We Waited All Day for 12 Seconds of Glory
You don’t go to the Tour de France for the race. You go for the waiting.
At least that’s what I realized, standing on a hillside above Lac de Vouglans, three hours into a picnic with no bathroom, wondering if we were even facing the right direction.
It was July 21st, 2023 — Stage 19 of the Tour, from Moirans-en-Montagne to Poligny, deep in the Jura Mountains. Our home base that summer was Burgundy and visiting us were our good friends from the States, Eric and Cindy.
Denise and Cindy go way back. They have been best friends since childhood, practically sisters from another mister. Eric is a straight-by-the-book aeronautical engineer — with a very long wild hair. He also lives for the Tour de France. This plan was set in motion the moment we decided to move to France. We chose Burgundy for July just to do this.
Also along for the ride: my buddy Kevin and his wife Wendy. Kevin and I have been friends for 45 years. He runs a sports agency and lives for this kind of stuff — big crowds, big energy, big finish. The Tour checked all the boxes. He and Wendy were over in the British Isles for some big work event, and the idea of having them join us felt like the perfect capper.
So we packed up two cars and headed east — armed with baguettes and coolers full of French ham, cheese, mustard, wine, and whatever snacks were lying around. We drove east through the Jura Mountains — stunning, twisty, green in that storybook way.
About 30 minutes in, Eric called me and said he was in what he called the Danger Zone — and not the fun Kenny Loggins kind. We were in the middle of nowhere. I told him we’d stop at the first place we found and said I hoped his muscles were feeling strong.
A sign for McDonald’s appeared — 10 minutes ahead. We were getting near some civilization. We came into a small town that had a little market. We pulled into the grocery store. No dice. Eric mumbled something about the McDonald’s. I mumbled something about France and the sharp left turn we had to make in a quarter mile. We kept driving.
Not five minutes later, as we climbed into the hills toward La Tour-du-Meix, Eric’s car disappeared over the rise ahead of me — driving noticeably faster than usual. As I crested the hill, there was no sign of Eric. Then Denise shouted “there he is!” Eric and Cindy were parked in a field next to a copse of trees, in our little rental car.
I backed up and pulled down the path. As we approached, Cindy was laughing and Eric looked like a man in a forest who’s made peace with his decisions. A man who had stared into the forest — and found the courage to go forward.
We never spoke of what happened in those trees. We didn’t have to.
The Hill Above Lac de Vouglans
We found our spot just after the race would cross the bridge at Pont de la Pyle — a hillside above where the riders would emerge from the trees and make a hard left. We couldn’t see the lake itself, but we knew it was down there, maybe a mile away, somewhere in the folds of green that made the Jura so stunning.
We set up camp: baguettes, mustard, French ham, rosé, snacks, and six people having the picnic of a lifetime. There was that sense of wonder that only comes when you’re doing a bucket list thing in a place you’ve never been, with people you love, and no idea what to expect.
Friends from different corners of life, dropped together into the middle of nowhere for one of the world’s great spectacles. At first, it was just us. Then the hillsides started to fill in. One car. Then another. Then a couple of campers. People waving, unfolding chairs, laying out picnics like we had. It felt festive. Like we had stumbled into a secret French tradition.
“We chased a blur of legs through the Jura, nearly died on a mountain road, missed the finish line, and still had one of the best days of our lives ”
And then… the realization hit. There were no facilities. No port-a-potties. No cafés. No buildings. Just the beautiful, wild Jura — and about 200 people eating sausage and drinking wine with no clear plan for later.
We looked down the hill. The lake had to be somewhere down there. I handed Sully’s leash to Denise, and me, Erick, and Kevin set off — not to hunt for food, but for relief.
It was nearly a mile downhill, but we found a bathroom tucked inside a lakeside beach facility. Hallelujah. Worth it. But also: way too far for the girls.
Let’s just say the three of us had the kind of outdoor party pedigrees that prepared us for this. The ladies did not sign up for impromptu nature relief.
So we improvised.
When we got back, we knew decisions had to be made. We formed a wall — a silent, facing-outward arc of support and denial — and gave each woman their turn behind it.
Difficult times call for a little ingenuity. And a good team.
Caravane Fever (and the Danger of Incoming Bottles)
Before the riders, there's the caravane publicitaire — high-speed parade of sponsor floats, music blaring, staff throwing branded swag into the crowd like caffeinated Mardi Gras.
It’s wild. Haribo, Orangina, Cochonou sausage vans — all flying past in a blur of color and polyester. Kids scramble for gummy bears. Grown adults dive into ditches for free salami.
Denise caught some snacks. Cindy scored a branded hat and a sausage stick. Erick got a handful of Orangina caps.
Me?
I got smoked in the back of the head by a Century 21 keychain and barely dodged a Vittel water bottle doing 30k an hour. One second you’re waving at a cartoon bottle of laundry detergent, the next you’re ducking like you’re in a war zone made of plastic.
It felt like a cosmic joke. Everyone else was getting gummies and French swag.
I was a target.
The Riders Arrive and Kevin Nearly Joins Them
After hours of laughing, snacking, and watching sausage vans whip past us at 70 kilometers an hour, the mood on the hillside began to shift. You could feel it.
It started with the cheering — faint at first, echoing from the road down near the lake. The sound crept up from the valley like thunder from a summer storm.
Cheering. Cowbells. The distant thrum of something big and fast drawing closer. The peloton was coming!
My heart started to flutter. Uninvited and undeniable.
It was the strangest thing — one minute I was a middle-aged guy drinking rosé out of a plastic cup, and the next I was the kid version of me, the one who used to sprint down the block barefoot when he heard the ice cream truck. That sudden, irrational belief that something extraordinary was about to happen. That pull toward something exciting. But this time, the truck was coming at 50 kilometers an hour with 120 of the world’s most finely tuned bodies strapped to it.
Because it was.
These were the best cyclists in the world. Athletes who’d trained their entire lives for this. And they were about to fly past me — right here, in the middle of nowhere, where we’d been eating sandwiches and guarding pop-up bathrooms made of humans.
And then… I saw Kevin.
Standing in the road.
Why is Kevin in the road?
Why is Denise taking his picture?
I’ve always assumed one of my friends would eventually cause an international incident — but I didn’t think D would be encouraging it.
They scrambled out of the road just in time.
Then came the sound. Not noise — sound. Then louder. A hum that became a roar. And then the wind hit us.
A whoosh. A wave of power.
The peloton.
A hundred bodies. Giant legs moving like pistons, wheels slicing the air like blades. A blur of faces locked in focus and sweat. Color, motion, sweat, power, a stampede of precision tearing past us so fast your brain couldn’t keep up.
It wasn’t a blur. It was a shockwave.
My chest thumped. My skin tightened. Pressure, pulsing, adrenaline, excitement — all of it surging at once. Every reason I’ve ever loved sports, every ounce of awe I’d forgotten I could feel, compressed into fifteen glorious seconds of sound and fury and speed.
And then… silence.
Just like that. No fade, just gone.
Everyone ran out into the road to catch one last glimpse as the riders made a hard left turn and hit full speed in a coordinated, unstoppable machine.
Even before I caught my breath. It was over.
The Second Spot
We had just seen the greatest cyclists in the world fly past like a pack of human missiles — and, like groupies on a road trip, we raced to see them again. As the riders made that sharp left turn, they disappeared down the hill — heading south.
But we knew something others didn’t.
The race was set to finish north, in Poligny. Which meant the course would loop back around — and the peloton would have to pass through again, just ten miles west of where we were.
So we jumped in the cars and headed that way, hoping to catch one more glimpse before the finish line.
This second stop didn’t have the same electricity. No crowd buzz. No suspense. No ice cream truck feeling.
But we got close. Real close.
This time, we could hear the gears clicking. We could see the grimaces — eyes locked ahead, every movement precise and machine-like. We snapped photos.
We watched one of the Jumbo-Visma guys hit a tight corner like it owed him money. Total control. Total rage.
Above us, helicopters hovered low, trailing the leaders. You could feel the magnitude of the operation — the scope of it all. This wasn’t a village party anymore. It was big business moving at 60 kilometers an hour.
Then, just like before, they were gone.
The Road to Poligny
Eric said he thought that we could beat the riders to Poligny to see them at the finish line.
The plan was simple: hop in the cars, drive to Poligny. Easy enough. Unless you factor in narrow mountain roads, zero signage, and the creeping fatigue of a full day under the French sun.
Everyone piled in. Kevin rode shotgun with me. The girls took the other car. Within minutes, they were snoozing. Kevin was half-awake, riding that line between jet lag and rosé nap.
I was focused.
The road was tight — one of those French backroads that seems charming until you realize it’s barely wider than your car. But I knew where we were going. Or at least I acted like I did. Erick, being the detail guy he is, had mapped it out hours earlier. I just followed the plan.
We were maybe 20 minutes in, winding through a shaded section of forest, when it happened.
Out of nowhere — a semi.
A massive semi.
Coming around a blind corner. Taking up the entire road. And moving like it had somewhere to be.
Instinct kicked in. I yanked the wheel hard to the right, tires brushing the edge of the road, knuckles white. The truck barreled past, missing us by inches.
That’s when Kevin, still half-asleep, opened one eye and said:
“Oh wow.”
That was it.
No warning. No curse. No “LOOK OUT.” Just… “Oh wow.”
I turned to him — once the danger had passed — and said, “Dude, if we didn’t make it, that was gonna be your last recorded thought on Earth?”
He shrugged. “I stand by it.”
From the backseat, Erick stirred and mumbled, “What just happened?”
I said, “We almost got our ass handed to us on a turn by a massive semi.”
Kevin nodded. “I said ‘oh wow.’”
Erick, still half-asleep, replied, “Well, good. You’re doing a good job,” and went right back to sleep.
Poligny
The reason we pushed so hard to get to Poligny wasn’t just to see the finish — it was because the final six miles were a straightaway. Sprinter’s paradise. One last all-out burst of power.
We figured: if we made it in time, we’d see the purest kind of Tour drama — guys hitting 70 km/h on dead-flat tarmac, elbows flared, legs pistoning like jackhammers. Sprinters' glory.
When we got to town, it felt like a full-blown festival. Streets packed, music playing, flags waving. We found a table at a café just off the main drag and collapsed into our chairs. Kevin ordered a vodka tonic — and it arrived with one ice cube floating in the middle like a sad little glacier.
He looked at me. I said, “Welcome to France.”
We struck up a conversation with the bar owner — who, despite the party atmosphere, was deep in a rant about taxes and city permits. He seemed genuinely shocked that running a business in France was hard. We nodded along, sipping warm drinks and trying to figure out where the race would come through.
“What time do the sprinters get here?” we asked.
He pointed toward the other end of town and said, “Oh, that’s over there.”
Wait… what?
The sprint finish — the entire reason we’d rushed to Poligny — was on the other side of town.
Sonofabitch.
So we headed that way, threading through the post-race crowd. And in the end, that’s where we found something better: the team buses. Riders warming down. Mechanics checking bikes.
Kevin got to meet the American reporter who rides on the back of the Tour motorcycle. They talked shop. We got photos.
We missed the big sprint.
But the finish?
We got exactly what we came for.
A Place to Visit: Nancy, France
I ended up in Nancy for a reason most people don’t — I was selling my car in Germany. (Long story. Involving paperwork, a six-hour train ride, and a suspiciously cheerful Deutsche Bahn employee. Maybe one day I’ll tell it.)
But Nancy surprised me.
I booked one night at the Hôtel Littéraire Stendhal & Spa, thinking I’d just sleep and go. Instead, I lingered. The hotel was charming and quiet, the kind of place that makes you want to read something old and French… or just sip something cold and French.
Nancy itself felt like a secret — elegant, walkable, full of quiet confidence. A city that doesn’t yell to be noticed. It just is.
You’ve got:
• Place Stanislas — one of the most beautiful plazas in Europe. Golden gates, perfect symmetry, and a glow at night that’ll make you want to move there on impulse.
• Art Nouveau architecture around every corner. Paris may be the showgirl, but Nancy’s the one who designed the set.
• Maison des Sœurs Macarons — a proper stop for local goodies. I brought some back for Denise and immediately earned points I didn’t even know I’d lost.
• A solo dinner at Brasserie Saint-Georges, where I ate like a man who had finally outrun French bureaucracy… and ordered dessert without asking permission.
I went there to close a chapter — and accidentally opened a new one.
If you’re traveling east, don’t skip it.
The Quirky Bit
Driving in France can feel like you’ve dropped into a scavenger hunt you didn’t sign up for.
You’re looking for Rue de Something.
You turn the corner… nothing.
You look up… and there it is: a tiny sign bolted halfway up the side of a building, camouflaged by ivy and 200 years of patina.
Turns out, in most towns, the street signs are on the buildings. Not on posts. Not on corners. Not where you’d think to look unless you’re part falcon.
And once you finally find the street name, you realize something else:
Every road is called the Road to Somewhere Else.
Rue de Tours. Route de Blois. D952, D760, D999.
You’re never on a street — you’re always on your way to another one.
It’s charming. It’s disorienting.
And it explains why every GPS direction sounds like a dare.
Until next time.
Thanks for reading. If you’re enjoying the stories and want to help us grow, forward this to someone who dreams of moving to France — or at least wants to laugh at someone who already did.
Thanks for being here.
Paul
Responses