France day 1 20090718

First day in France adventures.
As expected I arrived sleepy. Got off the plane, went into the line to get the passport checked. No forms to fill out. They stamped it (the important part). Now to get the luggage. Where is the bike? I know it’s a big bag, but I didn’t see anywhere where they could be unloading the oversized luggage. Decided to walk around and see if I could find a it. Right by the exit there was the oversize luggage Yeah! Put the bike on the cart (thanks again NW lady for not charging me for it!) I think customs is next, but wait there’s a skinny door to push all this thru, first try fail, back up, wiggle bike bsag, try again, fail, try moving bag w/ dead left arm, doesn’t work, great. By now the buzzer is going off, even better! Finally some guy jumps from behind the rope and pulls me though. No customs lluggage check> I see lots of people holding up the name signs…can’t turn the cart around to see if Bikestyles is that way, oh well, stay observant and look for a red Biketyles shirt. Quickly finde one and it turns out to be Eric (Deb’s friend) Deb is a lady who lives in NC who wqas supposed to be on the trip, but she broke her foot (big bummer). Anyway, glad Io ran into him. Find the rest of the guys and one other chick on the tour Courtney. Quick 15 min ride to the hotel. Get checked in and it turns out Courtney is m y roommate. She’s been on a bike style tour before (2005) so hopefully she’ll be a good resource (so far she has). She even gave me my bloo thinner shot (I figurd since she was a Cancer surgeon she could handle it. Of course that brought on the on slought of questions, no big deal. I think she was shocked to hear I wasn’t on any regular medicine (the rat poison stuff whose name I can’t remember).

Went downstairs into the garage to put the bike together. That was easy, the BS guys did it! Oh no, causalty. .broom stick(flag pole) broke…but since they are taking the bike bags to storage, I decided to leave the broom stick in the hotel, I’ll prob regret that later. Guess the Texas flag will make a great cape. Now that I’m sitting on the bus, I could have put it in the overhead compartment, oh well, cape and green tape it is!

Instead of taking a nap, I went in search of a coke…no mini marts in sight, no machines, si 2.90 euros later, I get it from the hotel lobby. now off to explore.

See the pics….

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1199740&l=9195e0afeb&id=1038297795


://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=83327&id=1038297795&l=8cdd263b78

First ride…
They annouce the fast group is going to go out w/ an ave pace of 30 kpm…quick multiply 30x .6 18mph! I knew I was the slow group, but did not expect the ave of the slow group to be 15 mph. OUI! I’m going to be in trouble! It didn’t help hearing horror stories from Courtney about the 2005 first ride when someone fell twice causing one person to break his wrist and another a collar bone! I end up falling of he pack (meaning being in the back and losing them quite often. One of the guides pushed me to get caught back up (hope he feels sorry for me on Ventoux, too! Then another guide tells me to catch is wheel and he pulls me back, now that was cool, but still kinda humiliating. It didn’t help that I chose not to do any group training rides during the past 6 months, so I’m a little cautious…I gottta keep telling myself “don’t panic, ride your own ride” Guess I’m only used to Diane’s butt, sorry D, but these guys butts are a lot cutter!

Other than the falling behind, the ride wqs great. We went thru two small villages and many round a bouts and even a short section of cobblrstones (scary & painful). Think we even rode by the Concorde Memorial, but didn’t stop to look (darn it).

On the bus on the way to Beaune. We’ll stop 50k outside of Beaune and ride in. Hope we have a tail wind and it doesn’t rain! More on that ride tomorrow!

Funny stuff that happened yesterday:

Ran back up to the room to get the camera for the ride, Had punched 4, so when the elevator doors opened, got off, walked 200m to the room (it was a maze to get there) key doesn’t work…finally realize I’m at room 114 not 414. funny thing was there was another girl in the lobby who just did the same thing!

Panic after the ride when I couldn’t find my passport and credit cards that I put in a plastic bag in the back of my bike jersey…it had to have been in the garage (fell out when I took out my arm warmers, I’ll go down after the shower. Took off my jersey, duh, there it is, in the back left pocket (once again, good looker poor finder) stupid left hand can’t feel shit only 16 more months, gotta concentrate on hand therapy when I get back.

There’s a great room key holder near the door of the hotel room where Courtney keeps putting her key. Mine didn’t fit, so I just put it my the coffee machine. Courtney leaves to go to the meeting when I’m drying my hair. 2 mins later, pop, no electricity. Great, going to the meeting and dinner w/ wet bushy hair, it’s cold and windy and I haven’t found a sweatshirt shop yet! Deal w/ it. Standing in line at the front desk to talk to them about my blown circuit…start talking to one of the tour guides and he informs me that the ‘key holder’ turns on the electricity for the room! Love the idea! Hate the fact that I didn’t know that!

Went to get back online last night to find some English coverage of the tour. My ID and pwd combinations never worked for Orange (the wifi access. No panic, I’ll go downstairs and use the Mac to access hotmail and get my ID & pwd! One computer is down, line for the other. Being a computer nut, I decide to reboot it…ah ha, it works
(as it usually does..laughing that I had to reboot a Mac, then laughing even harder that it’s running windows in order for it to run the hotels guest software.. log in, try to go to www, but wtf, where is the W! the keyboard is all messed up! Had to shift to to a “.” Now that’s hosed and where is the @! Extremely painful exercise esp going on 4 hrs sleep, I will take a pic of the keyboard. Turns out Orange assigns you an ID and pwd (at least I wasn’t nuts) sure hope firefox remembered it or that I don’t lose that sheet of paper again.

Time to look at more country side, 2 hours til we ride.