Stage 21 -- Every End Represents a New Beginning

At the Finish in Paris

Click here to see Liam's ride with Lance Armstrong

After a transatlantic flight, 3500 miles by car, 600 miles by bike (mostly uphill), 5 countries, travel through many of the Departments of France, seeing the majority of the 21 stages of the Tour de France, and 23 blog entries; our journey is coming to an end. In many ways I feel like I am on the final page of a really good book. I am about to close the cover and move on to the next story, however, the feeling is bittersweet because I don’t want the story to end.


Birthday Boy July 27th - Liam turned 9

The 2009 Tour de France finished yesterday on the Champs Elysees. Liam and I made it to the finish after a crazy all-night drive up from the heart of Provence. This drive was for me the most difficult part of our trip. The drive ended up being a seven or 8-hour affair, which had us arriving in Paris at sunrise. For the last hundred miles, I was finding it very difficult to keep my eyes open.


The 14th - Montparnasse - "our" little corner of Paris

Fortunately, we were able to check into our tiny hotel on the Rue du Parc Montsouris fairly early. The only hiccup was that the room was on the fifth floor and the elevator was broken – Just another workout along the road! We were able to get a few hours sleep, and then headed to our favorite local boulangerie for some sandwiches for lunch. The smell from the bread as you approach the shop is amazing. I don’t know why but bread made in France always tastes better than anywhere else in the world. I have been to several “French” bakeries in the States, but it never is quite the same.



Sundays in Paris are very relaxed days for the French. For most, the main event of the day is a family lunch that often ends up lasting most of the afternoon. This Sunday, there were several families and groups of friends having picnics in the Park beside our hotel. We finished our sandwiches and headed for the metro to go to the finish of the final stage of the Tour de France.


The party moves to Paris

The scene along the Champs below the Arc de Triomphe was entirely different from the relaxed atmosphere of Parc Montsouris. People were lined up 10 to 20 deep all along the several mile stretch of boulevard in the center of Paris. Liam and I found a spot near the finish line from which to watch the race. From my shoulders, Liam was able to get a pretty good view of the riders as they passed by during the several lap circuit. There was quite a party going on. The Spanish were out in full force chanting “Contador, Matador.” In the last lap, Mark Cavendish and the Columbia Highroad team put on an impressive display to win the day.

After the finish, we ran into Terry and Kendall who we had met a few days earlier on the Col de la Colombiere. We lingered around the finish for about an hour watching the riders take their celebratory laps around the Champs. They all looked very happy to have made it to Paris. We were hoping to see Lance to congratulate him for a job well done. That would have been the ultimate ending for our adventure. We never ended up seeing Lance, but we passed on the message through some of the people from the Astana team.



Lance looked like he wanted to say something on the podium. I think the world has already heard it by his remarkable Tour. The message is that the fight against cancer is not over. More needs to be done, and it needs to be done now! Lance may have come in third in the race, but he had already won by just being here.



Liam and I have seen and done some incredible things in the last five weeks. The challenge for us now is to take our experience and channel it into something really meaningful at home. If Liam and I can motivate other kids and families to become active together than we will have succeeded in what we set out to do.

As I write this blog Liam is asleep. He had his ninth birthday today in Paris. His next athletic goal is to qualify for the Junior Olympics with his swim team. We will keep up our weekend father/son bike rides. They will now, no doubt, be a little longer than when we left. He is already talking about doing the 65 mile Tour de Organics up in Sonoma County, California in August.

We also hope to keep the blog going! If you are interested in the story, check back in from time to time. We have seen this finish line, but there will be many more to come.



Allez! Allez!

Bill and Liam signing out!

Stage 15 - Verbier - Sites and Sounds of the Swiss Mountain

There is one week left until the Tour de France finishes in Paris on July 26th, and Liam and I are back in the step with the race. As it turns out, we picked a great stage to hook back up with the Tour. Stage 15 marked the start of several stages in the Alps. It is amazing how things play out in a three week bike race. The race had gone through 14 stages, and more than 1000 miles, with not much of a change in the overall classification. Today, however, the last 5 kilometers of stage 15 on the slopes of the mountain finish in Verbier, Switzerland changed the entire race. On the last climb of the day, which was actually about 10 kilometers, Alberto Contador literally flew up the mountain. After Verbier, he has the race leader's yellow jersey, and looks to be the favorite for this year's Tour, but you never know until the race finishes on the Champs d' Elysee in Paris.

For this blog entry, Liam and I have put together a seven minute video. The goal of the video is to bring you up the mountain -- with us-- in Verbier. We don't have any music or photo montages for this post. It is all the sites and sounds of the mountain. It was an incredibly beautiful day in the Alps. Liam was riding very well. In fact, at times, I was having a tough time just keeping up with him! We met a lot of new friends on the mountain, and, as usual, it was fun just being a part of the race itself.

Stage 4 - Montpellier Team Time Trial

Liam on the time trial course in Montpellier

New You Tube Video -- Liam Jamming Montpellier TT Course http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJfHIvIjxCM


Today, in Montpellier, Liam and I really hit our stride. It was a good day for us and it was areally good day for the Tour de France. We were up early, had a great breakfast, and were out on the bikes to ride the team time trial course. Riding this 24-mile course had been one of our goals for the trip. We started out at eight in the morning. The start was from an impressive central plaza in the center of Montpellier. Montpellier is a fairly large university town in the Languedoc-Rousillion region of France. We set out from the plaza on a route that took us under the town’s Arc of Triumph. Liam, however, started to get a little frustrated because the roads were still not completely closed off to traffic. After about three miles, a French news crew approached us. They interviewed Liam and me, and then blocked the traffic with their van as they filmed us riding out of town. This really got Liam pumped. We jammed that time trial course in about an hour and thirty-five minutes. Our only glitch was Liam running off the road into the ditch at one point—It is the same spot that some of the professional riders went off the road later in the day during the race. Mais pas de probleme. A little dust off and Liam was back in the saddle in no time. After our time spent in the Alps and Mont Ventoux, Liam is riding very well. In fact, the speed at which he covered the twenty-four miles really surprised me.



At the halfway point of the race, we got off the bikes and took some yellow chalk and marked the road. GO LANCE LIVESTRONG, GO ASTANA! As we were finishing our ride several teams started to come by us. The teams were out riding the course once before the race for a preview of the course. The wind was starting to kick up and there were some fairly technical sections of the route. At one point, a rider came screaming by no than a few inches from the back of a team car. They most have been going 50+ miles per hour. That was quite a sight. Neither I, nor Liam, had ever seen anything like that.


Riders coming off the course after their preview

After we finished riding the course, we ended up hanging out and watching the professional riders come by after their previews. The Astana team came by and they looked really good. Lance even said hello to Liam, it was the first time we had seen him up close since our ride up the Colombiere. Instead of going back to the hotel before the race start, we ended up staying at the finish line for the rest of the day. And, what a day it was! The race was incredible to watch!


New friends Bruce and Alisa-two Californians now living in France see their blog http://www.ourjuicylife.blogspot.com/

By the end of the day, we had met some new friends, and seen some really fantastic racing. Astana won the day, and Lance Armstrong had now moved up to a tie for the race lead. We had ridden this same course just a few hours earlier. Tour de France history was being made, and we felt that we are now somehow a part of it.

From here, we will take a break for a few days. Our plan is to head into the Pyrenees on the boarder of Spain and France to preview a few of the upcoming climbs of the Tour. We will wait for the Tour to come through this region in a few days. It is a hard decesion to skip Barcelona, but there is only one-way from the coastal city up to the first mountain finish of the Tour in Andorra. Logistically, making this trip would be very difficult. We came to see the Tour and ride, so, it is off to the Pyrenees we go.

Allez Le Tour!!!

Stages 2 and 3- Integrating with the Tour

What is better-- the knife, the fork, or the spoon? For the last few nights, this is one of the conversations that Liam and I have been having at dinner. I always end up choosing the fork and Liam chooses the spoon. It is a funny little discussion, but one the has made me realize that as much as I am bringing Liam into the adult world, he is bringing me into his, the world of the eight year-old. Our relationship and bond has grown an incredible amount on this trip.

It has taken us a few days to adapt to following the Tour de France. It is a race that is constantly in motion and covers huge distances each day. You have to get into the rhythm of the race, and finding this rhythm takes some time. The second and third days of the Tour were great days, but somehow we weren’t quite in sync with the race.

On Sunday, stage 2 was from Monaco to Brignoles. Liam and I had studied the map and decided to hit the race at the finish in Brignoles. The logistics of moving down the road each day require some planning, and we got a late push off from Nice. It was about a two-hour drive from the Cote d’Azur to the race finish in the heart of the Var. While in route we knew we were headed the right direction by all the race support vehicles at the rest stops and on the road. Liam was excited to be driving next to the team buses and French Television cars. As we approached the finish town, however, the road was blocked and only race support vehicles could get through. We got diverted onto a country road and ended up in a pine forest about ten miles away from the town.


On the Lake Outside Brignoles

I have learned that instead of getting frustrated by these detours, the better approach is to make the best of what ever you run into. On this day in France, Liam and I ran into a lake that was about two miles from where the race would pass by. It was a very hot day so what better place to wait for the race to come by. We spent about an hour by the lake among the French picnickers. Liam and I swam across the lake a few times – Liam is on a swim team in California and hopes to be going to the Junior Olympics this spring. Liam met a few kids his age who were very impressed by his swimming. As we were leaving to go to watch the race, I looked back to see a group of French children trying to do the butterfly. Sport transcends language, culture, and generations. We got on our bikes and headed to a good spot to catch the Tour as it rolled down this country road in France.



It was a great place to watch the race and be able to get a good snapshot of the people and culture of the Var. The Varois as they are called are about as close to country folk as you get in France. We made conversation shared a picnic and had a great time just standing on the side of the road. After the riders past, we returned to the lake to spend the rest of the afternoon.



When we got into Brignoles later that evening I had almost forgotten about the race. When someone in the café asked me about race, I realized that I didn’t even know who had won that day's stage. The race had been a backdrop to our day, but the lake and our time there, as well as our time meeting the people of the Var had been the main event.


People from the Var are called Varois

The next day the race started down in Marseille and finished at a modern beach resort in the town of La Grande Motte. Everything was on schedule for an early departure until we ran into a snag at the gas station. When I went to pay for the gas the female attendant said that my credit card was not valid. I had just paid for the hotel and bought our breakfast at the market with the same credit card. I gave her another card…same result. There was no convincing her that there might be a problem with her machine. I left the car and my driver’s license at the station and headed into town to find an ATM. The first bank I came to was out of order, the second and third as well. The Tour de France had just finished in this town the day before. I guess a lot of people were using the ATMs because apparently they were out of cash. At the forth and final bank in the town, I was finally able to get some cash. I returned to the station to a scene of mayhem. Five other cars were pulled over beside mine with their drivers headed into town, with a line of five other cars trying to pay. As we pulled out of the station, I was wondering just how much cash that final bank machine in town would have. It was another adventure for Liam in that silly adult world of financial transactions.


Nike France Raising Money for the Fight Against Cancer at La Grande Motte

We arrived at the La Grande Motte a few hours before the riders would finish there. It was enough time for a bike ride and a swim in the ocean. It was at this town that we also found the best place to watch the finish of the race. There is a VIP section called the Club Tour de France. It consists of a trailer that turns into a kind of two-story restaurant. The VIPs can watch the race finish from the top of the trailer or from the roped off area in front which is set up with tables for sipping champagne. There is always a big screen monitor here, as well, with television coverage of the Tour. From the roped off sides you get a good view over the champagne tables of the riders as they come by and you can also follow race developments from the monitor.



Club Tour de France

The race into La Grande Motte was a flat stage that everyone was thinking was going to be uneventful, including some of the riders who missed out on a very important split in the peleton in the final stages of the race. Lance Armstrong and two of his teammates were able to get into this split. By the end of the day, Lance had moved up from 10th to 3rd place in the race. In the final kilometers of Stage 3 the race had fundamentally changed. Liam and I were there, in France, watching it all unfold. It has taken a couple of days, but we are finally starting to get integrated into this train across France.

Stage 1- Monaco Time Trial

Our gear on the Beach in Monaco

Video Blog Race update from Bill and Liam from Monaco http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfTXdZzYowE

Liam and I are slowly putting together a tapestry of our experience here in France. We are quilting together patches of the fabric that represent places we go, the things we experience, and the people we meet along the way. The common thread that ties all these pieces of fabric together is the influence they have on our growing bond as father and son. It is a bond that is growing stronger, by the day, as we follow this great caravan of sport and human endurance through France.

We didn’t get to Monaco as early as we had planned. The idea had been to get in early and ride the course a couple of times. I had seen Formula 1 racing, and the idea of riding bikes in Monaco on those same perfect roads was too good to miss. In my mind it was going to be a classic experience.


The Tour Caravan travels the whole race course about an hour before the stage begins.

All had all been going to plan. We arrived in Nice the afternoon before the start of the race. Took a dip in the ocean. Ate a pasta dinner that cost fifty euros. (The prices here are insane, but it was good pasta!) Then we turned in to get some sleep before the big day. I awoke at midnight with a strange feeling. It was a sensation that we were under siege. I felt like I was being eaten. The window to our hotel room was open, so I thought that, perhaps, mosquitoes were getting into the room. When I turned on the light, I discovered--to my horror-- a different story. The beds in our hotel room were infested with bed bugs. I had always heard the saying – “Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.” There was no way we were going to be able to sleep here. In fact I started to get the suitcases and clothing away from the beds as fast as I could. How do you say bed bug in French? I wanted to change rooms, but the hotel was full, as was every other hotel in Nice, because of the Tour de France. After much negociation (which included actually taking the lady at the front desk up to the room to show her the bugs,) we were able to sleep on the couch in the breakfast room of the hotel. What did the hotel do about the situation? Did they refund our money for the night? We still had to pay full price, but they did, however, throw in a complimentary breakfast in the same sale de la petit dejeuner that we slept in. Although it was a really bad travel experience, ironically, I think the night spent in that little breakfast room will be one that Liam and I talk about for the rest of our lives.

We left our bags in a new room (that was hopefully bed bug free) grabbed the bikes and headed to the train station. It was at the station, that I started to realize the full impact of our ride with Lance Armstrong. It seemed that almost everyone in the train station knew Liam’s name. Wow, the video clip of our meeting on the Livestrong.com website had seemed to strike a cord with people. It was really incredible to meet people, who had seen the clip, and to not only share our experience, but to hear their experiences here in France as well. We met Ken from England and his wife. They had come to France to see Lance on all seven tours he had won before. Now they were here for an eighth time. Ken was wearing 7 Livestrong yellow bands on one wrist and an eighth on the other. The couple were dedicated cycling fans and fellow supporters of the fight against cancer. There was also Craig and Tracy, from Houston, Texas (I hope I have their names right) They are here in France on an organized bike tour, with their professional cycling guide. We meet them at dinner, and they were kind enough to pass on some tips about sections of the upcoming stages that would be good for Liam to ride. It is the people that we meet along the way, and our interactions with them that are becoming some of the most memorable moments of our trip.


New Friends in Monaco

We arrived in Monaco a little too late to ride the whole course, but we were able to ride open sections next to the course. We found a great section of beach, and took a swim in the Mediterranean. I could think of no better place to spend a few hours just before the start of a bike race.


Winner Fabian Cancellara with Prince Albert, we had passed the Prince on the street on his way to present the Yellow Jersy this presentaton.

We ended up watching most of the time trial from a section of the course near the finish line that was also within viewing distance of a huge screen with live coverage of the race. We were there –father and son in the center of Monaco and at the heart of the Tour de France—soaking in this incredible first day.

Allez! Le tour!!!