The 2010 Tour de France and L’Etape du Tour Trip Wrap Up

by Tim M on August 24, 2010

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!2010 was a doozy of a trip for TDF Tips. I, and my equally loony travel partner, the inimitable Michael J Brown, took off around the world to tackle L’Etape, eat croissants, drink (usually bad) coffee, drink some sneaky Heinekens, [...]

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Avoiding an International Mobile Phone Bill Blowout

by Tim M August 23, 2010 Travel

I wrote a post over on tourdefrancetips.com today about how to avoid an overseas phone bill of $2000. I’ve reproduced it below, as I think it’s useful for all travellers who are taking their smart (e.g. iPhone) phones. This post is all about how to avoid a $2000 mobile phone bill This post just goes [...]

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France 2010: Final Day – the Aubisque and Marie Blanque

by Tim M August 16, 2010 France2010

Sadly our last day was upon us. I’d not had anywhere near enough riding so was glad to be heading out for a final long hit out in delightful warm France. I keenly felt the approaching return home as I’d been told it was miserable, cold and wet in Melbourne. Yuck. We made the plan [...]

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Gear review: Lowepro CompuRover AW Backpack

by Tim M August 3, 2010 Products

*Apologies for the sometimes-less-than-optimal photos, I was late for my plane. With the advent of cheap prosumer digital SLRs, I thought it would be interesting to review my new Lowepro Compurover AW backpack to help you decide upon a backpack to travel with, if you have camera gear to take overseas. When looking at a [...]

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2010 TDF: Stage 18 from the road

by Tim M August 3, 2010 France2010

After the let-downs of Stage 16 and Stage 17 (at least in terms of photos, and compared to last year), we headed into Salies-de-Béarn for the start of Stage 18. We dropped Andrew off at the Pau train station (which by the way has the BEST croissants I have ever had, EVER – read more [...]

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2010 TDF: Stage 17 from the road

by Tim M August 3, 2010 France2010

Well, sometimes you plan and make allowances and things just go wrong. Our plan this day was to get to the Col du Marie Blanque, the first climb of the stage and only 30km from where we were staying, and a reasonably steep climb. This would allow me to get good photos (due to the [...]

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Le Tour 2010: Stage 16 live from the road

by Tim M July 21, 2010 France2010

Stage 16 Well, the irony is impressive. After I wrote in my Guide to Cycling in France, for Tour stages, where you plan to ride up a mountain, you MUST ride up a few hours before hand. I also wrote that you can ignore the gendarmerie. Both of these insights proved true yesterday. After driving [...]

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Sprint Video from Le Tour

by Tim M July 21, 2010 France2010

So, our friend Andrew Clark, who rides under the assumed Dutch name of Oondreuw Klook, won a solo sprint into Bielle yesterday, blasting everyone away in the process. It was a sight to behold and the excellent commentary (in Dutch) lends a certain extra excellence to Klook’s solo sprint breakaway win. Share on Facebook

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L’Etape Du Tour 2010 Report

by Tim M July 20, 2010 France2010

June 2010: Cold, raining Melbourne. “Boy, I can’t wait to get to France for L’Etape. We should be able to improve on last year’s 1800th position. It’s going to be so warm, with lazy days filled with riding, Le Tour and croissants”. July 18th, 2010. 5AM. “Awesome, I can’t wait to see the broken souls [...]

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OhNoze! Tom Boonen Out!

by Tim M June 28, 2010 France2010

Well, what is certain to cause lashings of sadness, and in deepest, darkest Flemishton, rending of clothes and casting of bodies atop burning pyres, is going to be fodder for our funny cannons. Yes, Tom Boonen is out of the Tour. I was looking forward to stories of Tom’s famous party-time shenanigans, but it seems [...]

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