Being Green Cycling Paris Tours: Being Green Cycling Paris Tours
by maribeth
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Tour Mania Versus Zee Segway
The Segway Peloton of Paris
I’ve been thinking about whizzing around Paris these days.
It’s July and I’m consumed with The Tour. I’m referring to the Tour de France, as I’m sure you might have guessed.
I love watching the undulating ribbon of the peloton weave its way through France, but it’s in Paris on the last day of this epic bike race that this colorful procession mystifies me the most. I think it’s because Paris is so familiar to me: I’ve walked the great length of the Champs-Elysées countless times, wended my way around the expansive place de la Concorde, strolled beneath the arcades of the rue de Rivoli from Concorde to Palais Royal. Seeing the Tour de France posse (caravan, cyclists, team cars, press and officials) dominate this familiar terrain mesmerizes me the most. How incredibly fitting it is to have some of the world’s finest athletes power over the same routes reserved for royalty and heads of state.
If you’re not able to be in the City of Light on the final day of this great race, I encourage you to at least catch part of the last stage on T.V. Even the lively commentary of the sportscasters can’t drone out the pack’s thunderous rumble over the cobbles, the resounding swoosh and whir as they travel along Paris’s centuries-old streets.
If you’re at all like me, you’ll also be envious of the racers having the streets of Paris to themselves. Quel bonheur! Can you imagine how great that feels, pedaling through these historic streets at lightening speed?
There’s nothing like experiencing a place from a bicycle or I suppose, even a Segway. I’m reminded of this every time I hop on a bike but it really hit home recently when a friend told me about how he breezed around Paris standing head and shoulders above the masses. He had taken a Segway tour and visited a good number of Paris’s best-loved sites and monuments in a flash, without the inconveniences of sore feet or having to get on and off a bus a ton of times.
Cycling French Life French Provinces Paris Podcasts: Cycling French Living French Provinces Paris Podcasts
by maribeth
Comments Off on Listen to Graham Watson Talk the Tour
Listen to Graham Watson Talk the Tour
2010 Tour de France Route
The 2010 Tour de France route was posted just over a month ago which means that hotels along the course are booking up fast. There’s still time, however, to plan a trip to take in some of this renowned bike race next July. Renowned Tour photographer, Graham Watson, will tell you how. Read about what I wrote about Graham and his book, “Graham Watson’s Tour de France Travel Guide,” here. You can also listen to Graham speak about the Tour and more by clicking on the play button here:
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Talking the Tour with Graham Watson
The Old Always Contrasts the New at the Tour de France
By now you must have figured out that I have a thing for France. But it has come as a surprise to many (mostly my French friends!) that I’m crazy about the Tour de France. How can I not be? What a wonderful display of French countryside and good looking men! Of course I also like the international flair of this epic bike race and cycling itself. (Once I figured out that it’s both a team and an individual sport, I became fascinated with how well the cyclists work together. Or not.)
Graham and His Basque Driver of Twenty Years
So you can imagine when I was pitched the idea of interviewing Tour veteran Graham Watson on Travel Fun, I jumped at the chance. Graham, a renowned cycling photographer, has followed the Tour for about three decades. He’s one of those dudes perched on the back of un moto that careens in and out of the peloton. He’s one of sixteen Tour photographers that has that privilege. (There are 150 official Tour photographers in all.) “Being a photographer on a motorbike at the Tour de France is the best job there is,” Graham admits without a grain of conceit in his ever-so charming British accent.
I was thrilled to be able to chat with him on the phone from London, fresh off the Tour (that ended this past Sunday). With the exception of any mention of good looking guys, I learned Graham was attracted to the Tour for much the same reasons as those that have made me such a devotee. “It was the color, excitement, drama and the possibility of discovering France that drew me to the Tour,” Graham admitted. In 1977, during his first trip to the Gallic land and his first Tour de France, he realized “France wasn’t so bad.” Indeed the Tour has been a wonderful means for experiencing France for Graham and today he readily acknowledges that he’s a Francophile. (So much for the Franco-British and British-Franco rivalry!)
A section of La Corniche, between the Col d'Aubisque and the Col du Soulor, in the 1995 Tour de France
Graham shares his passion for France and the Tour de France not only through his photography but also through a newly-released book, “Graham Watson’s Tour de France Travel Guide,” a must-have for Tour enthusiasts whether you’re planning a trip to France or not. It’s an insider’s guide to the Tour, beautifully presented with lots of How to information, four-color maps, photos by Graham and others, history and anecdotes and more.
This book provides you with all that you need to happily navigate this exciting sporting event. It even tells you how to meet the pros, something that I was fortunate enough to do—totally by accident—a number of years ago. I ended up staying in the same hotel as the U.S. Postal Team one night and actually met Lance on the eve of his legendary Alpe d’Huez win in 2001. That’s the kind of amazing encounter you can have at the Tour. “Cycling is a very modest sport,” Graham says. “The riders do meet and greet the public. They’re not super stars that hide beyond a stadium.”
Graham has seen the Tour de France evolve from a parochial French event in the late seventies to the big international event that it is today. His career got off the ground along with the success of cycling greats Greg Lemond, Sean Kelly and Phil Anderson. Lance Armstrong has certainly given us all the ride of our lives at the Tour. Isn’t it wonderful though to be debriefed by someone that his been so entrenched in the peloton for so many years? Thanks Graham for marrying your two passions: cycling and photography. And I might add, for choosing to do it in France.
Always an Exciting Finish on the Champs-Elysées
Tips for Attending the Tour de France from Graham Watson
-Target three to four consecutive days (stages) in the Alps or the Pyrenees and then spend about the same amount of time discovering some place else in France.
-Begin planning your trip once the Tour route has been announced mid-October. Graham feels that the Internet is a great resource for booking hotels. Know that many rooms are taken first by the Tour, so you have to get on it fast.
-Your best chance for meeting a cyclist is after the finish line when they often have to pedal out of the secured area.
Consult “Graham Watson’s Tour de France Travel Guide” for many more!
For up-to-the-minute news about competitive cycling, check out VeloNews.
More Graham Glory
Thank you to Graham Watson and VeloPress for the use of the above images.
Seizing the World
Stephen Allen: Riding for a Cause
“It’s possible to accomplish a great deal so long as you have passion, simple tools and a group of close friends with enthusiasm for the project,” says local Tellurider Stephen Allen. Stephen and I met in October when he came on Travel Fun for a last-minute radio interview just before heading out on an around-the-world bicycling tour. Such a journey would seem daunting for just about anybody, but Stephen is not your average guy. He’s incredibly motivated and determined not to let life’s hurdles get in his way. He was thrown a real curve ball almost ten years ago in high school when he learned he had epilepsy; not surprisingly, however, it seems that that has forced him to be even more focused on making a difference in the world.
So far Stephen has logged close to 2,000 miles on his bike as he worked his way down from Colorado to New Mexico, across Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee and as I write this, Mississippi. His goal is to promote active living with epilepsy and to raise money for research. He has been accomplishing much of this by giving presentations in bookstores, bike shops and a variety of other venues along the way. He’s headed to Charleston, South Carolina where he’ll fly out for Europe on December 8th to embark upon the international portion of his expedition. His mom, Susan, informed me that he’s pedaled with a number of different people at various intervals along the way. In all, Stephen thinks his grand tour might last two years. You can learn more about living with epilepsy and Stephen’s travels at Seize the World. Take a moment, too, to read my write up on him and my blurbs on other important organizations and causes on my Giving page.
May the wind always be at your back, Stephen, or at least may the headwinds be manageable!
His Round-the-World Rig
Book Pick
“The Monkey Wrench Gang,” by Edward Abbey. “My trip will be much cleaner, much more sober, much more organized, much less violent and (hopefully) more sustainable than Edward Abbey’s case, but the underlying dreams are similar,” Stephen wrote to me just before heading out.
