Vickie and I went to see the Tour de France, because it was pulling into Nancy, which is just 45 minutes by train from Metz. It was pretty cool. The route was pretty crowded, but it was cold and rainy, so that helped keep the crowds to a reasonable level. I’m not a Tour expert, but I have a feeling that in good weather we wouldn’t have been able to get to the front of the barricades 250m from the finish line.
We had to stand around for an hour waiting for the racers to arrive. Fortunately, there was a bunch of entertainment, with a local radio station announcing the race, a jumbotron just barely in view, and a whole bunch of floats and cars driving the route throwing out promotional stuff. I think the truck with the hose and the foam mallets would have been a bit funnier if it hadn’t been so cold and wet. There was also a bunch of trucks with girls who looked like they should have been wearing bikinis who were instead wearing long sleeves and pants.
After a bunch of cold and wet raining, the riders finally started to get close to the finish line. The leader was a dude from the Lorraine region, so the announcers and the crowd were very excited. You could feel the excitement and the tension building as he got closer and closer to the finish line, but the rest of the pack got closer and closer to him. Finally, when he was 900m meters from the finish line, most of the excitement drained away as he wiped out in a tough turn. One of my professors said he was going to lose anyway, so it was probably better for him to go down that way.
I got to see Lance Armstrong, I think. He was more of a yellow blur than anything else. If he hadn’t had the yellow jersey at the time, I don’t think I would have recognized him.
After the riders went by, we took a half hour to get through the crowd and back to the train station, just making it in time for the next train back to Metz.