30 Aug 2012, 5:02pm
Colorado Cycling Denver Telluride Travel Writing & Books:
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Pro Cycling Fun Wrap Up

Awaiting the Arrival of the Peloton in Telluride

Whoa, what a week it was last week, a wonderful time for cycling fans and lovers of big, colorful happenings. Colorado was blessed with the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, a terrific seven-day race that had many of the world’s top cyclists traversing some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. Multi-colored ribbons of premiere athletes crisscrossed the Rockies with all the excitement and fanfare of the Queen’s jubilee.

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A Tour of the Heart and KOTO Love

My New Book: A TOUR OF THE HEART

Last year around this time, I celebrated a milestone birthday. I was grateful that I was feeling healthy and well, the most fit I’d been in ages and ten pounds thinner (a rarity for me since my weight never fluctuates). Here I am a year later having perhaps gained back five of those pounds—I don’t really know since I stopped weighing myself (a good sign of maturity). And now I’m two days away from another b-day with something far more significant to celebrate—a new book!

Twelve years. Yes, twelve years. I can’t believe it myself. It was twelve years ago that I began to plan a trip that would forever change my life. I actually took that trip in the fall of 2000. We all have transformative events and travels in our lives. I just happen to take a lot of notes on mine. “A Tour of the Heart:  A Seductive Cycling Trip Through France” is the fruit of all that note taking and so much more.” Click here to see a preview and download excerpts. I hope you’ll enjoy the read. Books are rolling into bookstores now; be sure to ask for it if you don’t readily see it on the shelf. You can also purchase it as a paperback through amazon now or as an eBook on kindle.

Since it’s KOTO fundraising time and I love my NPR-station here in Telluride, Colorado, you can receive a free e-book with every $20. donation and a free paperback with every $30. donation. Books sell for $8. and $20. respectively. Contact me directly through this site to make your donation. Also, if you enjoy Travel Fun, my talk radio show on travel, and the podcasts of those interviews I post here on this blog, please make a pledge or donation to KOTO as well. For that also, it’s best to contact me directly. Community radio is a rare breed in the U.S. and ours is almost entirely supported by caring people like you.

I will be talking about “A Tour of the Heart:  A Seductive Cycling Trip Through France,” on Travel Fun tomorrow, August 21, at 6 p.m. mountain time. You can also tune in on the Internet at KOTO.org at the time of the broadcast. I hope to post that interview as a podcast on this blog within the upcoming week.

One more thing:  Click here to become a fan of A Tour of the Heart on Facebook. 

Merci!


14 Aug 2012, 12:13pm
Colorado Cycling Music & Dance Telluride:
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Cycling, Music and More Take Over Telluride

Telluride is gearing up for a big week of fun next week. As of this weekend, the town’s sure to be hopping with pre-race partying for the USA Pro Cycling Challenge. The cyclists roll into town on Monday, August 20, a sight sure to be one of the most spectacular of their whole Colorado tour. There’s going to be excitement all day long in Telluride town park before the big finish. You’ll be able to follow the race from this drop-dead gorgeous setting on big-screen TVs, shop at the vendors’ mini boutiques, eat and drink beer to your heart’s delight. Did I say there will be live music, too? Oh, yeah—it’s going to be a fun day all around.

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13 Aug 2012, 10:08am
Colorado Cycling Shopping The Rockies:
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Bike and Ski Race Cowbells from Alpen Schatz

Authentic Swiss Cowbells from Alpen Schatz

What’s a bike or a ski race without cowbells? Follow in the tradition of some of the great European sporting events and ring your bell to show your enthusiasm as the athletes pass. Did you know they prefer the din of ringing cowbells over cheers or other noises to root them on? That’s what I’ve heard.

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Pro Cycling Hits Colorado

Pro Cycling in the Rockies

“It’s one of the most exciting events in the world. You get a chance to see some of the world’s best athletes—certainly in cycling. You get to do it in beautiful places like Telluride, Vail and Aspen. The best part is it’s free,” says Shawn Hunter, CEO of USA Pro Cycling Challenge. Listen to more of what Shawn says about this exciting event that’s taking place in Colorado August 20-26 by clicking on the play button below.

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13 Dec 2011, 7:43pm
Colorado Cycling Podcasts Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride The Rockies Travel:
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Telluride, Colorado: A Real Winter Wonderland

Main Street, Telluride

It’s that time of year again, the frosty season when you stand on main street in Telluride, Colorado and feel like you can reach out and touch the massive, snowy peaks in front of you. Sure, this view is nothing short of spectacular all year long yet in winter, the light and the snow render these looming monoliths even more awe-inspiring. Add to that old Western and Victorian buildings blanketed in snow, folks trudging through the streets with ski gear in tow, puppies and people practically skipping down the street—and suddently you realize it’s a Norman Rockwell scene like none you’ve ever taken in before.

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25 Oct 2010, 4:07pm
Art & Culture Cycling Denver:
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Hysterical in Denver

THE Most-Talented Cast of "The 39 Steps"

THE Most-Talented Cast of DCTC's "The 39 Steps"

I’ve been traveling tons the past few weeks and as you can see from my last blog, failed miserably at posting stories from the road. I have, however, rounded up lots of material for a great variety of pieces that I plan to publish in the upcoming weeks.

My travels began in Denver where I picked up my parents at DIA for a two-week blitz throughout Colorado and the Southwest. Stay tuned for dispatches about road tripping with seniors (average age: eighty-years young) and the wonders of the West.

My mother and I love going to the movies and the theater together. This time we were particularly well served in the latter at the Denver Center Theatre Company’s (DCTC) staging of the madcap Hitchcock spoof “The 39 Steps.” Boy, did we roar! I have never laughed so hard at the theater and you can bet I was not alone. This lightning-paced comedy has been such a hit, in fact, that “The 39 Steps” has been extended in Denver’s Ricketson Theatre through November 21st. Don’t miss it! You’re sure to be entranced by this hilarious send-up of Hitchcock’s 1935 film noir thriller in which four actors deftly take on over fifty characters. Yes, that’s right––over fifty characters, each one more amusing and convincingly played than you can imagine. The gentleman seated next to us was seeing this production for the second time in as many weeks. If I lived in Denver, I’d sign up for round two as well. It’s great to laugh and delight in such clever entertainment.

For added fun, take a Denver pedicab to or from the theatre. These three-wheeled bicycles are perfect for the mile-high city where fair weather is more the norm than visitors realize. You can hail these environmentally-friendly rickshaws outside of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts complex as well as at most other tourist attractions. My Mom and I did just that and continued to laugh all the way back to our hotel.

Denver Ricketson Theatre Tip:  Order your libation before the show and it will be ready for you at intermission without the wait.

Sam Gregory as "Richard Hannay" in the DCTC production of "The 39 Steps"

Sam Gregory as "Richard Hannay in "The 39 Steps"--just one of many modes of transportation you'll experience in this show!

2 Aug 2010, 11:49am
Cycling French Life:
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From Girly-Girl to Tour Aficionado

Frenchified Tour Follower in T-ride

Frenchified Tour Follower in T-ride

It’s been just over a week now that the Tour de France rolled into Paris on its final stage. If you’re at all like me, you may be feeling a bit of Tour withdrawal. Fortunately I’m in the throes of writing a book, a romantic adventure set in France (mais oui!), that also highlights the Tour de France. This way I’m on my bike and thinking about the dazzling peloton crisscrossing France most days, at least in my mind. So my Tour continues.

If you’ve read some of the recent posts in this blog, you may be wondering how such a super feminine gal became so hooked on this major sporting event. Well here’s the backstory.

I grew up with five brothers and no sisters. This meant I was destined to be either a tomboy or a priss. I became the latter. I learned French, how to tie a scarf and how to fix myself up with little visible effort put forth very early on. Eleven years of living in Paris followed. The die was cast, I had become a femme du monde of sorts, a well-traveled woman who valued the elegance and refinement a life in France has to offer.

Sports had little to do with my Parisian world; like most French women, I stayed in shape from all the walking I did in the French capital and by minimizing my portion sizes. The idea of watching any kind of a sporting event in person or on T.V. was considered by my then French husband (of noble descent) something for the masses. (Tuning into Rolland Garros, or the French Open, was acceptable, but anything else was for the most part considered plouc or hillbilly-like.)

Then I moved back to the States, discovered the thrill of road riding and met a super cyclist. I traded out my airy summer skirts and tops for an array of slick cycling jerseys and shorts, the same “silly” outfits I had seen many a Frenchmen squeezed into on Sunday rides in the French countryside.

I brought my bicycle and my American boyfriend on a trip to France and together we pedaled through the rich farmlands, the verdant valleys, the historic hilltop villages and the lush vineyards of my beloved adopted country that I had come to know so well. Yet from the seat of a bicycle I was able to embrace this glorious land in a much different way. My senses felt totally imbued with wonder and satisfaction as I crossed France’s vast fields of sunflowers, its neat rows of lavender, its bunches of grapes hanging from the vine, its Monet-esque meadows dotted with red dabbles of poppies. I readily encountered people as I passed through their villages, towns and hamlets at the tranquil pace I maintained cruising along on my bike.

Tuning into the Tour de France on T.V. seemed like a logical next step. By now I had come to know a fair amount about cycling: I understood that the sport required as much of a team effort as an individual achievement, I realized there was a certain hierarchy to be respected on each team and within the peloton and that it took great talent and lots of experience for one of those “young bucks” to become a top racer.

My American guy coached me about the sport both on and off the bike and I came to consider cycling one of the most demanding athletic feats on the planet. To me, the Tour de France, the grueling three-week bike race that takes place every July in France, seems like Wimbledon, the World Cup of Soccer and the Olympics all combined. Its international flavor also rivals the worldwide appeal of these other renowned sporting events and in the case of the Tour, the organizers put on a show that’s moved to some twenty different locales both in France and in bordering countries every day of the competition.

Enough of this jock talk. I’m a girly-girl, albeit a fairly sophisticated one. You can bet it’s the Tour’s pageantry, the awe-inspiring scenery, the beauty of the cyclists in their vibrant jerseys on their shiny, candy-colored bikes that thrill me the most. Seeing the peloton blow across vast stretches of rural France like a bright swath of Pierre Frey fabric flapping in the wind leaves me breathless. Then on the last day when they descend on Paris like a swarm of bees searching for a hive, I feel my heart quicken, my excitement mount as though I was seeing the City of Light for the first time.

All the years I lived in France, I never attended the final stage of the Tour de France on the Champs-Elysées. Ça ne se fait pas, or that’s not done, was the message that was conveyed to me by my very proper Frenchman. I never sought to explore the event on my own.

It took a move back to the States and a different perspective for that to happen. Here it’s somehow easier for me to be a fan of the Tour de France. It doesn’t mean I have to give up my girly-girl side either.

As I sit here and weave my impressions of this extraordinary event into my story, I replay the Tour’s excitement and pageantry over and over in my head. If you’re a Tour fan, I’m sure you’re doing some of that, too.

Relive Past Tours
Graham Watson, renowned photographer of the Tour de France for over thirty years, chatted with me in a Travel Fun interview. Hope you’ll take some time to listen to our conversation and/or read the story (and see some of his stunning photos)!

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