If we do nothing, nothing will change

July 18 - Stage 14  / July 19 - Stage 15 / Rest Day / July 21 - Stage 16 / Tour Scenery / July 22 - Stage - 17

July 23 - Stage 18 / July 24 - Stage 19 / July 25 - Stage 20 / July 26 - Stage 21 / Photo Gallery

July 21 - Stage 16

Early start today, as Angie was just getting back from the U2 concert in Amsterdam, so she started the day tired, no surprise there. We had a two hour drive to the 2nd climb of the day, which was where we planned to be. Angie called this day the boobie stage - if you looked at the profile, you'd know why, with two big climbs. We were on the road early enough to put us on the mountain two or three hours before the riders arrived. Well sometimes things don't go as planned. First I have managed to lose a couple of our small LiveStrong signs. Let's just sy they're somewhere between France, Switzerland and Italy. I'll kick myself for the rest of the punishment. No big worries because we have our huge Hope Rides Again banner.

Angie went to sleep pretty quick on the drive to the stage. Not always a problem, but occasionally, and maybe it's more that I'm not used to how they mark the roads here, but I have a hard time navigating and driving, so Angie reads the gps or map and I help look for road signs. Needless to say, with that leadup, I missed a turn which, in a nutshell took us 45 minutes out of the way into Italy. We ended up stopping and eating some pizza, which was surprisingly bad, then drove back to where I made my bad turn. After almost missing it again, we finally got on course. At this point our time schedule was totally screwed and we were in danger of missing the riders today. We parked a few miles off the course and rode our tandem to the course, turned up the mountain and started climbing. The sponsor caravan had already gone by, which proceeds the riders by about an hour and the course was already cleared and people were just sitting around waiting on the riders. All they had was Angie and me on our tandem, so they cheered for us as we rode by. Team cars started passing us also, so we decided we better find a good p[lace and stop before it was too late. I got the sign hung as we chatted with an Austrailian couple that was on a 3 month vacation in Europe. How the heck do you take off work for 3 months and keep a job or pay bills? Good for them. After we had the sign hung Angie saw a girl in a LiveStrong shirt walking towards us. Kate and her husband Jeff, who was just back from Iraq, were celebrating his safe return home by vacationing at the Tour. They are going to try to meet us in Paris for the last day, also.

We hadn't been setup more than 20 or 30 minutes, when the first riders in the breakaway came by. With no threats to the overall, we knew the leaders wouldn't be chasing hard to catch them. However it wasn't long before the Astana led group of leaders was on us. Lance looked over an gave us a nod as he saw he Hope banner.

The Rest of the riders came by in groups. We felt bad for one of the Skill-Shimano riders as he was in such obvious pain that it looked like we was about to get off his bike and quit. We all cheered and encouraged him and he picked back up and struggled passed us. Don't know if he made it or not. Shortly after the last rider a van pulled up waving at us. It was one of our best friends, as well as Lance's/Astana photographer Liz Kreutz! She's the one that shot the pic for the banner. We were so happy that she saw the CNN International broadcast yesterday when they put the banner picture up.

What started as a potentially disastrous day, turned out to be a pretty good one after all.