2005 in review: Tour de France, July

This past summer, Lisa and I were able to travel to France to watch Lance Armstrong win his 7th consecutive Tour. We decided to do this via a tour company (Duvine Adventures) since we didn't make our decision to go until it was relatively late and the logistics of the TdF were unknown to us at the time. The highlight was seeing Stage 10 up close and personal, from where we stood 5k from the summit of the alpine ski village of Courchevel. This ended up being the defining stage of the race where Armstrong, still wearing Discovery blue (photo t0p), rode to a second place finish in a four man breakaway, earning the yellow jersey which he held through the final stage in Paris.
We have plans to return again to see TdF 2006...with Armstrongs retirement, this is truely going to be an absolute slugfest amongst riders hoping to fill the vaccuum. We plan to catch some stages in the Alps, including l' Alp d'Huez, before retreating to Provence for some R and R. We've got reservations to stay at a bed and breakfast run by a wonderful lady named Georgia, who we met on a previous trip to France. She pretty much decided on a whim to uproot herself from her life here in the U.S. to pursue the Peter Mayle-ish dream of owning her own B and B in Provence (www.lelavandinprovence.com).