Tour de France > Bastille Day

In the competition (which exists only in my mind) between major national events that happen on the Champs-Elysées, the Tour de France has won a decisive victory over the Bastille Day parade. Bastille Day was wonderful; don't get me wrong. But the Tour is less crowded and offers more of a relaxed, afternoon-party atmosphere. It's a lot easier to get there and get back because presidential-level security is not required. It is also a great cure for FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) because after the racers go by, you wait a few minutes, and they go by again. It was really fun! You can listen to the commentary on loudspeakers along the route, there's music playing from vans trying to sell you t-shirts, and everyone just walks around checking everything out until the first few cars show up on the route and it's time to get in place to cheer and take pictures. As a bonus they kicked off the first run up toward the Arc de Triomphe with a tricolo fly-over like they do on Bastille Day. Was not expecting that so it was some nice extra excitement!

So I watched the race some; I walked around some; I ate a crèpe (beurre & sucre); I looked at souvenirs. After it was over, I walked up to visit the Arc de Triomphe and took the rare opportunity to get a couple of photos of it with no people or cars in them. I also worked out how to photograph a bike race with (moderate and occasional) success:
1. Set the camera to take 3 pictures in a row each time you hit the shutter.
2. Frame your shot between the heads of people in front of you.
3. When they start cheering, hit the shutter as many times as you can as if it is the Jeopardy! buzzer.
4. Feel grateful for digital photography freeing you from the worry of "wasting film."

Here come the photos . . . How did I do?

The crowd and the route setup

It's a little garland made of little felt jerseys! I can't even!

Music-playing-souvenir-van employees doing the Macarena

WHOOSH

Yaaaaaaaay!

That's commitment.

The big screen

France TV camera crane. There was also a camera helicopter 

and quite a few camera motorcycles.

People brought flags.

Good thing about this vantage point: seeing them go by twice per lap.

Cheering for the winner and his . . . applesauce pouch?

Riders cooling down

As the crowd was dispersing

Looking back toward the dome of Les Invalides