July 18 - Arrival in Montreux

The trip over was long but not too hard. The flight from Newark from Geneva was delayed and delayed and finally we took off about two hours late, which only meant that I had 5 hours to kill in Geneva instead of 7. The train from the airport to downtown Geneva took about 6 minutes, and I spent a couple of hours just walking around, along the lake in particular. Geneva has some of the architectural interest of Paris on a much smaller scale, but I thought it was commercial and dreary for the most part. Finally, back to the airport to meet the group, and then an hour's bus ride to Montreux. After checking in, we gathered to reassemble all the bikes, and then about 7 of us took a short, 45 minute, warmup ride along the lake and out into the country for perhaps 15 miles altogether. Not very hilly, but it was good to stretch the legs. The scenery is magnificent - long vistas across the lake, snow-peaked Alps in the distance, and beautiful old castles perched way up above the city. The hotel is right on the lake too. Tomorrow (Sunday) we will ride out of Montreux at 8:30 am, finally arriving at our viewing spot about 400 meters before the summit of the Col des Mosses, where we'll be when the tour comes by. They said we'd be on the left side of the road under some yellow canopies, so perhaps you'll see us when the riders go by. We had a great dinner this evening - five others are back from the tour last year, and 3 of the guides as well, so we all had a nice reunion before starting to meet some of the others. It seems like a much more congenial crowd this time, but more non-riders than before. One of the returning couples from last year has been with the Tour since Monaco, and have already climbed Mt. Ventoux once, reporting that it was really brutal. The American South is well-represented - aside from New Orleans there are also Knoxville, Dallas, Rome, GA and Jacksonville. We're all tired, but excited to see the Tour de France live starting tomorrow. Pictures and videos to start tomorrow too.