12 juin – Rode for 1.5 hours

Had breakfast in Talloires and then spent the morning in Annecy. Drove the autoroute towards le col de la Ramaz – a new climb for the 2003 TdF. The Dauphine experience on the col was much more chill than the Tour. But we still managed to make it an ordeal by arriving way too late. We parked 1 km from the summit of the climb and began our descent towards Miussey at 1:45. The caravan would come through at 3:30 – so we were under a time crunch. The descent was hampered by traffic and we arrived at the bottom at 2:08 and began the ascent of the le col de la Ramaz. After several hard days of riding, the climb was a hot, festering beast. The col is 14 km and the average grade is 6.9% – and although the 12^th and 13^th km are rather flat, the remainder of the climb is rather steep. The climb took me 52 minutes. We all finished the climb just before the caravan came through. This caravan is rather small compared to the Tour, but we scored water bottles and a t-shirt. After much anticipation, Lance came through in a group with Mayo, Moreau, and Mancebo. Lance noticed Chris’s Shiner Bock t-shirt and several riders looked at our banner. Chris also caught a bottle from an iBanesto rider. We noticed that the heat and the distance had taken its toll on many of the riders. After the race, we followed the route for the next day to Talloires. Dined again at the Starkville Café East. Capped the evening with a few more lakeside beers.