Tour De France 2006
It'll be a while before we know who goes into the history books as the 2006 Tour winner, but drug tests aside, I saw Floyd in Paris in yellow. I heard the star spangled banner played on the Champs Elysee for him. i saw the American flag raised above Spain and Germany. Combined with Lance's 7, that makes 8 years in a row of closing down the busiest street in Paris to play the American national anthem. France shows goodwill to us, and I think we should return the favor by playing La Marseillaise on the 405.
Chances are pretty good that an American won't be on that top spot for a while, and OLN doesn't show the whole podium ceremony, so I took video of it. I tried panning around 360 so you can see all the people from around the world who came to Paris to show their support for America and the War. Even though Google just paid $1.65 billion for YouTube, they're still letting me upload videos for free that you can watch without ads. The only difference between now and right before the first dot com bust, is that before the first dot com bust, free stuff had ads.
The final stage is a good one to spectate because they race about 6 laps of the Champs and you can see them twice per lap. After the race, every team is presented and does another lap holding flags and waving to the crowd. The avenue is so long (and tree lined) that it can accomodate all the people without being too far back (or exposed to sun). If you can get there early enough with a few other people, chairs, tape, and/or rope, you can really stake some prime territory. But you can't stake the finish line. That area has a grandstand only for sponsors/VIPs (pronounced by europeans as "vips", rhymes with tips, not "V-I-Ps").
Before the race gets to town, if you get bored standing next to a barrier on the sidewalk, your best bet is to find the jumbotron and watch the race. Then you can see that they're all going really slow, drinking champagne, shaking hands, being totally inconsiderate of me having to stand around in the 90 degree heat and humidity. How can you guys still be 60km from Paris?
When they do finally arrive, they don't dissappoint. These guys are fast.
There were too many photos to post them all here. Check out the photo gallery on flickr.
Chances are pretty good that an American won't be on that top spot for a while, and OLN doesn't show the whole podium ceremony, so I took video of it. I tried panning around 360 so you can see all the people from around the world who came to Paris to show their support for America and the War. Even though Google just paid $1.65 billion for YouTube, they're still letting me upload videos for free that you can watch without ads. The only difference between now and right before the first dot com bust, is that before the first dot com bust, free stuff had ads.
The final stage is a good one to spectate because they race about 6 laps of the Champs and you can see them twice per lap. After the race, every team is presented and does another lap holding flags and waving to the crowd. The avenue is so long (and tree lined) that it can accomodate all the people without being too far back (or exposed to sun). If you can get there early enough with a few other people, chairs, tape, and/or rope, you can really stake some prime territory. But you can't stake the finish line. That area has a grandstand only for sponsors/VIPs (pronounced by europeans as "vips", rhymes with tips, not "V-I-Ps").
Before the race gets to town, if you get bored standing next to a barrier on the sidewalk, your best bet is to find the jumbotron and watch the race. Then you can see that they're all going really slow, drinking champagne, shaking hands, being totally inconsiderate of me having to stand around in the 90 degree heat and humidity. How can you guys still be 60km from Paris?
When they do finally arrive, they don't dissappoint. These guys are fast.
There were too many photos to post them all here. Check out the photo gallery on flickr.
Labels: cycling, france, paris
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