It%26#39;s our bad luck to be leaving Paris on the morning of the last day of the Tour de France and so will miss the big finish, which must be very exciting. We are considering renting a car and driving the 53 miles to Saint-Amand-Montrond on Saturday. This is the town the cyclists finish at on Saturday. Does anyone know if the town of Saint-Amand-Montrond has special events going on. Is it a pretty town to visit? Would it be a nice drive? And do you think it%26#39;s worth the time to do this, since we are arriving in Paris on the Thursday about noon and have to leave Sunday morning -- 2.5 day visit.
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Generally speaking, the towns and cities Le Tour passes through don%26#39;t do anything special to celebrate it other than decorating the route. There are no festivals, concerts, post-race parties or anything like that. Post race, you%26#39;d be hard pressed to find any evidence that anything exciting happened that day. The party occurs during the day as the spectators line the route with their wine and picnics waiting hours for the publicity caravan and riders to arrive.
Keep in mind that the stage you are considering to watch is an individual time trial. So if you are hoping to see the big peloton whiz by, you won%26#39;t see it. You just will just see individual riders come one after the other (3-5 minutes apart). The advantage of this stage is that you can show up at anytime and you will see riders (as opposed to most stages where you are waiting 4 hours for the peloton to arrive). The disadvantage is that ITTs can be kinda boring to watch after you%26#39;ve seen a couple riders. Is it worth it? I think it%26#39;s a neat thing to experience at least once, to get a sense of how fast these guys ride and to experience the biggest cycling race in the world. If you plan on going to watch, what I would do is to go first thing in the morning - early enough to experience the 20km long publicity caravan and collect some of the free swag they toss out to the crowds (hats, shirts, keychains, pens, coffee, candy - you name it, they toss it). The caravan preceeds the riders approximately an hour before the first rider is expected. Then you can watch a few riders arrive and if you like what you see, stick around. Once you%26#39;ve had enough, you can move on with your day.
If you check the main Tour site (www.letour.fr - click the Union Jack flag in the top right corner for the English site) and click on Stage 20, they always have a description of the towns the tour passes through. They also have a detailed race schedule of when the caravan and riders are expected to arrive.
Hope this helps!
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Thank you for the great info! We%26#39;ve decided not to go however. We%26#39;re there for such a short time.
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