A Year Abroad: Le Tour de France.

I knew today was going to be a long day. My train left Bordeaux at 5:40am, so it was early start to make the 5 hour trip down to Ax-les-Thermes for the tour, with a stopover in Toulouse. It's the first time I've been in Toulouse when it hasn't been raining and I haven't been wearing my snow jacket.
Arriving in Ax, it was unbelievable. There were cars everywhere, and hundreds of Winnebago type things with bikes stacked on the back of people who must just follow the tour everywhere. As I walked up the main street, there were people with deck chairs already setting up camp with umbrellas and things (this is 6 hours before the riders come through).

Arriving in the Pyrenees

Cars and buses everywhere

Ax-les-thermes main streets

My plan for the day was to go to Orlu. Orlu is a natural reserve about half an hours walk from Ax. Think Jurassic park type scenery where the main character brushes away a tree branch and tree covered mountains and blue lakes appear in front of them. That's Orlu. Unfortunately, that never happened for me. Most people seemed to know what they were doing and heading in one direction, straight up the mountain. There were police and gendarms everywhere. Hundreds of them, you couldn't turn around anywhere without seeing one. I asked where everyone was going and he said to the top of Ax to see the finish. It was about 10km. I had plenty of time to get there, but only an hour to get back down once the riders were scheduled to go past, so I wasn't game enough to go right to the top.

The whole course was continuously soaked all day.

Massive tractors came through keeping it wet

Turn right and start the ascent

Ax-les-thermes

I started walking and immediately started sweating. It was so hot (27 degrees). There was little shade and the shade that was there, people were already setting up camp. Once I got about 2 kms up, the road started to level out a bit. I couldn't go any further for fear of not making my train, but I wanted to see the climb. So I turned around and started heading down a bit, about 100m onto a corner where I could see both ways and had a good view of the mountains. I sat in the gutter for a good 2 and a half hours, reading and watching heaps of people walk past. It's more a day of waiting. There were so many people riding it! That morning, I had wanted to wear my running gear and run up it, but wasn't sure what it would be like/if I would be allowed, so I didn't. I wished I had. There were no food stalls, or toilets available, so I was kind of happy I'd bought an apple and had gone when I got off the train.

Where I decided to sit and wait

Lots of people were also skiing up the mountain? haha

At 2pm, I was busting to go to the toilet (or so I thought). I was also starting to get hungry. I waited it out for about an half an hour then decided to walk back down. My sitting spot was also now completely sunny, and although it wasn't THAT hot just sitting there, I didn't want to get burnt. I was going to have to find shade somewhere. The riders were scheduled to come through at about 4:30pm, so I knew if I was quick, I would have had just run to the bottom and back up again. As I got up to start my descent, my bladder didn't feel so bad. And I wasn't as hungry as I thought. Maybe the way I'd be sitting was pressing on my stomach? I walked about 200m down the road and around a bend and found myself at the spot I had originally wanted to stay, but had kept walking to see what else was there. As my bladder had now eased up, I found a flat rock on the side of the road and re-perched myself. And, alas, next to an Aussie couple about mum and dad's age. They're just starting 6 weeks of driving around Europe and just happened to be here for the tour. What luck!
Then started another waiting game. Thank goodness for Candy Crush! We didn't have to wait long through. About an hour and a half before the riders come through, all of the sponsor cars/buses/floats come through. It is literally like a massive festival, with each sponsor having their own entourage of moving vehicles, load music, people dancing on floats, throwing free things out of cars (food, yes!). It's like a moving festival that goes all over France. This lasted for about an hour. And then the last dregs of cars come through for about 10 minutes: cop cars, organise cars (telling you not to touch them, stay on you side of the road, etc), the last of the press cars. And then everything goes quiet. I had a phone call from mum so I knew at this point they were about 10 minutes away. And the french guy behind us has a radio (sometimes french skills come in handy), so we knew when they were about 1km from starting their final ascent. And then everything goes quiet. And the anticipation from waiting is at an absolute all time high. I wanted to dance, it was that high. And all of a sudden, a 200m line of about 150 police come through on motorbikes, and at the end is the first rider! Quintana was in the lead at this point, about 30 seconds in front of everyone else. The best thing about seeing a climb is they're going really slow. He was really slogging it out! It was so exciting to see! There are guys riding their bikes up and down past you all day, but then this guy comes and it's so so so so exciting! Following him, about 20 riders came through in ones and twos. About 10 minutes later, a larger group of about 15 came through. And then another larger group of about 25 came through. Individual riders had been coming through the whole time between groups. It was cool to be able to get so close to them!
At about 5:10pm, the last rider came through followed by about 1000000 team cars! It was insane the number of bikes that were there.
I headed back down to the station at about 5:15pm and started the 5 hour journey home!