Thomas Voekler Wins!!!!

Spain gave us Picasso and Dali. We gave them . . . McDonalds and KFC. Hardly seems fair does it!

Got back to room at 10:30 pm local time -- straight from dinner! They do eat late here. And the toilets in public areas -- they are so cool! Each is its own room -- they aren't stalls they are actual rooms! Full door, tile walls -- even in the service station we stopped in!

What a day -- 2 climbs in the 11 k and 15 k range. Not too steep. The first climb was a favorite of Lances -- he took it from the other side though (steeper of course!). The 2nd climb is named the Hincapie climb after the dreamy George Hincapie (did I tell you Joe is my favorite nephew! He got me into a private party, a pic, an autograph!). His name is even painted on the climb.

I climbed well and finished in the top 5 each time (albeit a mixed group of cyclists) but got third in the king of the mountain sprint at the 2nd climb! Had a few riders topple over at steep parts. One guy was descending and looked about and fell off the right hand side of the road -- thankfully he is a mountain biker because I don't know how he stayed up let along got back on the road. We were descending mind you! Then another guy came up to me and asked if I thought he did that on purpose kind of chuckling at him -- we went about a curve and he panicked a bit and locked up his front brake -- and crashed rather badly! Noone on any were hurt too badly.

The country side in spain is absolutely beautiful -- a bit more of the clay roofs and hacienda's that I guess I expected. I hope that the photos do it some justice.

Then off for Perpignan in France for the stage finish. The Pyrenees loomed large off to the West -- we'll get to those soon enough I think! The border crossing is a bit weird -- on the way in there were several police gathered in one spot staring ominously our particular row of cars going past. On the way back into Spain they were off to the side laughing and joking paying the cars no mind. I guess the wonders of the EU.

Amazing how disruptive the tour is to a town! Traffic backed forever but we have a sticker on our vehicles that allowed us to sail through. Seeing the tour is a true spectacle. We were in a VIP area 150 m from the finish with food (by Sodexho for those of you at OSU!) There were TV's but once the caravan came by it was close to the end and we didn't want to give up our spots on the barricade so we missed towards the end. But basically Thomas attacked from the break and held the peloton off to the finish. He is one of my favs, cute as a button so I was quite happy!

On the way back to the vehicles I was scoping out any famous cyclist. Eric, one of our French guides, raced at a lower professional level and seems to know everyone so once he got wind of my interest he started to introduce me to all the former riders he knew. The best was Richard Virenque!! 5 time winner of the Polka Dot (for best climber) jersey at the tour. Got a pic and an autograph. Eric set up the photo and I asked for the auto -- Eric said later he was quite surprised as Richard typically doesn't do autographs. And then of course I did into my bag for the photo of him I had brought with me. Eric said the look on his face was priceless. So not only did he sign he showed off his (younger) photo to his wife.

So I was quite over the moon! On the way back to Spain Eric asked to see my book of photos so we talked a bit. Think they are suprised to see such a fan, especially and American that knows anything about Eurpoean cycling prior to Lance -- a bit impressed too! So I hope to have a new best friend tomorrow in the start village as that will be the best chance to get photo's and autographs. So I am a bit of a geek and somewhat amusing to the bunch but at least a quite prepared one!

So to Girona center to spend the morning in the rider's start village, then we ride into Andorra.

Bon nuit. A Bientot. Demain a Andorra