The Tour de France (aka TdF) is underway - today sees the third stage up there in North-westish France. Leaving the D-Day landing areas and heading deeper into France.
The 16th stage of this year's race, 18th July, is a 209 kilometer long stretch that takes the riders across the border into Switzerland, and through some of this land finishing here in my home town of Bern. The finish line is almost exactly 1 kilometer from my home.
HOWEVER, there is a great fuss being generated by the 'cheaper' Press here.
The final 500 meters of the stage are along a wide street. But that street has tram lines and low (two to three inch high) islands down the middle of it. Rather than just having the finish line 500 meters earlier, the powers that be have decided to remove those little low islands and to fill in the tram lines with rubber fillers so that the cyclists have a flat surface upon which to sprint.
The islands have already been removed,
The tram lines shall be filled in next week.
According to the Press report, the cost for doing that shall be borne out of my taxes.
Including the closing of streets in the Canton, the policing and this changing of the road surface etc etc etc, the total costs are estimated at
*roll of drums*
2.125 million Francs, which is roughly the same in Euros!
Roughly half of which is for flattening that last 500 meters of street.
For anyone who can read German, here is the report.
http://www.blick.ch/news/schweiz/strassenbau-posse-wegen-tou...
And some might think that cycling is a cheap and cheerful pastime!
At least they shall be using the same stretch of road for the next stage on July 20th when the riders head out of Bern onto a tough climbing roughly 180 kilometers finishing high up in the mountains close to the French border in the Chamonix region.
Some photos of the great day(s) might be posted here in a blog or two.
Enjoy the day.
Julia
Comments
500m pah! chickenfeed!
When stage 2 visited my hometown, Sheffield, the council resurfaced 20 miles of roads and took out not just traffic islands but everything else, traffic lights etc in the last kilo. But there again we hate bikes here and the cost was met by the taxes of the million spectators who didn't line the roads!
Bern has already paid a huge amount to host the two events so it's not like it can get out of it now! If you are lucky you might see a real Cav finale - make sure Ang gets some caravan gifts!
Madeline Anafrid Bell
will do!
Ta
TDF === Getting your roads fixed/made smooth
Well, that is what it seems from my travels around France.
The roads in the Alpes D'Huez are must be the flattest, smoothest best maintained in the whole of France.
Veer off the route and you are back to bumpy roads again.
A few years ago, I spent some time in the Pyrenees not far from Andora. The tour had been through a few weeks before. All the roads on the route were covered in TDF Graffitti. They were nice and smooth though.