Stick it!

Well, back to reality. We had our time with Little "Juicy" Lucy in Baltimore last weekend (have we said how absolutely perfect and adorable she is?) and now we have to get back to "training" for the Tour. My job is to learn how to drive a stick shift as the motor home is a manual (that's all they have in France). Today, Dave rented a little Mini Cooper, put on his driving cap and attempted to turn me into Mario Andretti. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ....

I have never in my life killed a car more times or burned rubber more times than I did this morning. ....

The concept is fine, the shifting is fine ... I understand all that. But starting from zero ... ARGH! Mike Dauplaise ... there is no such thing as "feathering" to get the clutch and gas to catch. And Jeff House ... your attempts to show me how to drive your car way back in college have made an indelible mark in my memory, and it's not a good one. I'm still driving backwards down Carson Hill in Eau Claire!

Dave was incredibly patient and he said I got a grade of a B, until I absolutely killed the car in the driveway, then he marked me down to a B-. Whoops.

I did take the car out to the mailbox, by myself, while he was out riding. It only took me 4 times to get going, and we do have a small skid mark in the driveway now. Oh well, that the price we pay for this trip.

Little Lucy Rogers has arrived

We are grandparents!! Little Lucy Grace Rogers arrived on Wednesday, May 20, 2009. All is well with the family and we can't be more excited. Big, big eyes that already seem to be trying to figure out the world. We get to see her this weekend in Baltimore. Let the spoiling begin!

Nebraska headwinds = French Alps

So as I was finishing the ride Julie referenced on Sunday I was trying to convince myself that the headwinds in Nebraska are somehow a reasonable stand-in for climbing some ridiculous mountain in Andorra or France or Switzerland. Ignorance is bliss and I'm going to keep it that way for 5 more weeks and just keep looking for another 30 mph "Nebraska Clipper" to keep me in good humor. This weekend I will get to hit some good climbing outside of Baltimore when Julie and I go to meet our new grandbaby! Mike (our son) and Jenny (our daughter-in-law) are getting the action started with labor induction at 5:30 am tomorrow. Mother nature just wasn't getting the job done so a little pharmacology is in order. I think we will all have a restless night anticipating the big news tomorrow!

The Tour - on a map

Tonight, Dave and I actually sat down and mapped out the entire tour on a map of France (we're hoping to get a race bible somehow to discern the exact roads and what we'll need to bypass). Let me tell you, if Dave isn't overwhelmed, at least I am.

Maybe it looks different in person, but on a map - there's a helluva lot of ground to cover. Plus he wants to add in a ride up Alp d'Huez at the end. I'm just tired thinking about the driving!! I think I'm getting a bit more nervous about his riding now that I've seen where the routes go. Some of them go through big, big cities, others go through little towns, others go through ... nothing, oh, except those HUGE, HUGE mountains they call the Swiss and French Alps or the Pyrenees or ... or ... excuse me while I get a bag and hyperventilate.

We've decided that I might just pick him up on the outskirts of some of the big cities and drive him to the other side (well, hopefully he'll drive ... I STILL haven't begun my lessons in driving a stick shift). There are a couple of long drives between cities that the pros actually fly to (we may be taking two days to do at least one of the drives). And the mountains, did I mention the mountains?

Yeah, the motor home is equipped with a stick shift. They only rent stick shifts in France for motor homes. The only problem ... I've never learned to drive a stick shift. We have 5 weeks or less for me to learn. That freaked me out, but the "freaking" got even worse when I asked if going up the hills was the most challenging (this said, because the last time I tried to learn a stick shift was when Jeff House tried to teach me in college and I couldn't get up the hill at the football stadium; I wound up letting the cars go around me and backing back down, getting out and swearing I'd never drive a stick again - Vicki, do you remember that because you were laughing in the back seat?). No, Dave said, the worst part is really going down the hills. Did I mention the mountains yet? DOWN THE HILLS? Does he mean, off the side of mountain?

Oy veh.
- Julie

Bike case is here

We got Dave's new bike case. It's a Bike Pro USA race case. It's soft-sided with hard plastic inserts and padding (though I think we'll add more with egg-crate padding). The front tube of the bike is actually locks into place. He can actually carry 2 sets of wheels (a necessity for this trip) and a lot of "stuff" in the bag. Seems easier to tote around than the big, heavy hard-sided bags. It will also be a little easier to tuck away in the motor home. We're going to give it a test run this weekend on our trip to Baltimore to see our grandbaby (to be born tomorrow - Wednesday). Hopefully it stands up to the airport baggage carriers!

106-mile training ride

This is Dave yesterday after he got home from a 6-hour, 106-mile training ride ... "Sugar, water, sugar ... gasp, gasp ... just give me a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats."

Granted he road about 40 miles into a headwind ...

A view from the saddle...

Let my first post emphasize that my wife is the most awesome person that I know. She not only tolerates this craziness, she actually encourages me along the way. Well, I hope she has stored up a lifetime worth of good karma because this trip is over the top.

I first got hooked on the tour in 1986 when Greg Lemond won his first of three. I got hooked on riding in 1971, at the age of 12, when my best friend at the time (Ben Hinton) convinced me to ride a century (100 miles) with he and his dad (Don), who was president of the local bike club (The La Crosse Wheelmen). Riding in tennis shoes and a pair of nylon running shorts, my raw crotch and aching body were oh-so-happy to end the ride after 75 miles due to a mechanical failure on my bike that could not be repaired at the ride. In high school and college, football took over as my first love and cycling fell into obscurity until 1984 when another great friend (Brad Flick) who I worked with in Kansas City convinced me to enter a Triathon in Topeka, Kan. There were two problems with this idea ... I had no experience in distance running and I didn't know how to swim!

Relatively minor details that would be overcome by the enduring love of a challenge that seems to persist in my life. Fast forward to 2004 after more triathlons, bike races and crashes than I can count, I have now given up running (the four knee surgeries and two foot and ankle surgeries eventually put an end to the running). Biking is now king and I'm enjoying the sport with our local team in Green Bay, Wis (The Bellin Health/In Competition Cycling Team). On one fateful day of training in July of that year, a relatively low-speed crash left me laying in the road with a broken left hip/femur.

Julie and the kids (son Mike and daughter Liz) met me in the ER (wasn't the first time) and I went to the OR that night where my friend and orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Marc Anderson, screwed my leg back together. Unfortunately the screws didn't do the trick so we got to repeat the surgery about 10 days later with plates, screws and a large bolt that remain in my hip today.
I resumed riding in early September and that Christmas, my family rewarded me with a two-week trip to Belgium and France with my good friend and cycling enthusiast Fred Sheppard to attend the Spring Classics (famous 100-year-old-plus single-day bike races held in Belgium, France and Italy each spring) as impetus to get back to hard training. We would see the famous Tour of Flanders, Gent Wevelgem and Paris Roubaix. The Tour of Flanders and Paris Roubaix are considered the most difficult single-day races in cycling. Each is 256 km long (about 154 miles) and both cover many sections of rough cobblestone roads that jar the body like you can't believe. I said to Fred, "if we're going all that way to watch the races, I think I should try to ride the courses." The next 3 months are just a blur of riding the trainer, rollers, plowed frozen fields and frigid Wisconsin roads. By late March I was ready, and by the end of the trip I had seen and experienced the greatest cycling culture on earth and had achieved the goals I set forth. It was then that I knew the next and ultimate cycling challenge could only be the route of the Tour de France. It would be the "Everest of Cycling" if completed, but even getting to "base camp" would be an accomplishment.

In keeping with my habit of making life just a bit more challenging, I decided to "kiss the pavement" again in July of 2007 with a spectacular crash on Maple Street in Omaha, Neb.
Knocked unconscious with a broken collarbone, 4 broken ribs, a shattered scapula and a punctured lung, I enjoyed some really good drugs in the Trauma Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center for several days with surgery on the collarbone to follow.
By now family and friends were begging me to hang up the cleats but for some reason, that thought just nevers seem to enter my mind. So here I am, still riding and still dreaming. In 6 weeks I'll be off to France to take on some unfinished business on the "Bucket List." I hope you will stay tuned in for the ride.
- Dave

About the trip

It's funny how different people have reacted to this trip. I need to clear up a few misconceptions:

No, Dave will not be riding the Tour de France with Lance and the boys. Though we all think Dave is a great bike rider, he's not THAT good! (No disrespect meant, Dave!) Lance and the boys are professionals, meaning they don't have to work a second job in order to earn an income. They can just ride their bikes each and every day. Dave, on the other hand, NEEDS his job at Children's in order for us to take this trip ... or eat, for that matter. He's only an amateur racer. He's what is classified, in biking terms, as a Cat 3 racer.

On the other hand, Dave WILL be riding as much of the same route as Lance and the boys will be riding as he can, only a few days earlier. Unfortunately, when the Tour occurs, roads and traffic are shut down in order for the race to come through the cities and towns along the route. Dave won't be so fortunate, so he will have to put up with traffic and other obstacles. In fact, in Monaco, the route goes the wrong way on a one-way street. He may need to pass on that for safety's sake and take a parallel route.

Now, hold your breath - for those who don't know how long the route is, Dave will be trying to ride approximately 3,471 km, or for those of us who need an American translation - about 2,160 miles. Yeah, so I can barely ride 20 miles, let alone 100-plus times that. The route covers three weeks (the Tour begins on July 4 and ends on July 26 - watch it on Versus, if you get that channel), starting in Monaco and ending in Paris. There are three short days (a 9-mile time trial in Monaco - but don't let the length fool you, it is extremely hilly - a 22-mile team time trial in Marseille, France, and a 24 mile time trial in Annecy, France), but most days are between 96 miles and 135 miles (the longest being a mountainous 135-mile stretch between Barcelona, Spain, and Andorra). He'll have two rest days, the first after about nine days and the second after another 6 days.

One big detour we will be taking is Dave won't be riding the last leg of the Tour, which is into Paris (it's a 96-mile day). In talking to friends, one journalist friend in particular of mine who covers the race for ESPN.com, they told us to stay away from the chaos of Paris. We decided to heed that advice. Thus, if Dave is up for it, we may take his final day and go find another mountain for him to climb in France before we pack up.

Lofty goals, we know. But we're excited to be able to do this and to do this together. Who better to do this kind of trip with than with your best friend?

A Blogger's Beginning

I'm a copy editor, and I've told everyone I'm not a writer, so we'll see where this goes. Dave and I are preparing for our "epic" journey - a month-long trip to France (June 28 to July 29) with pitstops in Monaco, Spain, Andorra, Switzerland and Italy. We get to see the Mediterranean, the French Riviera, the French Alps, the Swiss Alps and more. Let's just hope we don't get to see any pave' along the way (that's French for 'pavement' for all you Americans!). We bought the tickets - I thought there were bargains out there for European trips, but I thought wrong! We rented the mobile home (I'm hoping this home/car/dining room on wheels is a bargain because the sticker shock still hasn't gone away). The pups are staying with our incredible breeder in Green Bay (we LOVE them), which means we're flying OUT of Green Bay (damn the 10-hour drive, but we can sleep on the 15-hour flight!). Liz gets the cat back. We've got someone to watch the house, mow the lawn. We bought the maps, tour guides and French phrase book. With a month-and-a-half to go, we're in pretty good shape, right??? .... ah, no! Now Dave is buying his biking gear. A new bike box, a new crank (isn't he cranky already?), building up the Merlin so he can decide if that's what he wants to take (was THAT in the deal????), new wheels (??), etc., etc. Hmmmm, something's fishy here.