Today's report

If you ever get the chance to go to Brandenburg an der Havel, don't bother. Was planning to get to a campsite (no hostel in town so campsite was the plan) in the middle of the town, so only about an 85km day from Magdeburg. The campsite turned out to be in what looks like a ghetto and it looked more like a gypo camp. The whole town gave me the shits, so I said firetruck it, queued up some music and powered onto Potsdam. 153.7km down for the day by the time I got to the hostel in Potsdam. Very satisfied now, sitting down to a pasta feast in a restaurant! A deserved treat. Invading Berlin tomorrow...

Close encounters of the third...

...place-getter.

Strasbourg to Luxembourg was a real mixed bag.

One great day followed by a couple of real doozies, thanks to rain & wind.

For 4 days the relentless wind was only broken up by the clouds rolling over bringing a dounpour, then freezing cold until the sun came out again. Damn euro summer.

After two nights in Thionville the weather did clear and I set off following the Moselle. Dead flat, easy riding but the meandering of the river means you don't cover much distance in point to point terms. Spent all of about 10 minutes in Germany before crossing over to Luxembourg. As it was still pretty early and I hadn't ridden too far I took the scenic route into the city, which turned out to be some of the best riding of the trip so far. Quiet, perfectly smooth roads (with enough hills to keep me interested) seem to be the norm in Luxembourg. Highly recommended for anyone planning time on a bike in Europe.

Luxembourg city was good, the newer area was buzzing, a good change from the touristy old town. Getting around town by bike will get you fit, plenty of hills in the city itself. The buildings of the financial district are impressive, particularly the European investment bank. The hostel rates a mention for being the most spotless hostel I've ever seen, the place was immaculately clean, think hospital clean but without the smell.

Heading for Trier in Germany I stopped in at Grevenmacher for an early lunch before crossing the border. Sitting down outside the bakery I'd just bought lunch from, and who rolls around the corner and pulls up at the same bakery? Frank Schleck. I let him have a feed before accosting him for a photo. We had a chat for a couple of minutes about my trip, he was a good sport even after I told him where I was from...

The run into Trier was easy, bike path all the way along the river. The official youth hostel, or Jugendherbergen, was full. Mind you the carpark was full of BMW's, Mercedes, Audi's, etc, so I suspect not many youths were actually present. It's a scene that was repeated the three following nights at Bernkastel (awesome location perched on a hill next to a castle overlooking the river & city), Cochem & Oberwesel (also on a hill next to a castle overlooking the river & city, how do they get these locations?), though they weren't full fortunately. Rather odd & annoying staying in supposed youth hostels that are just full of families. I guess that's what I get for not following the normal backpacker trail.

Made it to Frankfurt after three punctures in two days (after only one previously over the entire trip).
Not sure if I'll go north or south next. Stuttgart or Hannover are the options. Might depend which way the wind blows.

Eau non potable

It's a sign I've seen far too often. There's decorative water fountains & fire hydrants everywhere but why would anyone ever need a drinking fountain? It's ridiculous. The lack of public toilets is gripe number two. I wonder if they ever ask themselves why so many public places smell of piss? Seriously. Damn french.

Persistance or money will overcome those obstacles, but it's just an unnecessary annoyance.

Since Grenoble I've continued my northward direction through Lyon, Dijon and now Strasbourg. Lyon was cool, the hostel was on a hill overlooking the city and had a terrace perfect for a few sundowners.

My efforts to use some back roads were rewarded, had a couple of quiet traffic days but the legs really felt it. Probably pushed a bit too hard the day before (doing my best Cadel impersonation tucked into an aero position on long straight roads with headwinds) so was struggling a lot approaching Dijon. A coke from a servo vending machine got me through the last 20km that day.

Dijon was a mess, they're building a tram network so basically every major road and place is a torn up construction site. The centre ville disctrict is untouched and had a good feel about it though.

The hostel was a weird one. Not really a hostel, more like a school camp. The tourist office made a reservation for me, but the guy at the 'hostel' front desk had no clue, and couldn't understand the concept that I was on my own and just wanted a bed in a dorm room. About 20 minutes and a phone call later I think he gave up and put me in a twin room for the dorm bed price.

Dijon to Strasbourg was a good trip over four days. Good rural roads; watched a triathlon in Gray; a helpful guy painting a church gave me water and directions (not that I needed the latter but he insisted on telling me anyway); a couple of cols on day 3, the first about 450m high 40km into the day, the second 727m high 90km into the day (steeper than alpe d'huez that climb, got a good pic of my salt encrusted knicks at the end of the day); finding a supermarket each evening near the end of the ride to get a baguette, cheese, cold meat and a cold beer or two (if they have any cold, it's annoyingly rare) before free camping each night (nearly got caught out in a forestry area near Schirmeck, someone turned up to start work twenty metres away just as I was clipping in to ride away).

I'm enjoying camping out but a shower is always the first thing I head for in the hostels. A laundry here was welcome too, all my clothes were well past ripe.

Next stop, Luxembourg, perhaps via Germany (I can see Germany from where I'm sitting right now).
Until next time...

TDF Report

Alpe d'huez was rather epic. Riding there on the Monday from Grenoble the masses of campervans were already en route to the mountain. In bourg d'oisans (the town at the bottom) people had already picked out the prime spots, tents and campervans lined the roads, and crowds of fellow nutcases hanging out, riding bikes and waiting for the tour. Chowed down on some food and stocked up on supplies before heading skyward, expecting minimal stuff up the top. That ended up just being unnecessary extra weight, as everything was available up top.

The climb up was a bit of a slog with the fully loaded panniers, took me about 1h32m for the 14.4km to the official finish line. I rode down and back up on the Thursday with a single pannier and a lot less weight and managed about 1h5m. A road bike and zero weight would have been nice, though the cornering agility and disc brakes of the MTB meant I was passing roadies and cars on the descent each time. It's not the steepest, longest or hardest climb that I've done (I think the 16km climb to lake Morris in Cairns in summer gets that prize), but it was a damn good ride. What really surprised me was the number of battlers having a go at it, and that none of them had a heart attack. An Aussie couple I met who were also cycle touring said it took them over 4 hours (with breaks) to get up with their loaded bikes, so I think that puts my time in perspective!

Interesting sights abound, a shattered disc rotor from a car about 3km from the bottom (somebody obviously had an exciting end to their drive down the mountain); all 22 corners already had mini cities setup, and the infamous Dutch corner was in fine form. Anywhere relatively flat and not obviously private was fair game for camping, parks and space beneath chairlifts in Huez were all tent city. The atmosphere continued to build and got better by the day.

The night before the race was crazy, so many extra people poured in as did the truck convoy for the race setup. The Dutch corner was wild, semis blasting air horns & ploughing their way through hoards of rowdy, boozed, partying tour fans continued for hours into the night.

I walked up to checkout the town on the morning of the race - people everywhere & a never ending stream of cyclists slogging their way up, a sight surpassed only by them all trying to descend at the same time at the day's end.

The pre-race caravan got everyone buzzing and the roar of the crowds from down the mountain crescendoed with the approaching riders. While they cruise past pretty quickly, it wasn't quite as fast as I was expecting, guess they'd done a few km's by that stage though...

I decided to stay on that night and head to Grenoble in the morning to avoid the traffic jam heading down the mountain. Very few stayed on that night, a vastly different atmosphere compared to the previous night, almost a bit eerie.

The TT in Grenoble was awesome, I was about 6km from the start line for most of it, and after the last rider passed I did my own TT across to another part of the course, so saw the last 8 riders again about 7km from the finish. I could tell Cadel was killing it just by the time gap after him. Headed into town hoping to catch some of the podium, but that was all done and dusted by the time I got there and the teardown operation had begun. Didn't take long for me to find some Aussies who confirmed that Cadel had done the business. Stoked.

Would have been good to get to Paris and hear the anthem on the champs elisseys but watching it on tv was still good, albeit in french commentary. Phil liggett commentary was happening in my mind.

Where I'll be on Alpe d'Huez

I'll be about 3km from the finish, or about 4 hairpin turns left, wearing my green & gold boardies and a singlet. Just look for the fro anyway!
I know I have no photos up yet, I need some time at a computer rather than just the phone.

The story so far

In short: Flew into Nice via Dubai, deployed the bike & found the hostel, checked out Monaco & rode the F1 circuit, then got cracking on the bike and have stayed at Frejus, Toulon, Marseilles, Manosque, Gap, Corps, and now Grenoble.

Some details: Have had a few nights free camping without issue and plan on more. As always the hostels are hit and miss, some sub par, others awesome (the hostel in Nice had a daily sundowner session on the rooftop terrace which overlooked the sea & city). One surprise is how few foreigners have been staying in the hostels - a couple of them have almost exclusively been filled with locals.

The riding aspect has been fine barring two days, one of severe thunderstorms (saw out the worst of it in a bus shelter for a few hours that day) and yesterday's 70km gradual uphill slog into a brutally strong & cold headwind (having to work hard to maintain speed on descents type headwind). Conquered a few small Cols thus far, the largest of which was about 1300m near Gap (in torrential rain with lightning hitting the hilltop a few km's away, that's when the bus shelter came in handy).

The 100km+ days in 34 degree heat along the Med coast have seen me drop a few kg's, I'll keep up the intake of French bread and cheese so that I don't waste away.

I'm planning to loiter in Grenoble for a few days to let some bad weather pass before heading to Bourg d'Oisans to make an assault on Alpe d'Huez and setup camp to await the arrival of le Tour.

Grenoble is a road cycling masochist's paradise - bike lanes everywhere in a city surrounded by unclassified (TdF speak for massive) climbs. Lots of fun to be had here.

One thing worthy of mention was a couple I saw doing the touring cycling thing - both of them with a full complement of loaded panniers, and just for good measure the guy was towing a kid in a trailer, and it was 4km into a 5km @ 12% climb. He was wearing an Australian team jersey - generally I wouldn't think twice about that, but in this case I think the jersey had been earned rather than purchased. Impressive form.