Stage 14, Mazamet - Plateau-de-Beille, 197 km, Fri 13th July

The red train thundered south today as we tackled a stage deep into the Pyrenees.....finishing on the 'famous because of Lance' Plateau de Beille.


The sun was out with a vengeance as we climbed out of Mazamet and onto the walled city of Carcassone. The route then became pretty spectacular along a wild gorge where a river (suitable for rafting, which looked inviting) tumbled below. The cliffs encroached quite considerably onto the road forcing Emma to take great care with the campervan...otherwise we would have lost half of our sleeping space in the section above the cab.

By the time we hit the lower slopes of the HC Port de Pailheres (1500 metres of up) we had by far the hottest temperatures on the tour...the campervan reading over 35 degrees at one point. This caused some suffering on the exposed slopes and by the time we reached the top..we fairly well sprawled out on the grass next to the animals milling arounf.

Managing to compose ourselves for a photo beneath the Col sign, we then descended to the last climb.... a feared summit finish.


One of the wagons on the red train came off at this point due to the excessive heat...but Matt turned into a directeur sportive extrordinaire by supplying us with the athletes choice of Cokes, Haribo and my ipod to listen to from the cab of the van as we crawled up the last slopes of the Plateau de Beille up to 1750 metres. It was a grind.

Music helps when the traffic is very light as it is something to listen to and take your mind off the pain. In my case it proved inspirational as during my 'Euro 2004' mix, the mighty David Hasselhoff came on. Suddenly it was like I had eaten three energy gels.....as the opening chords to Looking for Freedom came on I found extra reserves of power and fairly sprinted to the top.

The Hoff's powers don't stop at single handidly tearing down the Berlin Wall......he virtually carried me to the finish today.

Matt and Emma had meanwhile broken the Campervan up Plateu de Beille record and got busy with the paint and roller that we had prepared earlier. Some of the handiwork can be seen below...but basically we left our presence on the road so that hopefully we can see it on TV in 10 days time. A strong effort I am sure you will agree (me riding past in victory mode). More of that to come I think.

Final piece, the animals roaming around the Pyrenees continued today, a picture here of the lovely horses that greeted us on the Pailheres. Lovely, until their fly ridden heads appear inches from your face and they start rutting the campervan. Anyway, it's their terrain I suppose.

Several litres of fluid each later..we are in a campsite near Foix full of Brits and others preparing for the etape du tour on Monday. We are doing the stage tomorrow and will be long gone by the time they finish, but we wish all the etappers the best of luck.