July 17

I got up and showered and went in search of breakfast while Angie got ready. I guess everybody was up late because the town was deserted. I finally saw a woman carrying a loaf of bread so I went in the direction she had come from and found a bakery. I got some apple tarts, our favorite au pain chocolate rolls and something else I was unsure of, but looked interesting. We ate it all, except for the interesting ones and left for Luz Ardiden. This is the last mountaintop finish and Lance hasn’t won a stage yet. Maybe he’ll feel good today—we’d sure feel better if he could get some time back on Jan Ullrich.

We parked north of Luz St. Saveur (bottom of the last climb) because the road was closed and Jerry put the bike together for us to ride. We rode into Luz and stopped at the Champion (grocery store) to get more water and snacks and had lunch in a pizza place that for some reason was not serving pizza. But, they had Perrier with ice and ham & cheese sandwiches on hard bread. After lunch we pedaled up the mountain about 1/3 of the way and set up camp. We found a spot in the shade because we had gotten really sunburned the day before on the Peyresourde.

Amon, that we had met on Ax 3 Domains and had seen again on the Peyresourde, stopped by with his friend Dave to visit. We also had a nice French lady and her daughter stop and try to talk with us. We finally figured out that she is a cancer survivor and read Lance’s book and had gotten it signed by him last year. She was a big Lance fan too! Jerry had put both of our big LAF signs up and most people that passed would smile, wave or comment on them.

A trio of British guys stopped and asked us if we were at the Tour last year. They remembered our signs and asked how the Foundation was doing. They were also cheering for Lance! Several more Americans also passed and would give us a Go Postal or Go Lance cheer. The caravan soon passed, throwing out all of its goodies, so the riders were not too far behind. This was a really big day and probably the last chance for Lance to add to his lead before the time trial, so we couldn’t wait to see them come up the mountain.

There was a group of Spanish fans near us that had a TV so we found out that Lance, Ullrich and Mayo had pulled away from the main Peloton. There was one rider ahead of them, but he was no threat to the GC. It wasn’t long before they were to us. The first guy passed and just a few minutes later we could see Lance’s group. Mayo was leading Lance, then Ullrich and a few others including Tyler Hamilton. I shot some pictures as they passed and Angie screaming “Lance! Lance! Lance!” Just as Lance passed our LAF sign, he attacked and pulled ahead of Mayo! After they were out of sight I ran down to the TV and saw the disaster—a spectator’s souvenir feed bag accidentally hooked Lance’s handlebar and he went down hard with Mayo riding over him. We’ve told people about how close you can get to the riders and this is a prime example about how you really have to be aware of where you are so you don’t become an answer to a trivial pursuit question as the guy who took out a rider!

The class move of the day goes to Tyler Hamilton for putting his hands out for the group to slow to let Lance get back up to them. It just shows the respect that the riders have for each other. I watched the finish on our Spanish friend’s TV and was so excited that Lance came back to not only take the stage, but add 40 seconds to his lead over Ullrich. I ran back to tell Angie and could hardly get out the good news!

We packed up and headed down the mountain and found Freddy and Dirk of US Postal waiting on the riders, so we stopped in hopes of taking some photos. Angie stood out from the cars and helped flag down the riders with her pompoms. I got some picture of the chaos as Chechu, Beltran, Heras, Floyd, Eki and Pavel made their way down to the cars. There was a lot of confusion on where the riders were going and Freddy and Dirk were even giving directions to other teams riders. The Postal cars loaded up and left, and we followed them on our tandem. They got ahead of us because the Gendarmes try to get the team cars through the traffic. On these ski resort finishes it’s often useless because there is only one road in and out for the thousands of people and cars. We caught back up the Postal cars because they were stuck in the traffic, but they were empty. The guys had obviously gotten their bikes off the top and ridden to the bus.

We rode about 16K back to our car which got us out of the traffic and were able to pack up and head out quickly. We didn’t have a hotel for this night because the next day was a rest day for the Tour. We got on the auto route and were going close to 100 mph and were still getting passed by other cars! We made it to Bayonne, on the west coast of France, which was the finishing town for the next stage.

Bayonne was a larger town than the small villages in the mountains, so we followed the signs to the Tourist office hoping for directions to our hotel for the following night. The office was closed so we tried to talk to the security guard, but had no success. Another guy walked by and the guard talked to him and gestured for us to follow this guy. He led us about five blocks and pointed across the river and there was our hotel! Just another time that the French have been so friendly and helpful to us.

We were able to go ahead and stay an extra night at the hotel, so for the first time we were going to stay at a hotel for two nights! It had a bathroom, shower, air conditioner, TV with English speaking channels and a beautiful view down the river—fantastic!

We watched the day’s stage on Eurosport until 11 pm then tried to go find something to eat. We got turned away at two restaurants, then Jerry spotted the Ali Baba! We ordered kabobs and frites, but it was not what we expected. Their kabob is what we think of as a gyro and they put the fries in the sandwich. Interesting, but at 11:30 pm I was happy to have it! It went down just fine with our favorite French drink, panache (beer & lemonade).