Cycling:Tour de France teams fumed over traffic jams today as several riders barely made it on time to start the 20th stage, a 42.5-km individual time trial.
Frenchman Anthony Roux, who was due to start at 10.38pm Irish time, arrived in Grenoble at 12.15pm and had to shorten his warm-up dramatically.
Tour teams were accommodated around l'Alpe d'Huez, where the 19th stage ended yesterday.
With almost a million people on site to watch the stage, according to local authorities, and some of them leaving the scene this morning, teams and riders were stuck in traffic.
"It was very complicated. We needed three hours to drive 60km without any police assistance so that we could have made it on time for some of our riders to warm up," said Anthony Roux's FDJ team manager Marc Madiot.
"We were all stuck. It was an indescribable mess. Finally the police came and helped us to drive on the left lane. Otherwise we could not have made it," said Garmin-Cervelo sports director Lionel Marie.
"Some riders made it only 20-30 minutes before their start time."
Teams and riders have been complaining about post-stage transfers to their hotels, with some dubbing the Tour 'the Giro de France', in reference to the Giro d'Italia's extremely long transfers.
"Descent of Galibier a cake walk compared to race to Grenoble from Alpe. An accident waiting to happen. I now miss the Giro. TdF gone mad," Briton David Millar said on his Twitter feed.
"I changing in the car..we spend 2h for 55 km and driving like crazy...another day at Tour du traffic jam!," wrote Denmark's Jakob Fuglsang.