Criterium du Dauphine Libre

I never would have know had it not been for Alec’s email yesterday, but the Prologue for the Dauphine Libre was in downtown Grenoble today. Quite fortuitous, I must say. So, After setting my alarm for 7am with the intent to go on a nice 2 hour recover ride in the French countryside, I got up a 10:36am (I just can’t seem to kick the jet lag, fall asleep when I go to bed, and get up at a decent hour), had another breakfast of bread and jam and caught the tram into Grenoble. Now, I looked up where the course was, but even after translating the online flyer with a French to English dictionary, couldn’t decide what time the race actually started. I guessed 1pm, which seemed to make sense for a short prologue. Yeah, I was only about 3 hours off. So, I arrived downtown around noon, walked most of the course just to check it out. While doing so, the Astana team rolled past a couple times. I’ve included some pics below.

After walking the course, I still had like 2.5 hours to kill, although I didn’t really know it. I walked around a little more, and then started to get hungry. I must now admit that I broke my cardinal rule of international travel. I went to McDonalds. But, I picked it because I thought that they would have a public bathroom, which they didn’t. I attempted to order in French, which I thought I had effectively done when the kid taking my order said something I didn’t understand. I though he asked if I wanted anything else and I shook my head. Then he said something else and I again shook my head. Then he looked at me with a little bit of a surprised look and said, “No?” I was then forced to respond, in French, that I didn’t understand. Then he asked me in English to repeat my order, and things made sense. Apparently, even my best attempts at French, suck. But I got my chicken sandwich and diet coke and hustled back to my frontline fence spot. IN about another 45 minutes the racing started. The race was actually preceeded by a mini convoy which consisted mostly of Credit Agricole Cars giving out free hats. Yep, I got one. And wore it, along with about a thousand other people. The racing was cool. This is my first pro tour even, and these guys are really fit and look so comfortable on their bikes. Not to mention, I wish I was as skinny as any of them in a skin suit. Well, something to work for I guess. I’ll let a few pics do the rest of the talking. I took about 125 and will post the rest on fotki once I start an account. I’ll post the address later. I start in lab tomorrow, and am excited for that. More to come…

George Hincapie in the Stars and Stripes Jersey
A view for the 50 m mark.

Tommy D suffering to a not to impressive time.

"The man" Tom Boonen. He got a big cheer.
And one of my favorites, Dave Z out of the start.