Etape 6 - Annecy

Woke as usual when the sun rose and chose to flick the ok, ok, ok breakfast in favour for something in Borg d'sions. It actually took us quite a while to find somewhere that served food instead of alcohol. This may not sound so strange, however at 9am it is!

We stopped in at one of the many bike shops to load up on a few supplies, then loaded up on food in one of the few boulangeries. There were a lot of cyclists around and they also had numbers on their handlebars. Then we noticed the blow up starting contraption and realised there was a race up the Alpe. We declined the opportunity to back it up, especially when we heard the record was 40-odd minutes (about 5min more than the all time / pro record).

We thought we would cut out the middle man and head straight to Annecy for the time trial. Fortunately Annecy is fairly well sign posted, so we did not have to rely on the Garmin (who we have lovingly named "The Bitch").

Arrived at Annecy and as usual The Big Unit (TBU) set us up with a primo parking spot. No one was smart enough to take a photo of the street or cross street, even though we had just finished talking about it. Surely we would remember where we parked!

TBU made himself known to the locals, with a classic "give me five" with hand held out to a local lass, and she recipricated. So he had already picked up the vibe.

Now to find a primo spot. We briefly thought of having another go at the thirty minutes of madness, however the security was beefed up compared to Martingy. We did see a couple of Columbia HTC riders on the walk there, and then Felipe Pozzato jump the fence to get into the team enclosure (not only Aussie yobbos jump the fence!).

An absolute classic was when we found a bloke selling beer right near the start line for about two euro a pop. He could have charged whatever he wanted and we would have paid it. He was our new best friend.

Early doors, the riders are separated by a minute. Each rider has a team car with bikes on top and a few police motorcycles as escorts as well as a few other cars every now and then with sponsors, competition winners, etc in them. This may not sound like much, however multiply this by nine riders per team and twenty one teams. Ok, a few had dropped out by then, so maybe 170 riders - a logistical nightmare!

We found a spot and managed to get a few snapshots of the riders going by. The funniest thing was when an excited Texan came up to us showing what he thought was a great photo of Lance. Our response was that it was a great photo, however it was Kloden, not Lance. Lance was coming next. Then came the brothers Schleck (one at a time) and then Contador.

We also bumped into Deb and Jamie, which was great - in particular for TBU as he had forgotten about a planned dinner a few nights earlier. The former had the little known (outside of cycling) Australian legend Phil Anderson with them. A few snapshots with Phil and we also had to inform him about Big Unit Tours. He did not seem worried, however had to make a hasty exit which says he was packing darkies (I have not used that term for about 25 years!). Seriously, a great bloke, who does not take himself too seriously, and also an idol of mine growing up. FYI - he was the team leader for Motorola when Lance was starting.

Once the big boys had rolled around it was time for us to crack out the bikes and have a go ourselves. Once we found the car and extracted our bikes, the course was a bit tougher than we thought, especially the Category 3 climb, that had three distinct phases - the top of each we kept thinking was the top!

Back to the car and back home. A team decision was made for a mid day exit to head to Mt Ventoux.