Saturday 7/24 - Went to breakfast at 6:30 with the intent to do an early ride along the time trial course and maybe all the way to the wine country and finish in Paulliac. Rode with Ann, Dane, Jim and a few of the guys who came from Mobile, Alabama. I guess we got a little late start because they would not allow us on the time trial course which started just down from the hotel. We decided to find a road the paralelled the course and possibly get on the course a little further out of town. Our ride took us through some industrial areas of Bordeaux which were not very scenic. The roads were still pretty good and there was a bike lane similar to the Silver Comet trail in Atlanta that would pretty much follow the canal which paralelled the early part of the time trial course. We kind of went a little astray at some point and wound up in a residential area that kind of looked like it could have been in Florida somewhere. We checked one of the guys GPS's and headed back towards the course which we intersected maybe 8-10 miles outside of Bordeaux proper. The crowds were already gathering and we came upon a bend in the road where some bleachers were set up and a large group of people were congregating. We were kind of hemmed in and decided to just wait it out for a little while. Suddenly a group of cyclists, mostly older guys and girls wearing what was a charity group cycling kit came by. Apparently, they were a fundraising group that had been allowed to ride the course to promote the charity they were supporting. There may have been 50 or so in the group and after the last of them rode by we jumped out on the course and rode as well. I guess we were about two miles or so into our course ride when we were kindly directed off the course by some Gendarmeres. While on the course we were cheered by the on lookers and even had a few take our pictures. That would be the closest we would get to the course. Some of the other people in our tour group headed out a little earlier and were able to ride most of the 57km course. We decided to split up shortly thereafter, with my plan to go back towards the start gate to check out the riders and festivities. In all we probably rode about 30miles out and back. When Jim and I finally reached the time trial start area, we saw Fabian Cancellara (would win the TT by a whopping 5 minutes) was warming up in a turnaround and then proceeded to the start house. I was able to get a few pictures before he took off but it was pretty crowded close to the start house. The start was in the green space between the canal and the downtown business district, the perfect setting for this event. I wound up going back to the hotel, showering and meeting up with Tommy and Doug and we walked over to where the team buses were parked. With a time trial, each rider races against the clock and they depart the start gate every two minutes. In order to be ready to give it their all, the riders will will warm up on a trainer for half and hour, hour etc. to make sure their muscles are good and warm. Even though you are looking at a 30+ mile ride, you have to carefully time your effort so that you basically finish with nothing left in the tank. The riders ride in reverse order of their overall standings in the General Classification with the leaders riding last. The fastest riders would finish in maybe an hour fifteen minutes which means they would be averaging close to 30mph over that time and distance. I can tell you, riding for an extended period at any pace over 20mph even on a flat course with no wind at all is very difficult. Just because it's flat doesn't mean it's easy. You still have to pedal and the cadence and effort is still very taxing. Reducing wind resistance, bike handling and effort management are the keys to being a good time trialer. We got some great photos of some of the guys and the time trial bikes including Lance and tour winner Alberto Contador. Wound up losing Doug but hung out with Tommyand took some great photos. Headed back to the hotel for shower and nap before heading out for dinner. This would be the last night in Bordeaux and all our luggage would need to be packed up before a 6:30am transport to the Train station. We would ride the TVG (bullet train) to Paris for our final day and night before flying back to the USA. Some of the people were going back to the same restaurant we had gone to the night before but Tommy and I decided to find a new place a little less pricey. We walked down to the waterfront and stopped at sidewalk cafe that specialized in Italian food. I think we spent about 25euros each for dinner and a beer a far cry from the 65euros ($90) we had spent the night before. The food wasn't as good and we didn't have the stunning French girl next to us but we did have a really cute french waitress. She really took the time to try and explain some food items to us in broken French/English and just had that cute lighthearted lilt in her voice and manor. When we tried to tip her additional money at the end, she got confused what we were trying to do, so we just paid the regular bill. Don't want to offend anyone by paying more than was the custom. We took a walk through part of the town and went over by the Opera House which kind of looks like Grand Central Station ony smaller and cleaner. It was lit up beautifully but none of my photos turned out very well so you'll just have to take my word for it. We headed back to the hotel around 10 and called it a night.
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