 

There were lots of places to sit and the chairs had the names of past jersey winners.

 

I watched the publicity caravan pass from the VIP area. It wasn't fenced off here which mildly terrified me as 2 kids and an octogenarian seemed blissfully indifferent to the constant oncoming vehicles as they scrambled to pick up everything the caravan chucked at them.

 

Euskaltel was the first team to arrive and their bus was swamped in no time.

 

I planned to station myself at the bottleneck where the cyclists would have to pass for the sign on but Gerrie had a much better idea. Just to the side of the sign on podium is a seating area and the snack bars, so Gerrie invited me to stay there. I've been to several sign ons in the Tour this year and it's rare to see someone who isn't affiliated with a team in this area, so I was thrilled.

 

The first cyclist came and went and my feet were cemented in place so Gerrie gave me a good nudge and I asked Mikel Astarloza for a photo.

 

I whispered, “That's Maciej Bodnar,” to Gerrie who gave me another nudge to get a picture.

 

With 2 photos under my belt, I was feeling a little more bold so I got one with Igor Anton.

 

Pierre Rolland giving an interview.

 

RadioShack signed in as a team and I was a bit overwhelmed when half the team came to pick up fruit, bars, and water so I left them alone rather than get tangled up in their bicycles.

 

Some of the teams send a staff member to pick up a few boxes of bars, gels, and powder to save their cyclists from having to worry about it themselves. I saw the Garmin crew and introduced myself as a fan and asked how Jack Bauer was doing. He said Jack was in good spirits now that his face had been stitched up and that he will travel with the team to Paris, which was good news to hear!

 

I've been trying to get Arashiro's autograph for over 2 weeks now and today I did even better by getting a photo.

 

I asked Andrey Amador for a photo just as he'd downed a power gel and he laughed when I told him to take his time chewing.

 

Marteen Wynants was really nice when he signed my flag a few stages ago and he was just as nice when I asked for a picture.

 

Brent Bookwalter couldn't have been easier to talk to and we had a good, long chat. He's now got another fan in his corner.

 

I took a photo with his teammate Amaël Moinard.

 

Marcel Kittel looked like he was in a bit of a hurry to get back to the team bus but he saw me fidgeting and hesitating with my camera so he looked at me as if to say, “Do you want a picture?” Yes, please!

 

I missed Lars Bak when he went snack shopping because it was too busy, but he came back a few minutes later to get some more food and was kind enough to stop for a photo.

 

I was super excited to meet Tejay Van Garderen, especially after he'd come so close to winning on Alpe d'Huez.

 

Bart De Clercq knows Fien by now and he recognized me as her friend and stopped to say hi. Since he hadn't noticed it on the ground, I showed him a photo of my chalking for him last week and he seemed to like my artwork very much.

 

I didn't want to pester anyone, so I only asked for photos from the cyclists who came to the snack bar area. This meant I didn't interact with guys like Tony Martin, Alberto Contador, or Cadel Evans but I did make sure to say a quick hello to several of my favorites like Marcus Burghardt, Andrew Talansky, and a few others.

 

It was getting close to the start time but it was still too long to sit at the starting line, so a bunch of them took a seat and gabbed away. Left to right: Tejay Van Garderen, Philippe Gilbert, Adam Hansen, Matty Goss, Simon Gerrans, Lars Bak, Mark Cavendish, Andre Greipel, and Rein Taaramae.

 

The world champion caught up on sporting news with today's edition of L'Equipe.

 

I turned shy again with so many big names together, but Gerrie wouldn't have it and sent me over to ask Gilbert for a photo.

 

Faking confidence, I approached Cav and Simon Gerrans for photos. Cav agreed readily and when I held out the camera to take the photo myself, Simon Gerrans took my camera and with a huge smile, insisted on snapping the picture himself.

 

He handed my camera off to Cav and made him the photographer for Simon and I.

 

David Millar is far taller in person than I had realized and I wasn't sure if I had fit us both in the shot.

 

Greipel returned for more food and I ended up with a picture!

 

Cav and David Millar had a laugh while Matty Goss, Adam Hansen, and Philippe Gilbert collected their bikes.

 

A few stragglers came to my area, so I got a picture with Daniele Bennati.

 

I met Dan Martin again today and he was as good a guy as always.

 

My final photo of the day was with Assan Bazayev who is both my favorite Kazakh rider and my favorite cyclist with a neck tattoo. He was super nice!

 

When it was time to go to work, the peloton and the press moved towards the start line.

 

Right on time, the cyclists were off for a relatively short day of 125 kilometers.

 

The spectacle wasn't over yet, though. Each team has 2 or 3 cars and a bus, plus the official race cars, all of which had to clear out from the lawn-turned-parking lot.

 

When I waved my Canadian flag, the Garmin bus driver waved back just as enthusiastically.

 

But the prize for the most excited team staff goes to Astana, who stopped their bus to take a picture of singing Danish fans dressed as vikings holding a 5 foot picture of Jakob Fuglsang's face.

 

I can't thank you enough, Gerrie!