photo borrowed from @fathersontour. read their adventure in 2009!
Many visits and all memorable, both on Tour days and unaccompanied. Even better there have been the odd occasions when a tour team driver has picked me up and dropped me at the back of the climb ,near the hotel/café lift station junction , to ride the final assault which is the section that matters. Dropping the names here would be a disaster bearing in mind that these people are doing me a great personal favour stretching the “rules”. Since 1998 UCI quite rightly has a blanket ban on transport of unaccredited people to avoid the “Festina excuse ( must have been a hitch hiker).”
I have been up the climb from all sides with “Dauphine Libere and Tour de France “ from Malaucene, Sault and Carpentras. In 2007 I decided to divert from Avignon as that etappe was not really interesting and parked in Malaucene cycled over the top to Sault and then returned over the top to the car .I then drove to the next day’s Dauphinee route beyond the start to free camp for the night. The next morning I rode down to the depart before the teams arrived. When I left to ride the etappe the Gendarmerie pulled me off the bike so I was walking down the side of the route as the Peleton passed.
The racers had a field day with their ribald comments as they passed, having seen me at the start they were letting me know that they expected to see me further down the route. On the Tour de France another year I was passed as I walked on a stage passing from Valence area towards Grenoble area, the ribaldry I suffered that time got the attention of the spectators and so they invited me to join their BBQ party. Finished up with a full belly and watching the race on their TV. Thanks guys!
In 2000 I arrived to camp at the hostel in Vaucluse on the rest day. Too early to get in so I went cycling and met up with Ron Kiefl and his guests who were staying nearby. At their hotel he passed me a nice souvenir from Trek and invited me to join the gathering the next day on the climb to Mt Ventoux. As I cycled the route the next day I passed their gathering at the restaurant and continued up the road until about the 4km mark where a Lt.Col of Gendarmerie told me the route was closed. He knew who I was so he allowed me to cycle back to the restaurant where I joined the party.
Marco started to make his move about the 10km point and I began to see that there was a battle coming on. Over the previous years Marco and his team had looked after me for food, drink and bike maintainance so I was aware of the challenge he posed. The rest of the party were rooting for Lance and as he went past the restaurant Marco had closed the gap so the atmosphere in the group was electric. There I was telling everyone I expected Marco to win and the rest were having none of that. Well the jury is still out as to exactly what took place but Lance and Marco gave the Tifioso a Battle Royal to remember. Whatever the result everyone will never forget their enjoyment of that day. Thanks to Ron I had a great day.
Another occasion when I was on the Dauphine (in 2004?) I arrived at the top and shortly after my arrival the French Paralympian Laurent Thironet arrived . With one leg he had made the Time Trial route as quickly as some of the racers that day. At the Athens Paralympics he was not as successful as he had been at Sydney .
Regardless of the weather I have always found that when I make the climb I just settle into a steady pace and let the world go by. I try with the Tour to get out there about four hours before the racers so as to avoid the controls on the road and most of the pedestrian traffic as there is always people pushing their bikes and “accredited mongrels” in their vehicles unnecessarily hassling riders they find who they want out of the way as they are “late for their jolies”. Could it be that they are destroying the image of the business they are there to promote?
People working with the Tours have “accreditation decals on their vehicles “ and with this the behaviour of a minority changes. They are suddenly VIPs in their minds and rash behaviour becomes their norm. In the Giro one year riding through to Trento I was passed by a car containing journos from RAI radio, they squirted water over me and then threw gravel at me as I was going down a steep descent. When I arrived at Francesco Moser ‘s shop I pointed them out to the Tifioso standing there and they tried to douse me with a bucket of water. Each time I see the tall idiot in a restaurant I go in and tell everyone about these incidents. Several times since he has ducked me or crossed to the other side of the road.
Another time I was on the “Pantani Climb of that Giro d’italia”, I had this car up my rear honking in the heavy rain for me to get out of their way on a steep single lane section of the route. There was a choice get off the bike or they wait for me to get to a passing point. I let them wait and as they passed they side swiped me into the gravel and off the bike. Several kilometres later I spotted the car and checked the decal in a restaurant car park alongside the etappe route. I went into the restaurant spotted the uniforms they were wearing and went to their table. In a loud voice I stopped all conversation and told the restaurant why I was covered in blood then poured the driver’s beer over him. Not sure how he felt but I was bought drinks by some bystanders after they told him he deserved more and “to shut it “.
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