Final Tour July 16-17 / Final Tour July 18 / Final Tour July 19 / Final Tour July 20 / Final Tour July 21-22 /

Final Tour July 22 / Final Tour July 23 / Final Tour July 24 / Final Tour July 25

July 25

    Last day in Paris for the last day of Lance's last Tour de France. Over ten years ago I was diagnosed with cancer. My dad had just died from brain cancer. Years earlier my grandfather had died of colon cancer. Lots of first thoughts run through your head when the doctor says, You have cancer. I was told over the phone and I've had people tell me how bad that must have been. The truth is, it really didn't matter whether it was over the phone of in person to me, it sucked hearing it. After talking to my doc for about 15 minutes, I pulled up to my computer as I remembered Lance's story. Some guy that rode a bike had cancer and won the Tour de France. I found his website a minute later and the story struck me. Not because I loved bike racing, I hadn't owned a bike since I was a kid. Not just because he survived, but because of the attitude of being in charge of your cancer and not the other way around. And maybe most importantly getting your life back after going through treatment. That was what I needed to tell my family and myself. A year later we were in Austin at the Ride for the Roses and I was riding my bike next to Lance. We were now cyclists, cancer advocates, fundraisers and I was cancer free. The most important thing we brought home from Austin was how important it was to stand up and share your story with others. When my grandfather died of cancer, it was taboo to talk about and the mere mention meant death. We were never going to be the biggest fundraisers or have the media attention of a celebrity, but we could affect the lives of the people we met and in some cases people we would never meet. One way, we decided was to come to France to support Lance in the Tour. We promised for as long as he rode the Tour we would be there supporting the cancer survivor. He would look up in the mountains during those painful climbs and see banners and signs supporting LiveStrong. we would stand and cheer for others back home and around the world. Maybe it would help raise a few dollars or raise awareness or just make someone feel good that was having a bad day during treatment. Regardless, we'd be there!

    So since today would be our last day on the Champs Elysees to support Lance, it was very important that we pick the exact location we wanted. That meant alarm at 4:00am and we'd be on the Champs before 5:00am to claim our territory. Keep in mind the riders wouldn't get to us until about 4:30 or 5:00pm, so it was going to be a long day. We've done this so many times that many people that have been with us before have come back to join us, but this year would be extra special because the Fowkes family would be joining us, but also a very dear friend and LiveStrong staff member Renee Nicholas would be there.

    We got setup without any problem, uh nobody else was on the street except for a few very drunk couples headed home apparently. A few would stop and try to talk and they would eventually get around to saying Armstrong and give us a thumbs up! It's pretty amazing how quickly people start getting out on the street. Lost of people walked up to where we were, looked at all of our banners and flags stretched out and wandered off in different directions. We had several friends from last years Tour join us, the Stewarts from North Carolina, Mike & Terri from Canada, Gi one of my Ragbrai Teammates from 2007, several of my Cycling Combating Cancer friends (an online support group - www.ridetolive.org) and Angie's friend Claire who's been living in Paris the past year.

    After a fairly long day, made a bit longer by the gendarmes removing our barricades, us moving them back after they left, a few people deciding they were going to crash our area, me explaining to a woman in a rather firm fashion that we had been on the street since before 5:00am and she was going to have a very big problem if she thought she was going to squeeze up to the barricades in front of my group, but mostly a good day.

    Our good friend Chris Brewer brought us a couple of bottles of champagne to celebrate and toast with and Renee uncorked a couple of bottles of wine to celebrate her very first Tour de France! After the toasts were made and the bottles popped the riders were finally on the Champs and making the turn in front of us. As the Team Radio Shack car passed us, Johan gave a wave and honked his horn. It's a huge wave of cheering and emotion as the peloton, followed by team cars comes roaring up to the Arc, then does a 180% turn and heads back. They make eight laps around the Champs and by the time they get to five or six,, it always seems like we've lost count and nobody agrees on how many are left. There was a small break of riders off the front for a while, which was caught. Then a Team Radio Shack rider attacked, but was also brought back.

    Finally the laps were done and we just had to wait on the podium presentations to be completed so the riders could take their lap of honor celebrating their completion of the Tour. All the teams take a lap on the Champs and stop in front of the Arc to have their team pictures made, which is directly in front of our area. We cheer for everyone because it really is an accomplishment to finish the Tour. Something was a bit unusual this year because we had a large number of riders come over to our group after their pictures and shake hands, sign pictures and get pictures made with our group. Cadel Evans, Ivan Basso, Michael Barry, Dave Zabriski, Mark Cavendish, Nicholas Roche, George Hincapie and several more. It was pretty much driving the group crazy.   

    One of our goals this year was to get setup and be sure we had Jimmy Fowkes, now in his second recurrence of a brain tumor and Renee Nicholas, two year breast cancer survivor, on the front of the barricade. I think a lot of people probably don't realize how much Lance appreciates what people have done to support and grow the LiveStrong Foundation and also how much he personally cares how cancer affects peoples lives. After Team Radio Shack completed their pictures Lance headed straight for our group. The photographer scrum was headed straight towards us! Lance slowly stepped up against the barricades and directed the photographers back and away so he could stand exactly where he wanted, which was between Jimmy and Renee. Perfect! He gave Renee a big hug and a kiss, then I handed him a stack of LiveStrong cards that pictured the world with a LiveStrong band around it and he turned and faced the photo barrage. After a few thousand picture had been shot, Lance handed me the cards back, told Angie to stay out of trouble and mounted his bike for his last ride down the Champs.

    Last Tour complete. Now the bigger job of uniting the world against the number one cause of death. Wanna help? www.livestrong.org