Christian Vande Velde, Tour de France stage 18 It’s August. We are now officially out of July and the Tour is in our rearview mirror. But what an amazing month! And it wasn’t that long ago that many people thought we just might spend July at home in front of the TV instead of racing the Tour. Given that, we ripped the cover off the ball.

We came to the race an unknown quantity. More than half of us were Tour rookies - a few of them Grand Tour virgins - with a few older vets thrown in. But look at what we did on our first outing! Makes you wonder what we can do when we know what the hell is going on. Hopefully a little or a lot more.

There are so many highs. Standing on the podium for the best team classification, a place I never thought I’d see again after leaving CSC. The team coming close on more than one occasion to a stage victory. Going for the overall, with an actual chance of standing on the podium. Being able to ride down the Champs-Elysees with Doug and JV. Watching Ryder and Trent get fawned over by their respective publics and celebrating double M’s (Martijn) birthday all at the same time. Then stopping for cold beers on the way to our hotel from the Champs-Elysees with the entire team (Dave’s idea).

Team Garmin-Chipotle H3O, Tour de France stage 21 All eight of us rode up on our race bikes (Danny was on mine for some reason) to a bar called Dada in downtown Paris. Champagne was on ice and the closed bar was kept open for us. Sweet. It would be the last time we were truly together, before heading to our bike crazed hotel. And as you can imagine, slamming a few bottles of champagne and almost a case of beer in 25 minutes made for a great last 2 km of the Tour de france.

Our final ride turned into a trick competition. However, we quickly realized only one of us could actually do anything worth watching. So we started skidding our bikes like six-year-olds through the streets of Paris. I can see you cringing at the thought of a bunch of skinny, kinda buzzed professionals flying through the streets of Paris, skidding out on their thousand dollar wheels. To the lucky few who got witness this amazing sight, thank you for not running us over. And also thank you to the mechanics who didn’t scold us afterwards.

Throughout the Tour, the fan support from back home was awesome. We read a lot of the comments, some of us more than others. I did learn that I can’t read the comments at night or else I get too pumped up and can’t sleep. But apart from that, we appreciate every last word.

Thanks for following us in our first year! Christian