THANKS FOR AN AWESOME WEEK IN FRANCE!

I think 95% of the people reading this contributed one way or another to get me to where I am now, so I want to thank everyone for this week.  Especially:

The NNF for kicking in funding to help offset some of the costs for the B-team.  That means everyone that has contributed to the NNF!

Olympian Tours for running a successful first Tour trip.  Carl Van Loan and Jed Hinkley did an awesome job supporting the guys that came for the fundraiser trip, as well as making life way better for us.  Riding with a "sag wagon" full of food, water, tools and clothing is so sweet!  Check out their website here
and their Facebook page here.  They've been putting a lot of pictures and videos from the trip up on their facebook page, so definitely give them a look. 

My coaches, the US Ski Team and Billy Demong for making it happen logistically.

ColeSport, our local bike shop in Park City, who outfitted the whole team with some sweet kits.  We had 16 people riding as a team in the same gear some of the days!

Honey Stinger for supplying a ton of bars, gels, waffles and chews.  We all thought we'd have way to much at the beginning, but it turns out that when you bike all day, you need a lot of food!  We ended up with just the right amount.

And my parents for supporting me the whole way!

The summit of Madeleine - just past where Michael and I made our international TV debut.

We all spent one day watching the tour and some went to watch it a second day.  If you were watching, you would have seen Michael Ward and I running alongside the lead group near the top of the Col  de la Madeleine, the first of 3 climbs that they raced on Thursday.  It took us two hours to ride up this climb alone.  The tour racers did this, another similar HC category climb, one more short climb and then a final 20k climb to finish in well under 5 hours.

Watching the Tour was an awesome experience.  We had to go up early, because they completely close of the road a good two hours before the riders come.  It's pretty fun waiting around though. We mingled with the other fans lining the road and met some Americans on a guided tour, one of which was from Steamboat!  A ways ahead of the riders there's a massive caravan of sponsor cars.  We hauled in some loot that they threw out of the cars, from key chains to candy to hats and big green foam hands.

It goes without saying that the riders were fast.  Outrageously fast.  I literally had to sprint as fast as could up the top of the climb to stick alongside them.

Epicness on Col du Galibiere.

 On Friday Bryan, Bill, Johnny, Todd, Taylor and I rode such an epic loop.  The fundraising group guys also came and each rode substantial portions of the route.  We did 3 climbs, Telegraph, Galibiere and Croix de Fer, and by the end it was 105 miles, almost 8 hours and 16,000 feet of climbing!  Galibier put us up over 2500 meters elevations and was definitely my favorite climb.  We lucked out on the weather that was moving in as we headed down from the descent. 
On that note, I'll need to get some new break-pads when I get back.  I've never burnt through so much rubber in my life as I have switch-backing down the mountains here.

Not much I can say here.

Saturday the whole group did an "easy" 65 miles.  It poured rain all morning in Courchevel, but once we descended down the valley, sunshine rolled in and it turned into a gorgeous day.  I guess I should thank mother nature for being so kind to us this trip!

Today was an easy morning.  Some of the guys rode up to the private airport above Courchevel.  I just did some stretching and light plyos down at the hotel.  Gotta get the legs going for jumping tomorrow. Off to Oberstdorf, Germany now!

A gorgeous Saturday ride. Cruising with Bill Demong and Eric Ober.

Check out more pictures on my Facebook page here and Olympian Tours as well here. 

At the top of the last summit of the trip. Whew!