Day 4

I'm back on schedule now. Today was another great day at the Tour. This morning after breakfast, I held a mini-clinic with the mechanics to educate them more on our products. They're not complicated products, but in this situation, they need to be as simple as possible. Once I finished that, I headed to the start to avoid walking more than 2km from where I had to park. I have credentials to get into team parking, but only by foot. so I get to the Centre Ville, or downtown square, and wait for the team to arrive. Omega Pharma was first, so I stopped by to see how things were going. Of course things were great and I left them with some spare parts. You never know when they might need spares. I spent time with BMC yesterday, so need to see them today, so I spent the rest of the time with CTT. What does this entail? When the mechanics get the bikes ready, the riders are still in the bus having their team meeting and probably drinking lots of espresso. I'm not joking here. While they do their thing, I triple check that all the computers are working properly. Once that's done, I hang out and watch people fight for autographs and photos. It's really pretty crazy. I might go talk to other team laisons that I know, or check in with other teams. Then the riders go sign in and head to the start. This is about the time I head back to the car. But today, Damon and I, Damon is the Race Engineer from Cervelo, managed to get very lost on the way back to our cars. To add insult to injury, it was about 90 degrees today. Yeah, very hot. And hungry. Well, we managed to find the cars, but before we left, stopped at a little restaurant and had some sandwiches. I should say ham, cheese, mayo, salad (lettuce), all on a 12 inch baguette. It was fantastic and totally French! To make a long story short, I made it to the team hotel (another 160km by car from the start) and did my job. I'll have more tomorrow on what happened next...