first ride in the alps

Well, i am not sleeping very good. Woke up at 1:45 and never got back to sleep. Flipping through the channels as we waited for the vans to pick us up, I realized the Swiss are quite liberal as I stumbled across some channels that are usuallly pay per view in the US and get you some funny looks from a hotel clerk when you check out. The vans from the bike tour picked us up at 8:30 and we met some of the people doing the ride. There are a couple Australian guys, a group of about 10 from Mexico, and the rest from the US. The Mexicans are interesting, smoking Cuban cigars and riding bikes costing 10-15K each. No, these aren't the same Mexicans standing in front of Star Nursery looking for work. So we loaded up the vans and headed to France, to a town in the Alps called Chatel. As we were having a little orientation I first heard it. Thunder! Uh-oh. Skies grew dark and it started raining. Gentle at first, then a downpour and then hail. This kept up as we were building the bikes and getting everything ready in the hotel garage. Didn't know if it would let up enough to ride. Even though the ride today was pretty short, skipping it wouldn't be that big of a deal, I wanted to try out the rental bike before our first big ride tomorrow. As the rain begain to ease up we decided to get ready and give it a try. They broke the group of 30 into three groups. As Richard and I looked at the multiple pairs of shaved legs on high end bikes, we felt we should pick group C today. The groups moved out in ten minute intervals with a leader and a sag van with each group. Although I didn't see the whole thing, just before the second group went out a guy fell over on his bike and actually cracked it in half. He was fine but the bike was totalled. Very weird, I never saw anything like it before. As our group pulled out the rain had stopped. The route was 20 miles (2000+ ft of climbing) including a small hill followed by a 6 mile decent crossing back into Switzerland, followed by a 6 mile uphill then a short downhill back to France and the hotel. I was nervous on that long downhill as the roads were still damp. But I kept it slow and no problems except it was really cold. The views were great but i stayed away from the guard rails. Then the rain restarted. We did the whole ride after the downhill in a rain that gradually increased until it was a downpour. About half the group got in the van at this point, but I stuck it out, figuring I was already wet so I might as well finish it. I was soaked to the bone, but I finished my first ride in the Alps.