July 13

We had a good breakfast of fresh fruit, croissants and cereal. The cereal all had hunks of chocolate in it. We even saw some Special K cereal in a store that had chocolate chunks instead of the healthy strawberry kind back home. Our hotel hosts were the best and we really enjoyed talking to them, almost as much as we enjoyed the room.

We made the short drive to Saint Lary and loaded the bike for the climb up Plat d'Adet. I was a little worried that we had driven too far into town, but we rode the bike downtown to get some sandwiches for lunch and also to meet Bill and Talia, our video crew that was shooting with us. They were supposed to meet us at the finish today. Bill called and after I talked with him a few minutes to see where they were we figured out, they were at the start city, not the finish. We got our sandwiches and headed up the mountain. The climb was a beast on the tandem. We always get lots of compliments and congrats from other riders. I didn't see another tandem the entire day. We had planned on stopping about 4 or 5 K from the top, but it seemed to flatten out a bit. When I say flatten out, that's compared to the really steep first section of the climb - it's NOT flat!

We stopped at a nice spot about 1.5 K from the finish, but Angie said there was no way she was riding this far and not going to the finish, so we rode the final stretch and turned around and came back. Even the Gendarmes at the finish gave us a big thumbs up for making it to the top on the tandem.

Not long after we setup our camp a big group of orange Euskatel fans congregated near us. They are always loud, but this group was especially obnoxious to the point of out of control. They were squirting water and stealing flags off of the caravan. The caravan just sped up as they approached them. They were even popping the gendarmes with their flags as they rode by on motorcycles - just all around jerks. It was too late for us to move because the mountain was full!

We heard that there was a breakaway group, but couldn't get any info as to who was in it. As the helicopters approached and the crowd excitement rose, we were shocked to see Big George Hincapie following a Phonak rider ahead of everyone. This was regarded as the toughest mountain stage of the Tour and here was George in position for the stage win. I sent an email from my Blackberry to Chris Brewer because I knew he was in the media area at the finish. I sent "George?" and waited. Then came the answer "George!" We may have out screamed our Basque friends when we got the word! We were still in shock as Lance roared by with Basso grimacing hanging on his wheel. Lance is generally so focused that he never looks away from the road ahead, but I noticed he cut his eyes over at us as he went by. Not sure if it was Angie's pompoms or my LiveSTRONG jersey but something got his attention.

Angie cheered extra hard for Chechu as he rode by minutes later and he looked over and winked as he continued to the finish. It really is a cool sport in that you can get right up to the riders and they know you're there cheering and supporting them.

We packed up the bike and started our steep descent after the last rider passed us. Since this was a mountaintop finish the riders would cross the finish line, then turn around and ride back down to get to their team bus. We rode along with several riders and spoke to them as they passed us. Angie shouted Erik Dekker! as he passed and he turned and gave us a big "HI!" with his ear to ear grin. As we got to the bottom. Bobby Julich rode up beside us and ask if we were having a good time. Not hard to spot us as Americans decked in yellow LiveSTRONG garb. We got to the car and loaded quickly to get out of traffic, then the wheels came off! The gendarmes closed the road about 50 meters ahead of us to let all the media and team cars off the mountain. We came just a tad too far into town. It wasn't such a big deal since tomorrow was a rest day until I got an email from Chris Brewer telling us he was already at his hotel and we were still moving at a snails pace away from the mountain. I think his email went something like, "HA, HA, HA!"

About 11:15 we finally made it to our hotel, which was completely dark. I rang a bell and banged on the door until a little French man came shuffling to the door, barely getting his robe on as he opened the door for us. At least we weren't sleeping in the car tonight.