The Tour, over 100 wheels strong, had overnighted just a few miles from my mother's house, and went north on Highway 6. When I was running an errand earlier in the morning, I had run into a roadblock caused by the tour, before they crossed Briarcrest. I figured that I could catch them later in the afternoon.
I got on my bicycle and headed north on Highway 6. The wind was blowing pretty strongly out of the north, giving me a good headwind. I thought that I would come upon the Tour within a few miles, but wasn't seeing any sign of them. I finally happened upon a couple of pickup trucks parked on the side of the road, with people standing beside them. Since one of them had a camera, I figured that they were waiting for the Tour to come by, so I stopped and asked them what was up.
"They couldn't get under the bridge back there," he said, "so they had to detour over to Highway 21. If you cut over there and double back, you should run into them."
I started off again, north, to the next overpass, then turned around. The tailwind was great, literally doubling my speed on the bike. I took the next exit onto 2818, and saw my first sign of the impending passing of the Tour: a gendarme on a motorcycle, directing traffic.
Feigning ignorance sometimes worked in getting around the gendarme in France, when we followed the Tour there, so I thought I'd give it a shot here.
"Bon jour, non parlo Francaise," I told the officer.
"Boy," he responded, "I don't speak none of that namby-pamby Frenchy stuff, so you just get your stretchy-pantied self and your skinny-tire bisickle off of this here road!"
I detoured off with the rest of traffic, and rode over to the Davila Middle School, where I joined other locals who had gathered to view the show.
Before too long, more motorcycled gendarmes showed up, and the caravan started showing up. I didn't hear any helicopters, which are the signal for the approaching peloton in the European Tours, but I thought that may have been due to the heavy winds. The caravan itself wasn't too impressive, consisting of more motorcycles, a few pickup trucks (this is Texas, afterall), and some trucks with "Mammoet" emblazoned on their sides.
Soon, some pretty purple trucks, accessorized with cherry pickers, showed up. They used the cherry pickers to raise the overhead wires.
Finally, what we had been waiting for, finally began to pass, at an estimated speed of 1-2mph:
(You can see more photos here.)
This was a 1.7 million pound generator being moved, at the rate of 10 miles per day, from the Port of Houston to the town of Riesel (yeah, I've never heard of it, either). It's 38 feet wide and 100 yards long. More information can be found here.
