Friday, July 07, 2006
Tour de France - Huy, Belgium
 | Wednesday we made a trip to Huy, Belgium to witness a part of the travelling circus show called the Tour de France. We caught a 7:30 train to Huy (transfer in Namur) arriving shortly after 9:00. Huy lies along the river Meuse, in the Belgian province of Liège. It was a very nice little town, worth visiting and one of the oldest towns in Belgium. There was a gondola that went from the river to the top of the Citadel, and across to the next hill top, unfortunately we did not have the time to check this out, plus it was too hot to do any climbing up steep old roads. |
 | Ever wonder how a marching band performs at a cycling event? Well, neither have I.... but they get on bikes (for the one handed instruments such as trumpets) or tandem bikes (for two handed instruents such as the snares and clarinets). This band just went around the round about for a while. |
  | The race start was about 500m from the station so finding it was easy and straight forward. It started on the river bank near the base of the Citadel du Huy. We had an hour to scope out the scene, take pictures with team cars and receive our free breakfast: deux pain au chocolate, OJ/coffee and race bottles. |
   | The race was scheduled to begin at 10:35, with a pre-race "procession" at 10:30. We got our spot along the fence, 5m into the race side of the start line at 10:20. We were so set to catch the 20 seconds of upcoming excitement. Promptly at 10:30 the procession began: it was a caravan of race sponsors. Like the ads before a movie, cars and trucks drove by like a parade and went on forever, about 40 minutes. Each vehicle had been modified to advertise whatever product had sponsored the event. And they all had people harnessed onto the displays. I would call this the clown's side show. Why were there cars made to look like pens? and what does a pen company have to do with sponsoring the Tour de France? Anyway, as you can see by these examples, there is a lot of money thrown into this event. |
  | Obviously the race did not begin at 10:35. We had to wait in the heat for another 1.5 hours for the race to start. All the while listening to the MC blab about stuff (French blabbing of course). Then they introduced each of the 172 riders at the podium (behind my head in the first picture) as the riders signed their names to something. The town was very excited about this start, a Belgian - Tom Boonen - started this leg of the race wearing the yellow jersey. Finally at 12:15 the riders started making their way to the start line. At 12:20.00 they started. At 12:20.30 we could no longer see them, our work there was done. (<> |
 | Imidieatley after the bikers went by we got see all their shiny spare bikes as the team vehicles drove by.... mmmmm........ |
Watch my start video (8Mb)
(or on Google)
This was a great day trip.
# posted by Us : 12:21 p.m.
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Hello,
Congratulations for your nice blog ! I hope that you enjoy Belgium... and Belgian people (and beer, of course, but that I know ;-).
feel free to visit my blog (in French) for other day trip ideas : http://mercrediapresmidi.blogspot.com/
I also watched the "Tour de France" on the same day, but in Andenne, 20km after the departure.
Kind regards,
Sylvie
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Congratulations for your nice blog ! I hope that you enjoy Belgium... and Belgian people (and beer, of course, but that I know ;-).
feel free to visit my blog (in French) for other day trip ideas : http://mercrediapresmidi.blogspot.com/
I also watched the "Tour de France" on the same day, but in Andenne, 20km after the departure.
Kind regards,
Sylvie
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