We saw the riders off from Bourg-d’Osians — from the signing-in ceremony to the starting gun. Floyd led the group through town wearing yellow. George was still eating a sandwich. And we caught a glimpse of Lance in the Team Discovery car.

In years past, whenever I went for bike rides when the Tour was on, it gave me extra energy thinking about the riders and what was happening with the last days’ stages. After seeing the Tour live, that effect has been compounded for us. We found some quiet yellow roads on the Michelin map and blazed up the climb to Col Orlon and back down down great narrow river gorges. The road to Mens where we camped for the night was exceptional, with a gorge so deep to advertise bungy jumping from the bridge, and quiet enough for Susana and I to ride side-by-side for long periods of time.

Some final thoughts on Alpe d’Huez: Floyd Landis was the fastest on the final 13.8km climb at 38:34, with Andreas Kloden a second more — this at the end of an already difficult 187km stage. Marco Pantani set the record in 1995 with a time of 36:50. After climbing it the second time, I verified that the the steepest portion is at the bottom, for the first kilometer or two, which is psychologically tricky and explains why the devil guy hangs out there. After not being a part of the tour for decades, it was reintroduced in 1976, and was climbed twice on consecutive days in 1979. Since then it has been a part of the Tour for nearly every year since.

  France