Getting There
A year earlier, I had shared France with my family.
This time, I came back to share a different kind of adventure with two good friends.
Some trips begin the moment you arrive.
This one began long before that.
Twenty-seven hours from our front doors to our hotel. Flights, trains, rental vans, and enough waiting around airports to make you question whether any trip is really worth it.
Then there was the drive.
What should have been about six hours turned into eleven. Thousands of Tour de France fans were all trying to make their way to Alpe d'Huez at the same time. Traffic slowed to a crawl as everyone squeezed onto the mountain roads.
By the time we finally arrived, we were exhausted.
And somehow...
It already felt worth it.
Rough Around the Edges
This wasn't the France trip from the year before.
No family vacation.
No nice hotels.
Just three friends. Eric, Denny, and me, staying in a small hostel in the ski village of Alpe d'Huez.
Honestly, it made the trip better.
Everything revolved around one thing.
The Tour de France.
Sometimes the Best Stories Start with a Problem
Our rental bikes were waiting in Bourg-d'Oisans.
The problem?
We weren't.
Because of the traffic getting into Alpe d'Huez the night before, we arrived after the bike shop had closed.
The next morning there was only one solution.
Eric and I ran down the mountain.
Eight miles.
More than 3,000 feet of elevation loss.
Picked up the bikes.
Then immediately turned around and rode them back up Alpe d'Huez.
What started as a transportation problem somehow became one of my favorite memories of the trip.
I have no idea how many people have ever run down Alpe d'Huez just so they could ride back up it.
I don't recommend it.
I'd probably do it again.
Stage 19
We found our spot about four kilometers from the summit.
Then we waited.
And waited.
That's one of the things people don't realize about the Tour.
The riders are only in front of you for a matter of seconds.
Everything else is the experience leading up to it.
Thousands of people from every corner of the world lined the mountain.
People shared food.
Drinks.
Stories.
Everyone spoke different languages, but somehow everyone spoke cycling.
The energy was contagious.
Then, almost without warning, the helicopters appeared.
The noise changed.
The crowd leaned forward.
And suddenly...
There was Tadej Pogačar.
The best rider in the world.
He flew past so fast it was almost impossible to process.
Then just like that...
He was gone.
The whole race passed in less than a minute.
Somehow, the memory will last a lifetime.
Fromage
I wore my Wisconsin cheesehead again.
I had worn it the year before on Mount Ventoux, so it felt only right to bring it back.
It turned into one of the funniest parts of the trip.
Every few minutes someone would yell...
"FROMAGE!"
Then they'd laugh.
Then they'd ask for a picture.
Soon it became a running joke all over the mountain.
We took selfies with people from countries all over the world.
One local told us he loved that three guys from the United States would travel all the way to Alpe d'Huez wearing a cheesehead.
He smiled and said,
"That's what the Tour is about."
I think he was right.
We Even Made TV
At one point we made the television broadcast.
For a few seconds, the cameras caught the cheesehead and our little section of the mountain.
A few minutes later my phone buzzed.
Anjali and the boys had seen us back home.
That was pretty cool.
Stage 20
The next day couldn't have been more different.
Instead of standing on the side of the mountain, we watched the finish from the VIP area at the top of Alpe d'Huez.
The perspective changed.
The excitement didn't.
Watching the riders cross the finish line after completing the Queen Stage, one of the hardest days in the Tour de France, is something I'll never forget.
Seeing it from both the roadside and the finish line over two days made the experience even better.
The Ride Home
Eventually every trip comes to an end.
The drive back to Zurich was every bit as long as we expected.
No one really cared.
We stopped for a proper steak dinner, laughed about everything that had happened over the previous few days, and started talking about the next adventure before this one had even ended.
That's usually a good sign.
Until Next Time
Before we left, we were already talking about coming back.
I think that's what happens when you find something that reminds you why you fell in love with a sport in the first place.
The mountains stay the same.
The riders change.
The stories keep getting better.
What It Was
Worth the trip.
Not because we made television.
Not because we stood a few feet away from the best cyclists in the world.
Not because we checked another bucket-list experience off the list.
Because for a few days, three friends got to immerse themselves in something they genuinely love.
The Tour is famous because of the riders.
I think people come back because of everyone else.
— Chad Kase