The Tour de Shwag

Seeing the Tour de France in person is not really about bike racing. It is about shwag, that free stuff that's thrown off the dozens of promotional veicles that precede the tour. That's what the crowds are really there for.




















A most memorable moment was watching a 5-year old wrestle a French grandmother over a t-shirt. It can get nasty. But after two stages we had 15 or 20 key chains, several posters, newspapers and magazines, dozens of bags of candy and other treats, 4 sausages (the official sausages of the TdF), two mussettes, numerous bike caps and sun hats, one non-alcoholic beer, and an old woman's bra. We saw some bike racers, too.

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