Paris-Nice, Stage 1

My photo with five-time Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault.
Houdan – Well, it's Day Two of my European experience and I'm still writing. Let's hope this keeps up all week.

Sunday was a bit of everything – plenty of work, some fun, catching up with familiar faces. The morning started out with a 40-minute drive to the start in Houdan. The 145-kilometer race was run on a circuit, with a big loop, followed by three smaller laps around the town.

Jacques Michaud, the BMC Racing Team's VIP coordinator, took me to the ASO's mobile VIP area. They're large, glass-walled trailers where people mill about, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze. Being a former Tour de France stage winner, everyone knows Jacques. He can't walk three feet without stopping for a handshake, getting a kiss from women, etc. He asked me the night before if I wanted to meet Bernard Hinault, so that was our course of action right after the BMC Racing Team was introduced.

Bernard Hinault still looks like he can tear it up on the bike. And he was very gracious to hear about "the American press officer of the BMC Racing Team who knows more about your palmares than you do," is how Jacques put it. Funny. We snapped a photo and then it was back to the bus to prepare for the start.

The new BMC Racing Team autograph card sets also debuted Sunday. In Europe, these are quite popular. For the first time, the BMC Racing Team is charging for them (like a lot of other teams). They're five Euro. So I spent much of my time using "mon francaise" to tell people "five euro" and "merci." I didn't have to advertise them, either. In fact, had I taken time to let people know I was selling them, I probably would have sold an entire box. As it was, we sold about 50 sets.

After the start, I went with Jacques and Scott Nydam to the press center – which was located pretty far from the finish. That's unusual, but it also reminded me we have a BMC mountain bike to ride stowed in the bus just for those occasions. I didn't need it, though, since we drove there together.

Our second stop was the feed zone, where I shot video and photos of Chris De Vos handing out mussettes and water bottles. A buddy of mine, Rick Tillery, sent me a tweet that I was on Versus. (I'm wearing a bright red coat, so I should be easy to spot.)

Finally, it was back to the bus to watch the finish. Filip Sercu, the driver, spent much of the stage fixing a leak in the roof, the hot water and the satellite dish. Unfortunately, he couldn't get the wifi to work, so I had to wait until I returned to the hotel to send my story. Speaking of Internet, here at the hotel it's free – but seems to go out every 10 minutes or so. That made uploading video a bit of a chore. The trick is to do internet-intensive tasks when the riders are either sleeping or eating.

Writing up my story about the race was a real treat because I simply had to walk up to the riders to get comment. Contrast this with having to try and reach them by phone or internet, which sometimes takes up to an hour. What I didn't expect was the close call with car sickness that I got trying to write on my laptop while buzzing along tiny, twisting roads on the way back to the hotel.

The last piece of news out of Sunday concerns the bus. Apparently, its clutch went out when we got back to the hotel. So on Monday I'll be driving one of the team vehicles that will act as "the bus." Should be interesting.

Scott Nydam and I watched the end of the race on the motorcoach.

A look at the stretch of road for the feed zone. Flat and wind-swept.

Lunch comes in a personalized bag.

The press room was set up in a gymnasium.

Brent Bookwalter getting ready for the start.

On the way to the start. We took three cars, a van and the bus.