Schlucht Spectators

John Myrick checks out the scene at the mountain points line on the Col de la Schlucht.

Today we got to start in high style by rolling downhill from our hotel in Riquewhir to get right on the Tour de France course. Any one who has followed the Tour at all knows this is a rare luxury, one you don’t take for granted. And we certainly got the most out of our debut with the Tour. We welcomed cheers and chants from groups of roadside fans, normally gathered around small tables of croissants, espresso and that day’s L’Equipe newspaper.

For the most part, our 45-mile ride followed the ubiquitous fluorescent yellow Tour de France arrows through villages like Ribeauville, Turckheim, Ingersheim and Walbach. The Tour organization normally puts these arrows up about 24-hours before the actual stage to indicate the route to all the hundreds of support people who have to be along the course. What often happens though is that these arrows disappear and end up in some fan’s backpack or on the dashboard of a motor home. But despite a few missing arrows and my attempts to take us all of course, we managed to keep our group of ten rolling to the village of Munster at the base of the Col de la Schlucht. (Yes, this is the Munster of Munster cheese fame and you can get big plates of the stuff here.)

I rode up the first part of the climb with Aaron Kirkemo from North Oaks, Minnesota and Wayne Schiewe from Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. Aaron has been dreaming about following the Tour de France on a bike since he first saw the event as a non-cycling spectator in Lourdes. He has been a cyclist most of his life and loves the sport. He had to put his passion on hold for a few years though when he began suffering paralysis in his left leg. Despite surgery and a year-long recovering in a wheel chair, Aaron clicked off the K on the Schlucht climb with ease.

As one of the first major challenges of the Tour so far, the climb was packed with fans hungry for action. Most of them were German and the popular team on the climb was easily Gerolsteiner. Motor homes filled every last spot along the climb. Cyclists of all ages and abilities worked their way up this gentle climb. I saw one girl who was about five years old riding a tiny little pink bike. Her father was giving her pushes and she was making it up the climb in fine form.

Our perfect day continued at the top of the climb at the Hotel-Restaurant du Chalet where a multi-course lunch and huge mugs of beer waited for us. After filling those important needs we all went outside to secure course side spots.

The crowds were seven to ten people deep and any decent viewing required some elevation. Just as I was checking out an inviting window ledge, I heard Susie Williams from Sidney, Australia call my name. She was up on another ledge tucked in between a couple of German fans and helped me up. We had a great view of the line for the mountain points and Jean-Luc kept us up to date on what was going on with the race from his spot in front of the television the VéloSport crew had set up in the restaurant. The moment we had all worked for came and Andreas Kloden and Pieter Weening sailed by us just a pink and orange blur as they summitted, zipped up their jerseys and prepared for the finishing descent. For our first day in the mountains, the Col de la Schlucht provided a perfect introduction.