This is a great thread to discover, nice to hear everyone’s experiences. I’m gonna share my own, thank you in advance for indulging me as I don’t know any way other than writing at length.
I – born and raised in Canada – have taken 4 bike touring trips to Europe, and have made a point to see races live every time. I haven’t made it to the top level races on my own landmass yet, save for the Canadian CX championships which were in my hometown for two years in 2014-15.
Here’s my first experience:
Tour de France, 2007
Stage 14, Plateau-de-Beille: I flew into Barcelona and met up with two of my friends who had been cycle touring for a month or so already. When we were in Bacelona we watched the stage Gerdemann went into yellow at our hostel. We made our way through Catalunya and into the Pyrenees – I remember stopping on our ride at a roadside bar across from the Mediterranean to watch the stage where Michael Rogers dropped out in tears while in virtual yellow and the peloton gave the jersey to Rasmussen thinking it’d be no big deal. We continued, riding inland, through Andorra and having a quite unfamiliar experience for prairie dwellers in riding over the Port d’Envalira at over 2400m. That was a serious test that would require its own post for how ridiculous and funny it was.
We passed through Ax-Les-Thermes on a rainy day and camped in Les Cabannes, reveling in the small-town celebrations around semi-hosting a Tour stage and catching the Vino-won TT in Albi on TV in some random tent that was set up in town. On the day of the race, we rode up the mountain in the early afternoon, which was a total joy. Folks were lazing around outside their campers, walking up and down the mountain, drinking, etc. But whoever passed going uphill, they would cheer lustily, it was extremely supportive. We settled into a spot about 2km from the summit where we could see about 4-5 hairpins down the mountain, figuring that would be the best vantage point for the longest amount of time. In hindsight, I think we made the right decision off the hop, it was perfect. Far enough out to not have barriers to the riders, close enough to know the selection even if we couldn’t see the last 1.5km of the MTF.
There was a fun period of walking around and hanging out, sitting facing away from the road and chatting while looking at the mountain view, and hearing the sounds of panting of tourist riders on the way up and the click of freewheels on the way down behind us. It was super exciting to think that we were attending a world class sporting event, for free, and essentially getting to go on the playing field before the athletes did.
I was the cycling obsessive amongst the three of us, and I was convinced Vino was on the comeback trail, and if not, Valverde was going to make his name. Nope – the former lost 20 minutes after his strong TT, and the latter finished rather anonymously. Judging from the signs and road painting, the Basque fans were stoked about Mayo but even more about Valverde who they also thought was the best chance of someone they could cheer for. But it was another Spaniard that emerged from it that day.
After sitting through the novelty of the publicity caravan and another 45 minutes of what seemed like endless official vehicles driving past (seriously, way more cars than bikes at a bike race!), we were getting a few updates from a French father and son next to us through their transistor radio. But we didn’t hear anything for the last 15 minutes before the riders arrived, so we were in suspense.
When you’re at a race on a mountain like that, you see the helicopter first, and when it’s mostly switchbacks it just hovers below you, pacing back and forth, getting a little bit higher, a little bit higher. And then eventually you can see the crowd start to react about 100 vertical meters down as the helicopter draws level with you. The steepness of the mountain makes it impossible to see who the riders are as the bodies of the spectators block your view until they come around the switchback directly below you. And then you just try to keep up with everything.
There’s a lot of info to process quickly. First, it’s very hard to really take in how fast these riders are riding up the mountain that you just struggled up as a relatively fit 27 year old bicycle courier. Second, you’ve gotta take in who is passing you, who that means is not there, and how long it is until those guys are passing you. All while caught up in the moment of the enormous group of people that encourage each other to lean in and cheer in the riders’ faces. I seriously don’t understand how riders don’t crash into fans all the time, It’s like being in a school of fish or something, there is a group understanding.
Anyway, that particular stage, it was like – wait, is that Rasmussen in front? With… Contador? That young guy? Where’s – oh wait, no time to think, they are now passing inches away from us and I can see more riders below them. Oh it’s that Colombian from Barloworld and, oh hooray, Levi Leipheimer. And Sastre, cool I guess. Where are the guys I like, like Mayo and Valverde and Vino? Hmm. Okay well who cares I’ll just wildly cheer everyone, even the Bouyges Telecom guys coming in 25 minutes down.
And that was the experience, it ended up in entropy, just joining the crowd in cheering on anyone who made it up that goddamn mountain!
Stage 16, Col d’Aubisque: Oh whoops, looks like Vino got caught for blood doping on the rest day! Well, I guess that’s cycling in 2007. Seriously, at this point the whole Rasmussen thing was like ‘whatever’, everybody knew it was suspect but nobody really thought anything would happen except for the inevitability of another rider winning the Tour that we were deeply suspicious of.
I don’t remember as much about this stage, it was a repeat from where I was standing with Rasmussen & Contador (with Levi I think) going up first, but my vivid memories are around camping in the woods on top of the mountain as the ski station was not really in operation. Just the restaurants in Gourette (the town by the summit) were open for the weekend to take advantage, so we just found a spot on the side of the road, trudged down the steep slope through the forest, and found a flat spot to set up camp. Certainly the most memorable thing was that while two of us hauled our bikes down to our campsite and cable-locked them to a tree, our other friend made fun of us for being overly cautious and doing extra work, while he just locked his bike to a signpost at the side of the road. One unfortunate thing was that he had a quick-release front wheel, and a second unfortunate thing was that he only locked his frame to the pole. The (perhaps predictable) third unfortunate thing was that someone quite easily stole his front wheel, so that after the stage when most of the crowd had cleared out, he discovered he was stuck on top of a mountain without a rideable bike, 50km from Pau. That morning (the day after the race) we had the café staff help us make a sign in French saying ‘they stole my wheel, please give me a ride to Pau’ for my friend while the other two of us cruised down the mountain into town to meet him. At the bottom of the mountain we got caught up in a traffic jam, right beside the Discovery team car, where Contador was basically being mobbed by newfound fans, while he waved sheepishly and Brunyeel tried to guide him through his newfound fame from the seat over. Little did we know he’d be in yellow within 24 hours.
Stage 20, Champs Elysees: we took an overnight train from Pau to Paris, settled in and watched the incredibly suspenseful final TT on TV, shocked like everyone that a) Cadel didn’t win, and b) Levi almost did. After a day in Paris, we woke up the day of the race eager to participate in the celebratory atmosphere. In reality, it was basically getting to the barricades at some arbitrarily chosen point, and then staying put for 4 hours to hold our spot to watch the peloton whiz past a dozen times or whatever. I mean, it was definitely cool, there were lots of people there anticipating the stage coming by, and everyone was 4-6 deep by the time it went by. But it wasn’t, like, flutes of champagne in the VIP room, you know? And from a racing perspective, it was quite underwhelming. Bennati won. Someone told me, that’s how I know. A little different than the mountains.
That was the first tour! Very fun and made me want to come back.