Tour de France stage 12 [Macon]

I woke up early and snuck out of the campground before the office opened (I have to take free camping however I can get it- not much space to set up in the countryside in these parts for gypsies like me to sleep) eager to see just how much commotion would be created by the Tour start today.

all plants & flowers!!

It was a bit on the disappointing side, to be honest. There was the whole entourage of semi trucks, awards stage, team cars & buses, vendors, sponsors, media and so on, but not much real enthusiasm in the air. Lots of local families out to mill around, but lacking in the crazed-cycling-fanatics department. This guy had a good rig, however:

One of the highlights was being able to stand between two Mavic neutral support cars- each one outfitted with about $20,000 worth of wheels & bikes to give to any racer who needs a spare. I need a spare, I think?

Before every stage in the Tour, there is a parade of all the main team sponsors. Each sponsor company has some crazy creative vehicles (think Oscar Meyer Wiener-Mobile on steroids) and toss out handfuls of samples or other swag. The locals were ravenous and literally climbing over each other just to get a stupid sample bag of cookies, maybe a cheap hat. I got pushed out of the way by some stupid rude kids, and retreated to the other side of the old bridge to await the rollout.

After a long wait, the fury began as all the team cars, Police motos, officials, and press vehicles sped by ahead of the Peleton. Very cool to watch them snake across the ancient bridge:

Being the first mile of so the entire group was still intact through the city: Yellow, Green, White and Polka Dot all up front whizzing by:

And then that was that. After a 105mi ride yesterday, 6 hours of waiting around this morning, the entire Peloton sped by in about 25seconds. And the old folks all went home to make dinner or something. I walked around the city for a couple of hours, hoping to find a cafe that was showing the rest of the stage (there's an HC climb today- surely where all the 'real' fans are at) but sadly sound several showing.... horse racing. And the extra-stupid carriage toting horse racing at that. Macon isn't much of a cycling town, and it shows. The most important road bike race in the world just started from here today, and you're showing horses pulling cute little buggies around in circles. Weirdos.