So some days are better than others and then some days you are pulling off of the PCH looking for a trail head and whilst parked you see a dude bombing a winding descent in a full team Sky kit and you think to yourself “dude really needs to ease up on the full team Sky kit when out riding on a Monday.” As he whizzes by we all could tell he was legit based on how we were riding and handling his bike.
The hike was way too sketchy for Torbdog so we turned around and climbed (drove our car) the winding road out of the canyon, I was like “the fact that we have not caught this dude yet tells me he is no slouch”. We finally rolled up on him and as we passed I blurted out “holy shit, that is Froome, that is Chris Froome.” I apologized for swearing with Torben in the car, but we were all pretty excited so no one seemed to care. We all were a bit perplexed as we were trying to come to terms with the fact that what at first we thought was some super fan, turns out to be the reigning TDF champion. We decided we would park the car on an uphill to try and get a photo, but pulled off on a descent just to see him whip past and verify we are not smoking the colorado legal.
As we watched him come down the road we see him get a bit squirelly (bike got squirelly he was perfectly calm) and go from passing a truck to falling in behind him, and pulling off right in front of our car. Now we were 100% sure it was Mr. Froome. We were in position A as he got off his bike and leaned it up against the guard rail.
So there we are basically hanging out with Chris Froome for 15 minutes while he changed his flat. He was super cool and friendly and a class act. photo 2-11He took pictures with Melissa and Torbdog and chatted with me and John the entire time. He said he was rolling down from Monterey on his way to SLO. We talked a bit about the tour and about Nibali and how it sucked that neither he nor alberto was there to give him a run for his money. He said he was getting in some heavy miles to prepare for the Vuelta and was laying low with his special lady friend (paraphrasing here). Melissa had a new pair of the 2014 DL socks – the pink and blacks, and so I gave them to him and told him a bit about the DL. He was thankful and said he would now have to get a jersey to match in the Giro and gave me a smile. I am sure his contracts will not allow him to don them, but hopefully his lady likes them.
He was still pretty beat up, you could see the hip rash through his super thin shorts and he was all scabbed up.
The only other car at this stop was there to look at the view, but when they saw us getting pics they started strolling over. (We agreed on French), so he took a quick one with John and I and one with the other folks, who actually said “wait you are in the tour…how are you here? oh yeah, you fell down”
John is a skinny runner, notice in the picture he looks like the hulk.
Crazy day and super crazy luck that we stopped where we did, anywhere else at any time we would have either been stalker central or just be posting a picture of him riding his bike….