The French imagination runs riot in the pre-race parade

I suspected my earlier source of information (or my French) was a little shaky as a procession of sorts was already in motion.

Only by the loosest description could these vehicles be called motor cars.

Sponsors names adorned wild fantasies of transport; a giant head peered from behind a helmeted driver; a Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang extravaganza sported a giant watch face where the radiator should have been; a huge red camping-gas canister puzzled everyone.

Gas anybody?

From all the above gifts were thrown, a little haphazardly and with no real enthusiasm but spectators dashed to and fro, chasing hats, pens and bizarrely plastic carrier bags.

The young chefs cleaned up by holding an open umbrella upside down - barely a single packet of marshmallows escaped their outsize bucket.

All the while the expectation was that at any moment the riders would appear.

Where are they?

Every so often, three or four police officers - hopelessly spaced along the 400 metre stretch I could see - would frantically blow their whistles and point at the encroaching crowd to stand back on the pavement.

But as quickly as the excitement rose, it died.

Half an hour became an hour, an hour and a half. I busied myself practising with the zoom on my camera. I was not the only one finding fascination in camera functions - even the chefs had returned to their cleaning duties.

Six-deep, bad view, raining - but you should have been there

Now, I know. There are signs that warn action is imminent.

I remember the first cameraman whizzing by, riding pillion on a large Kawasaki, lens pointing within a metre of the faces in the crowd. Nerves of steel these bike riders... and the spectators, standing three deep, didn't back off an inch either.

A squad of police motorbikes - big, clumsy blue BMWs all lights flashing - suddenly appeared.

Chopper alert

But the real giveaway was the helicopters - the noise first and then one, then two apparently drifting in the wind, no higher than the steeple of Strasbourg cathedral.

The eyes in the sky - wherever the race leaders are, they are covered by a camera mounted on a chopper.

And as the noise from the air rose it was matched by the cheers from the street.

O'Grady enjoyed his time in yellow

I must say, I had expected things to be quick. Not just in the sense of a short experience but the riders to be actually going quickly.

They were not - they cruised by, led by the maillot jaune, the race leader Stuart O'Grady.

He was beaming from ear-to-ear. He knew what a rare creature he was - an Australian leading the Tour de France!

And when a young boy, perched on his dad's shoulders shouted "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie" his smile stretched still wider.

It all ends in tears

Behind, the teams mingled, all electric-coloured lycra and insect-eye sunglasses.

Some joking, some nervousness, a swoosh of tyres and the latent power of hundreds of legs, smooth and hard as marble.

Bastille day victor Laurent "Ja-ja" Jalabert in front in Colmar

Stately as they were, the entire field passed in no more than 30 seconds.

Later that day, standing in another excited crowd near the stage finish, I would see these faces stretched by pain; shoes, shorts and vests sodden after more than 100 miles through cold rain high in the Vosges hills.

But still their legs were pumping as they pushed through the tight corners of the mediaeval town of Colmar.

I have marvelled from my armchair at the riders' endurance, their incredible performance for three long weeks right at the limits of human capability.

But after seeing the Tour for myself, even in this time of drug scandals and cynicism, my lasting memories will be of French pride in their heroes; and of the parade at the start of each day as the field honours the man in yellow, their king for at least one day.