We arrived at Le Grand Depart two days before the official start and despite a small incident involving an angry french lady and the frisbee (resulting in me getting the nickname Kung Lao – Mortal Kombat?) we set up camp for a couple of days.
There was definitely more excited in the van as we drove into town and saw the hundreds of other campervans that had started to set up in the fields, along the road, and anywhere really that was big enough for their four wheels. There was one particularly impressive set-up – a European Camping Car Club – that had about 80 vans.
We drove over the Passage de Gois – a very unique road. It's completely under water at high tide. Even parts of it as we were going through were not so dry. The tour goes through here as a neutral zone, with the race officially commencing at the end of it.
The boys did some riding on the day before the start, keen to ride at least some of the route. I was pretty happy to sit back and read my book in the sun and get some washing done. We did a lazy ride into town once they were back to check out the preparations. Even within the space of a day the town had a completely different feel to it. There were streamers and kites everywhere, the VIP area set up, the truck that is used as the sign on stage in position. People and dogs and bikes everywhere.
The morning of the start and we were all really excited by then. There town was buzzing by the time we got there, and we got more than a few 'G'day' and 'Go Cadel' shout-outs along the way (we were dressed pretty ridiculously in our Team Aero gear and me with an Australian themed cape.
After watching the team buses and cars roll through we got our first taste of the publicity caravan. For anyone not familiar with this, it's basically a massive parade with about 30 different companies that have about 4-5 cars/vans/floats each that drive along the tour route before the riders come through with loud music pumping throwing out freebies. Some of the freebies are hats, t-shirts, samples, a pocket ashtray (wtf?), and bottles of water. It's quite a spectacle, and the competition is generally fierce for the items as they fly by.
We watched all the teams sign on before heading a bit further up the route to suss out a good spot to watch as they came by. We didn't have to wait long, and even managed a smile from Cadel as he rode past. Kind of hard to ignore the four people jumping up and down and screaming your name!
We watched the end of the race in the pub in town, with Cadel finishing second. Not a bad result for Day 1!
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