4 July 2008:  Les Californies

Tom and I arrived yesterday in Brest with only three items on our agenda:
    1) find a laundromat;
    2) find a grocery store; and
    3) find a place to camp.

We checked the first two items off in quick succession. The third proved more challenging.

A visit to the tourist office sent us on a 2-hour goose chase through the well-trafficked, modern (TY WWII) streets of Brest--first to expensive camping grounds more than 15 K from town; next to a sports facility where not one but four French workmen were more than happy to leave off with work to exchange broken French-English conversation and to point us toward the official TDF tent camping; and finally to the goose itself, one of two over-staffed TDF campsites. As it turns out, this goose lays golden eggs: to pitch a tent costs only 5 euros per night; there are showers and toilets; indoor bike storage (a nice thing now that it is raining); even a fridge and a microwave.

Tom and I are the only ones camping here at a facility set up for hundreds. We are welcomed like royalty, and the warm volunteer staff seem delighted to help us in anyway they can.

Agenda complete, we were left with plenty of time to head to centre ville to catch the team introductions. Or so we thought. As it happens, the road to town was barricaded by police escort to make way for the passage of the caravan, a seemingly endless parade of plastic, commercial craziness--a car topped by a giant likeness of a sprinter careering to the line; girls throwing junk to the crowd as they dance carnivsal-style atop the bed of a red and yellow truck with a huge, grinning satan for a hood ornament; and then we see them--the Vittel Boys. They are coming up the road at what at first seems to be a high velocity, six of them on bikes, decked-out in gaudy red and white kit, grimacing, looking as though they are jockeying for homestretch position.

"Tom," I say. "Let's jump in with these guys."

We swing our bikes around the police barrier and onto the route to town, and as we catch up to our red and white escort, we quickly realize the game. One rider comes up beside me, clips out of his left pedal, and swings a viscous mock kick at my right knee. Another gets out of the saddle, bike rocking violently back and forth, and looks over his shoulder with feigned disdain at me and my panniered, 9-year old Trek. As the slow, 20kph reenactment comes to a halt at a traffic light, a third rider leans against me shoulder as though trying to muscle me off the course. Hilarity ensues as Tom comes to my rescue, and we and our bikes are both tackled, ending up in a shiny lycra-carbon fiber dogpile of eight riders and bikes.

Needless to say, we arrive with only pretend road rash, in time for the introductions. By the way, we had apparently faced worthy adversaries. The last riders to be introduced--after the local politicians and celebs, after the sleek, shaved teams, after the man himself, Bernard Hinault, was the grand finale, of course--the Vittel Boys. We'll get you next time guys.

One final note, before I pack in some last-minute calories and phone calls--there is blue sky in the direction from which the wind is blowing, and the press have caught whiff of the crazy camping Caliornies. Keep an eye out for coverage of Rick's Ride on leparisien.fr!  And Happy Fourth!

Jesse Czelusta blogging during his Tour.

Photo courtesy of Thomas T. Lee.