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Tour de France: Stage 1-2 There's no describing how nerve wracking the opening stages of the Tour are. For starters, there's a full field of nearly 200 guys all fired up about being at the year's biggest race. Add high speeds, rain, a bunch of crashes, spectators in the road, a good hard chase to reel in a break away and the madness that ensues before a field sprint, and you pretty much have the recipe for hard day at the office. Stress is just as tough as any mountain pass. It'll leave you every bit as drained as riding a full day of vertical. Yesterday's stage was nuts. If you saw the race on television then you already know the crowds were huge in some spots. And for some reason, there weren't barriers in every town like there usually are. This meant the folks on the side of the road were free to set up camps in the road while they waited for the race to come barreling through. The peloton steam rolled through some towns looking more like a wall stretching straight across the road. As it charged forward fans were jumping back to get out of the way, seemingly one by one. People were literally springing from their lawn chairs at the very last second to run for safety leaving their picnics, blankets, cameras and whatever else behind as they did. I even saw one poor person in wheel chair get left behind as his companions darted for safer ground. It's a miracle no one got hurt. Today the weather was a little more kind. Which was a welcome change after riding in the rain all day yesterday. The weather is funny in the north of This morning was a bit of a personal adventure for me. A reporter from I told the reporter he could ask the questions in Spanish, but that I preferred to respond in English. But when he started interviewing me, I decided - what the heck, I'll give it a go in my Span-glish-ench. Why not? By the end, I had concluded my first all Spanish interview, which was a first for me. I'm not afraid to torture my teammates or the locals back in Girona with my Spanish, but this was the first time I was brave enough to bust out the language skills on television. Spanish natives were probably suffering listening to me, but my teammates were impressed I was trying. So now I probably won't be allowed to speak a word of English for the rest of the Tour without getting a little grief. On the bright side, I guess it's good that an old dog like me can learn a new trick or two every now and then. Tomorrow will be another difficult day. It's the Paris-Roubaix stage of the Tour this year. I'm not a big guy so I'm not really looking forward to riding the cobblestones. I'm glad we had a chance to preview the roads before the start of the race. So we know what's ahead, and what we have to do to stay out of trouble. Now it's just a matter of doing it. Wasn't I just saying something about stress? Thanks for reading. Tyler Hamilton 
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