We were both excited to discover that the next to final stage of the Tour de France, stage 20, was going to come within a half hour of where we are living. Mont Ventoux is a punishing 20 km climb at 8% grade and is the last stretch of stage 20.

We left our apartment at 3 am on Saturday morning to get a spot along the route. The area near the top of Mont Ventoux had already been full and closed off by police for several days, so the best we could hope for was a spot somewhere along the climb. We packed some snacks, our American flags (who knew we’d have another use for them after D-Day in Normandy?), and a bunch of water and headed out.

Arriving at the route was like coming into a huge all-night tailgating party. Cars, campers, and tents were strewn alongside the road and the vineyards everywhere. Young’uns were busy painting various thoughts of either derision or encouragement along the road for the riders to see as they drove along, everything from “Cantador dopes!” to “Go on, you can do it!”. It reminded me of tailgating at all the Dave Matthews Band concerts I’ve been to in Hartford with friends over the years. One giant drunken party, only instead of lots of beer and various illegal substances, the crowd was hopped up on too much wine and cheese, no doubt.

After hitting the spot where the police had closed off the road, we found a place to secure our little car on about km 2 of the 20-km slope and then tried to sleep. Sleeping in the car never results in a good outcome either for one’s sense of rest or one’s back and neck. We awoke with the sun and as we stretched our sore necks, we noticed a parade of hundreds of hikers and bikers making their way up the mountain. The bikers were doing it, obviously, because they just wanted to say that they also had climbed Mont Ventoux just before the peloton. The hikers wanted to be further up the mountain and had no way to get past the road blocks except on foot. I applauded their diligence but was perfectly happy myself to stay where we were. I wasn’t really up for a nearly 20 km climb in flip flops.

After a while we decided to walk up the road to the nearest town, Saint Colombe, to see what was happening and to eat some early morning sandwiches. It was definitely a festival atmosphere, with loud music, tons of noisy people, and souvenir vans stopping every few feet as they drove up the road to sell official Tour merchandise.

According to the schedule of the stage, the bikers weren’t expected to arrive at our spot until a little after 3 pm, which made for a long, very hot day. The sun was relentless and there wasn’t much of a breeze, unfortunately. We chased shade as much as we could and cursed the fact that we forgot to bring sunblock (I wasn’t thinking too clearly at 3am) as we felt our arms and legs bake in the Provencal sunshine.

About an hour before the bikers were scheduled to arrive, the sponsor entourage began making its way up the mountain, driving specialized vehicles sort of like parade floats and throwing out freebies into the crowd, everything from gummy bears to newspapers to bottles of water to balloons for waving at the riders. The crowd was becoming palpably excited and it was infectious.

We waited, and wilted, and tried to turn so the sun wasn’t hitting the worst burned parts of us. Finally the moment arrived as we saw the first appearance of the gendarmerie clearing the road and saw the press cars and press helicopter hovering on the road just below the bend.

My job was to man the video camera while Larry was getting shots off with his digital slr camera. We had known ahead of time that Lance Armstrong was in 3rd place overall but didn’t know where he’d be within the pack in this stage. The lead team of only about 5 riders came through first, and then there was a break while more team vehicles made their way past, before the second, larger group came through.

We couldn’t even tell until we checked the footage later because it all happened so fast, but Lance Armstrong was in the second group, along with the winner of this year’s tour, Alberto Contador. You can see him on the other side of Contador, wearing the Astana team jersey and black socks and shoes, in the video that Larry took below.

The third and final group came through shortly after that, and then – it was over.

12 hours of tailgating for essentially 5 minutes of riders blowing by. It was totally worth it. Larry was especially excited as he grew up watching the Tour on TV and remembers watching many years where the Tour included the climb up Mont Ventoux. Now, he had been able to witness it in person.

We went back to the nearest village below us, Bedoin, where we watched the riders complete the climb and arrive triumphantly at the summit, along with hundreds of other spectators.