Our cab dropped us right off at the end of section seven of the pave which is the final section of the day. This place is the definition of the middle of no where. If not for Paris-Roubaix nobody would ever come here. There were a couple fields set up for parking and big tents set up for the beer and frites. We got here really early and there were not a whole lot of people here yet. There was a mobile food car set up which is similar to a Mexican taco truck. They sell frites(French fries), ham sandwiches, and spicy hot dogs. There was a community sponsored tent set up that serves drinks, you paid 2 euros for a small beer. We set up the under the tent and bought a few drinks and we planed our day.
We decided to pick a spot and set down our roots and then use that as our base for the day. These are country roads surrounded by wheat and chard fields. They are also lined by a bouquet of flowers. Since we ended up arriving so early we had our choice of spots. We did not want to go too far from the food area because we wanted to be able to walk back forth from there. We found our spot and plunked our stuff down. In retrospect I wish we were more strategic about our placement. But at the time I was dealing with four women who were not at my exact wavelength. But it would not have made that much difference. Having staked our spot we now had five hours before the race was due our way(I never quite let this on). We spent our time walking up the course and back to the tent area. I saw Robbie Ventura and Frankie Andrieu filming a Versus tv spot. We were sure if Lori or papa were here they would have ended up being filmed. As time wore on It is amazing how many people kept on filing in. There were a lot of cyclists riding the pave. In fact some of them were riding way too fast for the amount of people ambling along the course. It is cool to see how people set up along the course with their barbecues, drinks and flag displays. The most popular game by my count was UNO. We could have planned this so much better, but we were here and that was pretty good in it's self. Lynne and I walked as far as the 10k banner and was amazed by the number of people. The weather was hot, but we would get periodic cloud cover and some wind so it was pretty pleasant. I ended up buying a tour de France baseball cap to help shield the sun. The girls were pretty bored at this point so we sent them to a bar to hang out at with instructions of when to come back.
I loved walking up and down the course seeing all the different nationalities setting up. There were quite a few Brits and a surprising amount of Aussies. Lynne and I really wish we could have sported old glory. I also loved visiting the beer tent! I did run into our Brit friends riding along the pave headed toward the big bend in the road. They thought we should walk there, but with the kids that was not a possibility. Although we told our children what to wear and the type of shoes that would be appropriate, they completely ignored our advice. Tayler in fact had some boots on that a hobo would not be proud of.
Tour de France - Part One
Our journey from Paris to Haveluy began with us leaving for the metro at 6:40 AM to head to the Gar du Nord. There we are to board a bullet train to Valenciennes. At Valenciennes we get another train to Denain, which is a town about 5 k from the last pave section near the town of Haveluy. From Denain we were hoping to rent bikes or cab to Haveluy and the last section of pave.
As you know nothing ever goes as planned. When we got to the train station it turned out we did not bring the 2nd email confirmation that gets sent that contains the confirmation#. So even though we had already purchased and paid for the tickets they had no way of looking them up. Which means we had to buy them again and will have to try and get a refund from home. Also to boot we had to pay 100 dollars more. The good news they still had the same trains available .
On this same train we ran into a British couple with two kids a baby and a 2 1/2 year old. They had our exact itinerary going and coming from Haveluy. The difference being that they had bikes, which as it turned out is the way to go. They had a friend who was there as well and he pointed out a different section of pave to go to, which would be more decisive. If you saw the Frank Schleck crash you saw their vantage point. We kept on running into them all day and it turns out they were right there for the mayhem. When I told them our plan he kind of laughed and did not think we would be renting any bikes.
I had imagined that when we got to Denain there would be a lot of action and commerce, how sadly mistaken was I. First off the station did not even have a paved loading and unloading dock, it was just gravel. Second a man with a shrinking prostrate could probably piss the entire length of the station. There was nothing there, just our family and the Brit family. He joked about the prospects of the bike rental. I was now worried about getting there.
Across the way we spotted a tabac store that looked closed, but it looked like our only option and to our surprise it was open. Lynne is remarkably good at using her French and can make herself understood most of the time, but in this case it helped having Katilina as an interpreter. We were able to have the proprietor call us a cab!
We decided to pick a spot and set down our roots and then use that as our base for the day. These are country roads surrounded by wheat and chard fields. They are also lined by a bouquet of flowers. Since we ended up arriving so early we had our choice of spots. We did not want to go too far from the food area because we wanted to be able to walk back forth from there. We found our spot and plunked our stuff down. In retrospect I wish we were more strategic about our placement. But at the time I was dealing with four women who were not at my exact wavelength. But it would not have made that much difference. Having staked our spot we now had five hours before the race was due our way(I never quite let this on). We spent our time walking up the course and back to the tent area. I saw Robbie Ventura and Frankie Andrieu filming a Versus tv spot. We were sure if Lori or papa were here they would have ended up being filmed. As time wore on It is amazing how many people kept on filing in. There were a lot of cyclists riding the pave. In fact some of them were riding way too fast for the amount of people ambling along the course. It is cool to see how people set up along the course with their barbecues, drinks and flag displays. The most popular game by my count was UNO. We could have planned this so much better, but we were here and that was pretty good in it's self. Lynne and I walked as far as the 10k banner and was amazed by the number of people. The weather was hot, but we would get periodic cloud cover and some wind so it was pretty pleasant. I ended up buying a tour de France baseball cap to help shield the sun. The girls were pretty bored at this point so we sent them to a bar to hang out at with instructions of when to come back.
