By Nancy Raskauskas
Gazette-Times Reporter | Posted: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 12:00 am
Ashbrook teacher hopes his trip will inspire his students to life-long fitness
All over Corvallis, cycling fans have been waking up in the wee hours of the morning for more than a week to catch the live telecast of the Tour de France.
John Schneider is no different.
"I've been following the tour - like psychotically," said Schneider, who is a physical education teacher at Ashbrook Independent School. "I don't follow cycling very closely throughout the rest of the year, but because I'm a teacher every summer once it's Tour time I just bury myself in it."
This years tour, the 95th annual event, started July 5 in France's northwest province of Bretagne and will make a counter-clockwise circuit of the country before finishing on the cobblestones of Paris on July 27.
Not content to watch the Tour's riders cover the 3,500 kilometer race in 21 stages from his couch at home, this summer Schneider, took his love of the Tour one step further. Well, make that one continent closer.
Last Thursday, Schneider carefully wrapped padding around his bicycle and packed it into a bicycle box in his Northwest Corvallis garage. One very long travel day later, he found himself in a Paris airport.
There he met up with American Dream Pizza owner Scott McFarland, Oregon State University Geology professor Andrew Meigs and Meig's brother Patrick, a school principal from Portland. All rabid Tour fans, they'd gone to France for the chance to live and breathe the Tour through the mountain stages of the Pyrenees.
"We're just loading up the van with our bikes (in France) and going for it," Schneider said.
"Being a teacher, this is a big stretch for me financially," he added. "But, the whole point is just to go. I'll wash in streams and sleep in fields if I have to."
One of the inspirations for the trip was a film called "The Tour Baby," by amateur director Scott Coady.
"It's about this guy who went to follow the Tour. He was just really into cycling and he went over there and rented a van and he just started making video. It's really sort of a classic cult movie about cycling and being a cycling fan."
In the spirit of the movie, Schneider hopes to soak up as much of the Tour as possible.
"Our goal to go on this trip is not only to watch the race, but also to try to ride on some of the classic climbs," he said.
"I'm not as fit as I'd like to be," said Schneider. "More than anything, I'm curious to see how really steep these climbs are."
Schneider also wanted to share his experiences of being at the Tour with his students, wife Hannah Gosnell and daughters, Phoebe, 4, and seven-year-old Emma, who will be staying at home so he set up a travel blog, www.tdf2008baby.blogspot.com.
"Obviously it's going to chronicle adventures and what we run into, but I'd also like to appeal to the educator side of me," he said.
"I think the really interesting just going to France and seeing how active the people are there relative to here."
"One of my ideas is to use it as a reconnaissance trip to maybe even set up a future trip with kids from our school," he said. "They teach French at our school and you could combine it into a pretty cool trip."
That sort of idea isn't completely out of the realm of possibilities. In fact, a group of kids from Ashbrook Independent School went to China earlier this year.
Schneider has already organized several bike to school days at Ashbrook this year and hopes to start a cycling team next year.
In advance of his trip, Schneider e-mailed the two U.S. teams that are going to be at the Tour, Team Columbia and Team Gamin Chipotle.
He's been in touch with one of Team Columbia's press liaisons and hopes to be able to talk with some of the riders during the Tour.
"I want to ask some of the riders, about when they were younger if they were really into bicycling. If they rode their bike to school, that sort of thing," said Schneider.
He hopes that the rider's examples will help inspire his students to more active lifestyles.
"The whole idea with P.E. these days is to turn kids into physically active adults. So, biking is a no-brainer," Schneider said.
John Schneider's blog www.tdf2008baby.blogspot.com
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Tour fans are welcome to share their favorite memories of the Tour de France, predictions on this year's Tour winner or post up group viewing opportunities that are happening around Corvallis by using the comment feature on this story. See below.