We got on the road to our next race watching – the Auvergne-Rhone-Alps (formerly The Dauphine) – around 9:30 on a Saturday morning. The drive was nice and we stopped at a huge aire in the town of Saint-Pourcaine-Sur-Sioule . It was next to a multi-sports ground and there was some kind of event happening. There were kids everywhere playing soccer and doing skills, although the noise shut down fairly early.
Continuing east the next morning we found the route for the Team Time Trial and picked a nice spot that got good reception on our starlink.
There were some lovely horses in a couple of fields next to us and we settled in nicely.
We were joined by a british campervan, who were waiting for some friends – in the end there were four other campervans there with us.
On the Tuesday morning the teams started doing their re-cons, and up until about 1:00 we saw all of them at least once and some of them twice. The course is, apparently, very challenging for a TTT – somewhat hilly and very narrow and winding, but at least it wasn’t raining.
I’ve never been to a Team Time Trial live before so it was a new experience for me. We put our flags up, but nothing compared to the giant Union Jack that the Brit put up, although Colin did have to go and tell him it was upside down so he could fix it before the race started.
They’ve changed the rules about TTT’s and I don’t clearly understand them – you used to need to have four riders cross the line to score your team’s time but that’s not the case now.
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Anyway it was still exciting and we had a couple of hours of watching before taking down our flags and hitting the road in the same direction as the race had gone.
We headed east towards the mountains – we’ve chosen the general area that we want to watch Friday’s stage from and took the ‘scenic’ route to get there in order to avoid Lyon. It was a very lovely drive, and along the way we passed one of the funniest sights ever – a giant pink pig ‘sculpture’ with an American flag on its side and a huge Trump figure beside it. If only I’d had my camera ready! I almost asked Colin to turn around and go back so I could get a pic – it was so perfect!
We stopped just outside the town of Legny at a large aire/carpark and had a nice quiet night – at least until about 6:15 in the morning when some very large loud equipment started up. They loaded a pile of rocks onto a truck then left, only to return again about 40 minutes later. Oh well – an early start to the day is nothing new for me.
We drove southeast through some very beautiful countryside with lots of lakes/ponds – a giant bird sanctuary of sorts – ending up finally in the mountains.
We stopped for lunch in a lovely town and it was very interesting – I ordered ‘bruschetta’ which sounded good, although asking for an Italian dish in a French restaurant can be a bit cheeky. What I got was delicious – but it was not bruschetta. It was more like a thick piece of bread with a whole bunch of toppings – very tasty, and as usual lots left over for dinner and next morning’s breakfast. Max helped me a lot with the prosciutto and cheese – he will eat almost any kind of cheese, but soft goat’s cheese is one of his favourites.
Stopped for the night in the town of Saint-Pierre-d’Entremont, which is half in the province of Isere and half in Savoie. We found the aire fairly easily and had a nice early night.
Sally McKenzie's European Adventures 