Southern France

Made it down to Southern France yesterday. Flew into Carcassonne, France, if you have not heard of this place you should google it. Hands down, one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The town is the last standing town in the world fully enclosed by its outer walls. It does not look like anything has changed in the center of town for 1000 years. I am actually staying near St. Girons in the heart of the Pyrenees. My hotel is in the middle of the mountains and today took a little 2 hour spin with the rest of the guys to open up and it was so hard not to just go and explore all over and check out so many of the cool roads. Living in France is cool, Northern France was neat, but Damn, I am in love down here in the mountains!

Tomorrow is the first stage of the race, its called Ronde De Lisard. Results should be able to be followed here http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/ronde-de-lisard-2-2u/stages.

Been interesting being around the other USA cycling team guys. Our team director, mechanic and masseuse drove our caravan car and other team cars down and the riders flew down from Belgium. In Belgium, either Flemish, French or English is spoken and the English is very little. Well, naturally living in France I have learned a bit of French and got put to the job of translating for the other guys-a handy tool especially moving through security. I was able to get one guys liquids through and spent about 15 minutes pleading with a security officer to let my teammate keep his multitool, but it did not work and it was confiscated. The irony-another teammate had the same multitool one line over and they let him have it on the flight. But out riding in the USA kit and being able to ask for directions in French and get around has proven to be extremely helpful and the people here are much nicer after discovering that.

Wanted to share a quick pic with ya guys from todays ride. Pretty easy to see why it might be hard to leave.