dauphiné libéré

In France, there is never a lack of cyclosporting events.

Today, the Dauphiné Libéré came to town. The Libéré is an annual 8-stage road race in the Dauphiné region in France, and is considered to be a important lead up to the Tour de France (TdF) later in July. In fact, most of the TdF winners have won the Libéré at one point or another in their careers.

So anyway after spending 7 days in the grand cols in France, the peloton finally arrived in Grenoble for the finish. And I (with like the rest of the Grenoblois) was there to welcome them.

Team CSC had won the previous stage, and so I was hoping that its form would continue until Grenoble. But alas it was not to be and Valverde from Caisse d'Espagrne took the win, and the yellow jersey overall.

the lead three coming in

ZOOM!

There was nothing much to do after the race so I headed over to the team area. Because of my Cervélo and my jersey, there were quite a few people who thought that I was also a CSC rider! Many just snapped away at my P2C, but one even asked me if he could have my bottle (which was also CSC) as a souvenir. The cheek of him! =P

Anyway the (real) riders were all very nice and I managed to get autographs of the entire team on my jersey. Now, that's is one thing which I am not in a hurry to wash! In addition, I got a couple of bottles and caps as well. Nice!

Just too bad that there were no spare Zipps or P3Cs to give away.

menacing looking truck

the motherlode

Can't wait for the Tour to come! Allez! Allez! Allez!