The Js are Silent

By Rory

We are cycling fans–we ride for fun, we ride to get around town, and we love to watch professional cycling. For years now we’ve been watching the Tour de France–it’s mesmerizing to watch not only to see the superhuman riding prowess but also the beautiful countryside and towns. It doesn’t hurt that Tadej Pogačar, who is now considered to be the world’s best cyclist–maybe of all time–comes from Slovenia, our adopted home.

Luz-Saint-Saveur

So after a bit of research, many helpful insights from Steve ‘Tour de France’ Michener, and looking at the route of this year’s tour, we decided to go to the town of Luz-Saint-Sauveur for just under a week to take it all in. Luz is a small town nestled in the Pyrenees Mountains, just north of the Spanish border.

Col du Tourmalet

The Tour regularly goes through Luz due to its proximity to the Col du Tourmalet, one of the highest paved peaks in the Pyrenees (at 2,115 m) and a regular highlight of the race. We had a few days to explore around the town, and for the full experience we rented e-bikes to ride to the top (almost) of Tourmalet in advance of the ride. We were 5 km shy of the top but decided to turn back as our huge gravel e-bikes (as issued by the local outfitter) were like tanks and ate battery power quickly. Range anxiety kept us from going to the top as pedaling those things without the e-assist would have been a slog.

TdF Stage 6

For race day, there is a nice uphill stretch of road that the cyclists go up to get out of Luz and head towards Gavarnie. It was mostly shady with nice old stone retaining walls to sit on for the wait. We found ourselves a good spot a few hours ahead of the estimated time for the race to go through. Cycling is a unique spectator sport–it’s completely free to watch, and the spectator zone stretches for 100+ kilometers, along the side of roads. And for that, spectators only get to see one tiny bit of the action. Unless, of course, it’s a circuit, but not stage 6.

It is a fun and festive scene as by race time the road was filled with spectators. A Slovenian guy who was in a camper up the hill from us played upbeat tunes on his accordion. The race organizers add some spice to the proceedings with “the caravan”–a parade-like series of decked out cars from the ride’s sponsors. They blast EDM, and throw out free swag that is sought after by race fans.

The first one through was from E. LeClerc, the grocery store chain that are big sponsors of the Tour. Krista got a huge polka-dotted t-shirt and a hat from them. Rory walked away with a bucket hat from Krys, who sell glasses.

And here’s the Haribo car, tossing out their candies. Apparently we didn’t get the full caravan experience because the route was too windy and narrow for the bigger trucks.

The road filled up with more people, and the anticipation became palpable. While the road was closed to traffic, there were many team cars, support vehicles, law enforcement, media vehicles, and a motorcade carrying President Macron (who we did not see–he was behind a mirrored windshield, of course). As the race got closer to us, we tried to avoid any spoilers from our neighboring spectators who were following things on their phone.

Finally, the lead rider came by, and (no surprise), it was Pogačar, going so fast that Krista could only catch half of him with her camera.

After a long 90 seconds the second place Jonas Vingegaard came by, and soon after that the first pack of riders.

They would be followed over the next few minutes by more small packs of riders. It was a very spread out field of riders due to there being two big climbs.

In fact, we had thought it was all over and started walking down the hill, and the main peloton finally showed up maybe 15 minutes after Pogačar’s appearance. We had to hug the retaining wall to avoid getting in the way.

Only after getting back did we learn that this was a historic ride for Pogačar, and that sadly the previous front-runner Torstein Traen had crashed on the Tourmalet descent and was out of the yellow jersey.

Our last day we did a bit more walking around, enjoying Luz after the Tour crowd left. This included seeing the famous “Napoleon Bridge,” as well as other rustic scenes in the area. More photos….