Sunday, July 26, 2009, Place De La Concorde, Paris, France. Tour De France Final Stage. 400 meters from the finish line!

What can I say – I showed up unprepared! Kim and I were standing right outside the Astana bus and we did not have a pen, paper, or camera battery worth a S - - t!!! What a bummer! I could have had the entire Astana team sign something. Except for Contador – I never saw him.

Trek Travel put together a wonderful tour. There was no riding for me but I met plenty of people that did do a riding tour – many rode up Mont Ventoux. I heard only positive things about the Trek Tour programs and our group leader, Krissy Johnson was very helpful and available to answer any question and to make any changes in our schedule. There were daily group meetings of my tour group in the hotel lobby. We watched the tour on TV and ate and drank! This is where we were able to meet the SRAM corporate team - nice people who just happened to be a part of our tour group. And while I didn’t talk to anyone from the Trek Team – the President – John Burke was there daily.

On the final day of the tour we all walked over to the prestigious Automobile Club De Paris. You wouldn’t believe the atmosphere – the wait staff just kept bringing out huge platters of fancy appetizers. There were new Trek bikes and a lot of employees and Trek Travel tour participants here. We saw Lance’s mom, girl friend and baby! It was also a beautiful day! We thought we’d watch from the balcony overlooking the Champs-Élysées. Kim and I decided to try walking across the street to the team area. Security was tight. To our surprise we got in without a problem with our Trek Travel badges on! We hung out at the Team Astana bus most of the time. We were within a foot of Lance! We saw them get in and out of their bus. Their girl friends or spouses were there. But can you believe it? My camera battery died!! And I had nothing for these riders to sign!! I did get one picture of Lance and a bunch of Johan Bruyneel. I did get a good picture of Carlos Sastre. Andy Schleck walked right by me. And this is all immediately after the race – before they went back to the podium.

A little later, as we were leaving the area, I shook hands with Christian Vande Velde of team Garmin Slipstream. That team was very approachable. I just went right up to his team bus after the race and asked to shake his hand. What a nice guy! I did help Robbie Ventura stand up one of the Astana team cars as he was filming with a hand-held video camera. The crowd was really excited around the Astana bus and Kim and I were in the absolute front!