Thanks Tony. 2 days to go and counting!
Not many cols near Condom Ian but thank you for the advice.
Yep, Andrew has covered it all. I think the caravan passes something like 2 hours ahead of the riders, so you do need to go early.
The best views, should you ever have the time and the inclination, are on the ascents wherever they may be. The tactic there is to take your bike in the car, park somewhere at the bottom that will not become clogged with traffic, and set off to ride up the col. I had my best experience doing this on the col de la Colombiere where I got an excellent view of the riders passing slowly, then as soon as the sweeper van passed I could ride back down to the car passing long queues of stationary traffic. Perfect. :-)
The parking is why I asked Tony, we have decided which road we are approaching on and will park as close as we can and then walk aiming to get there about an 45 mins to an hour before the Caravan. Fingers crossed we have picked a road out side of town in the hope we won't have too many other people to fight for a place.
We are really looking forward to it. The last time it came near us was too many years ago to remember, and that time it actually went past the end of our road but both my husband and I were out on markets all that day. We recorded the whole day on Euro sport as they had the longest coverage at the time. When we sat down to watch that evening the coverage completely skipped our village, an ad break would you believe!!
So defo going this time. taking Mum, Dad, Sis in Law and three nephews also as they arrive on the 24th.
Lucky you Claire! The thing I would add is about safety, for you & the children and the riders. They can come past at amazing high speeds, so it's important that you make sure the kids stand well back and don't step out onto the road. If your taking pictures remember that they'll look further away than they actually are and, as seen in Yorkshire, you can get hurt as can the riders. But I guess the best thing is you're getting a chance to see one of the best sporting events ever!, enjoy your day :)
We are moving this weekend to our new home. Removal lorry arrives on Saturday (and we've still got loads of packing to do but all very excited but with nervous trepidation as well) but the added bonus is we will be going to see the penultimate stage of the TdF (the Time Trial) as that is only an hour away when we get there. As a cycling family we're pretty exited about that too!
Yes it's Condom that's 15K from us we are planning on nabbing a bit of roadside between Valence and Condom and taking a picnic. We figure we can park nearby and walk up and along the road and seatup and wait according to the Tour plan the caravan gets to valance at 11h59 and the cyclists 2 hours after that. Fingers crossed.
It's a great day out and this is the first year in years where we won't see a stage live. Get there early - no you can't drive up the course a good few hours before but you can usually drive up a road that runs perpendicular to the route and park not far away. Take a picnic, chairs, parasole if it's sunny so everyone's comfortable then sit back and enjoy! my kids have seen it from the roadside since they were born - now 7 and 5, and I've been watching stages from the roadside for the last 20 years - I used to plan holidays here to coincide with stages. As you've probably guessed - I'm a cyclist! Downer this year is that the tour doesn't come anywhere near us in the northern Tarn and OH's cousin Alex Geniez who's a pro rider with FDJ.fr didn't get a place in the FDJ Tour team (he rode the giro d'italia and will probably ride the vuelta too where he won a stage last year)
Iit can be very boring for children particularly as there is a big gap between the interesting bit for them [the publicity caravan with the chance of freebies] and the race. It's going through Condom town centre so it might be an idea to go there. The riders will have to slow a little so you may see more. See:
http://www.letour.fr/le-tour/2014/fr/parcours-general.html
for the route. You can zoom the map to show what bit of Condom the race passes along right up to street scale.