Stage 9, Val-d'Isère - Briançon, 161 kms, Sun 8th July

Tour founder Henri Desgrange said of the Hors Category Col due Galibier, the first year it was run in 1911, "O, col Bayard, O, Tourmalet... a côté du Galibier vous êtes de la pâle et vulgaire bibine." (Oh, Bayard, Oh, Tourmalet... next to the Galibier you are mediocre and common beer.) Indeed, there may be no more awe-inspiring ride in cycling.


Serious alpine action today, a 1st category climb immediately followed by the hors categorie Galibier (and the HC col de l'Iseran before it) and I am pleased to report that all members of letour2007 made it...we dominated basically. Even Kyle completed a full TdF mountain stage, despite injuries.




The Iseran was climbed straight from Val d'Isere, it is pretty much the highest point you can cycle in the alps, and the air is thinner up there. Then around a 40 mile descent through beatiful scenery before the climbing of the giants.

The weather was largely cloudy but the telegraphe is always hot at the bottom...and the Galibier was tough as always. A climb of almost 2000 metres from a hot valley up to the snows is pretty hard to find...and we had it on the route today.

The descent to Briancon was fun....another 30 km's or so of no pedalling (some reward for the aching knees), even if a rain shower basically forced my eyes shut such was the extent of the water streaming under and around my cycling glasses.

So success...the tour continues, we camped tonight near Tallard the start of stage 10 and it is now hot. The alps recede into the distance and Provence and the mediterranean beckons.

140 miles tomorrow.





Matt...third time up the Galibier in three years.

Tignes - Rest Day(s), Sat 7th July 2007

Ok, this is going to take some explaining, but basically we are in Tignes having our official rest day, the same as the pros will have. The only thing is that due to various circumstances we have two days not riding much.

We had extremely ambitiously entered the extracurricular 'Marmotte' race for the Saturday, the day of the official rest day, and so added another to compensate and had bumped all the remaining stages down another day. But due to Kyle's shoulder and various medical forms that were required to enter, we decided not to.

I still had ambitions right up until the eleventh hour, but the 2.5 hours travel time kind of ruled it out. So we ended up with two days off the bike, but the original schedule stands and there will be no tinkering.

Right, explantions over, the sun is now out...with a vengeance.

The previous two days had seen high winds at altitude which had shut the lifts, but this morning the sun was out and I wolfed breakfast down to go and hire a snowboard. Not sure this is a standard rest day activity, but when in Rome.....

I didn't have any proper snowboarding kit, but it's amazing what you can achieve with some cycling leggings, gloves, hat and a pair of 'lads on tour' shorts. I looked a bit acceptable in the eighties, but it kept me warm at 3500 metres.

I have skied Tignes before, but there is always something novel about snowboarding in July. The super-fast funicular whisked me up to the top and I got a few runs in before heading over to the terrain park. I wanted to reprazent by hitting some kickers and rails, but a lack of helmet and the thought of crashing out of letour forced me to only make modest attempts. The other reason is I can't do any of the above tricks anyway.

Matt and Brian joined me for lunch and we gobbled some frites et saucission whilst various ski teams from around the world mingled around (most notably the Russian female team). Tignes still labels itself as the capital of summer skiing, but like everywhere else the glacier is melting fast and they don't reckon there will be skiing available outside of winter for more than a few years to come. Still, lots of snow at the moment and the recent bad weather has resulted in excellent conditions on the glacier. No ice at all, some video here.

As regards the others, Laura went for a spin on the bike, Amy and Kyle chilled in the chalet and we all ate fine meals and drunk beers and wine and generally relaxed, nice. We are now watching the fake (real) Tour de France prologue on TV.......looks like the riders are just beating our times round the London course, the absence of 70,000 barely moving cars and torrential rain obviously helps.

So, enough of this lounging around, we have the Tour de France to ride ! That fact seemed to get me a 30% discount in the snowboard shop which was good, they were very friendly.

Tomorrow we have the giants of the French alps, the 2700m col de l'Iseran, col du Telegraphe and the mighty col du Galibier which involves 1900 metres of climbing from the valley. All of this has to be gained pedal stroke by pedal stroke.

We are back to work tomorrow, everyone is keen and partially recovered and we are now hoping that the 35 degree heat in Marseille is not going to become as difficult as the recent cold. Wish us luck, we are breaking out the sunscreen.

Extra feature bonus material - some short video of Amy, Kyle and Laura riding past a cliche sunflower field on a previous stage here

Stage 8, Le-Grand-Bornand - Tignes, 165 kms, Thurs 5th July

Mixed success today....no accelerated rest day, we went for it in the rain. Stage completed by Mark and Amy, but Matt called on the sag wagon on the slopes of the Cormet de Roseland. However, to put it into perspective, Matt carries 17st on his bike and he has just completed seven and half full (no time trials or rest days) back to back stages of the Tour de France. This is no mean achievement and I guess very few people have done it. Hats off.

The day began in the predicted heavy rain and cold. Fingers and feet were the issue and we descended from Le Grand Bornand in seriously hideous conditions with freight lorries zooming past in almost zero visibility spray.


The first stop at Faberges (or something) saw brighter conditions and Laura joined us for the next section to the Cat 1 Cormet de Roseland, after the Col de Tamie etc (Kyle sitting out due to understandable injury issues).

The 'Roseland' was tough, but not as tough as the Colombiere the evening before we concluded...it all depends on how many miles you have in your legs before you hit the slopes. Completely.

Fresh snow was lying at the summit height of 1950 metres or so, and the temperature was cold, but at least not raining.

The descent to Bourg St Maurice (on the route of many trips to Savoie ski resorts) saw almost sunny weather, but we knew we still had two more Cat 1 climbs to come...including the summit finish to Tignes at 2100 metres.


The first drag was acceptable, the second tougher as Mark and Amy arrived in very cold conditions at the finish at about 7.30pm, Mark riding to the finish with Amanda from the Axciom group, pictured at foot of page next to a Tour de France sign.



A hotel had been booked and we looked forward to rest days, 9 days now on the Tour de France route and the suffering was obvious, Matt has all sorts of issues and does Kyle, Amy got very cold on the finish this evening as legs tired and Mark's knees seem to be seizing up more easily. 12 stages to go ! So.......we are up to our chins I reckon, lets see if we sink or swim. Hot weather is now predicted (30 degrees), let's hope not too hot. Stats and Google Earth Link here (also now added to all the other pages).


For the stattos, here are some figures : There was over 5000 metres of climbing yesterday which is pretty extreme.

At the first rest day we have ridden over 1578 km's (980 miles) in 8 days. We have climbed 20,113 metres or almost 66,000 feet.

We have spent over 66 hours moving on the bike, and ignoring the prologue that is an everage of 8.5 hours a day of cycling and more time on top stopping for food etc.

Our average speed for all the stages including the prologue has been 14.5mph or 23.34kph. Last year the pro-riders averaged over 40kph for the whole thing. Time for a rest I think.

And Tone, thanks for you derriere advice...Matt has absorbed (maybe literally) and we will see what happens.




Image of route so far from Google Earth

Stage 7, Bourg-en-Bresse - Le-Grand-Bornand, 197 kms, Wed 4th July

34 x 27...my favourite numbers. They represent the smallest gear I have on my bike and I spent most of my time riding up the Col de Colombiere in that gear, it was tough and harder than it's supposed 6.8 average gradient would suggest. It is steeper than that.

Stage completed, but it poured down and was freezing at the end, there is fresh snow on the peaks and we are wondering about the Col du Galibier for stage 9 which is apparently above the snowline.....

Everyone tired...Matt mumbling stuff about sores and not starting tomorrow.

Good meal tonight, but feels like a ski resort in February at the moment. This is supposed to be July and we have freakish weather a bit like the rest of Europe it seems.

Lets hope the weather improves.

Mark, 11pm, in dark, 4th July.


Stats and Google Earth link here

Stage 6, Semur-en-Auxois - Bourg-en-Bresse, 200 km, Tues 3rd July

Rained all day, possibly the worst weather I have cycled in for an extended period, basically it didn't stop all day and was not a day for cycling unless you had to.

The day started badly by Matt's tyre punctured noisely whilst we taking a photo at the start, in fact in the photo below we are wincing as we hear it go go down.

The route took us across a double train track that had no road across it, so we were forced into a 'Stand By Me' style track crossing.....seconds a giant goods train carrying pallets and cars came thundering by.

The scenery was ok, not quite the Morvan region of yesterday and we couldn't see much in the spray anyway.



We also started too late at the time of 10am which meant we were behind schedule all day. We finally got into the Bourg-en-Bresse at about 8pm.

Matt and Amy got deluged on the road as a Dutchman passed them at pace...the water was overly warm that raised suspicions as to the origination.


The campsite last night gave me a Tour de France flag as a souvenir of the region which was nice, and the campsite tonight was just as friendly.

Even the roadside decorations in the shape of figures looked miserable, covered up in bin-liners.

Before after six stages and before we hit the alps, here is a quicky summary of the status of the three riders who are still on track for completing the full tour.

Matt : Feeling 7/10 at moment (tired and feels like he's been attacked with a cheese grater on his rear-end), confidence of finishing 2/10.

Amy : Feeling 8/10 (butt-cuts issues), confidence of finishing 9/10 (legs feel ok)


Mark : Feeling 9/10 (slightly sore knees), confidence of finishing 8/10 (mountains to come).

Right now it is 11.45pm, the rain is hammering the roof of the campervan and there is talk of bringing a rest day forward to cover the forecasted deluges tomorrow. We don't want to cheat and still intend to complete in 3 weeks, but maybe there are some logisitical juggling opportunities to avoid another 8 hours of riding in heavy rain.

Stats and Google Earth link here

Stage 5, Chablis - Autun, 184 kms, Mon 2nd July

Stage 5, the officially the hardest one so far (6/10 in Cyclosport) completed. Getting into this now, basically getting up and out in the morning is the hardest part, the rest of the day is fairly straightforward : ride bike for 8-10 hours, eat ridiculous amounts of food at every opportunity and admire the scenery.

Today we rode through the Morvan region and it was very pretty. On most of the roads there was simply no traffic at all, and that makes cycling very enjoyable.

The climbs we had been talking up as monsters weren't too tough, the biggie to 900 metres was a fairly gradual ascent and we were greeted at the top by a big rain shower.

Matt's dad is being brilliant as usual, meeting us at strategic locations with freshly made sandwiches and drinks, and today he managed to get a load of laundry done too...pretty important when we don't have much time off the bike.

The weather is still cooler than I would expect for this time of year, but makes cycling easier.


We rode with some local kids and their teacher today, we thought we'd draft their wheels for a joke, and they ended up drafting us for a few km's, on mountain bikes with backpacks ! (see pics)

Feeling slightly more optimistic about making this now (kiss of death saying that before the mountains !) and as a result we foolishly treating the mostly flat 200kms tomorrow as a kind of unofficial rest day and will take half an hour lie in. Over confidence setting in no doubt.

Campervan life has settled into a routine, the campsites are not busy and we are all getting enough food and sleep...for now. Saddle sores may become an issue, but for now we are all in one piece (apart from Kyle, but he started like that).




The villages have a 'best decorated village on the tour de france route competition, which is nice. The standard decoration seems to be a giant bike on a roundabout.

Writing this in the dark, everyone else crashed out, as I ought too as well.

Keep the comments coming, we appreciate them, Mark (11pm, 2nd July)

Stats and Google Earth link here

Stage 4, Villers-Cotterêts - Joigny, 190 kms, Sunday 1st July

125 or so miles today, completed fine. The weather has been kind for cycling, not too hot so water intake etc is not excessive and no threat of sunburn yet. The route was a little more rolling and there was a headwind for a large section, but otherwise we are holding up well.



Individual thoughts so far :

Mark

Legs feeling good, they were extremely good yesterday and I felt I could ride up anything all day and did my fair share of towing, but today they were back to normal. My appetite has at least doubled, basically I am hoovering up anything that I see before me, which in France includes a lot of pain-au-chocolat. Stage 5 tomorrow has a difficulty level of six which is a bit of a jump from the 1’s and 2’s we’ve had so far, so lets see what difference it makes. There are occasional sprints fr King of the Mountains points and intermediate sprints, but generally we are trying to save our legs. A friendly local chap rode with us today, pictured below.



No injuries and the punctures seem to have stopped now that we are on super-smooth and debris free French roads. I have also reluctantly concluded that although I love England, cycling anywhere in France is better than everywhere in the UK, maybe Scotland excepted. I have yet to find a non-nice area of France and I am running out of new places to look at. The traffic density difference is absolutely huge and that and the nice temperatures makes it very enjoyable…even several hundred miles in a few days. Loving it so far, exactly what I was expecting. Can't believe Kyle is riding with a collar bone broken less than week ago.







Amy

My favorite day so far! So nice to start out the day with a group of 9 i.e. the regulars- Kyle, Mark, Matt and me. Laura has now joined and will ride with us for over a week (thank goodness for fresh legs). 3 people from Acxiom will ride with us for 4 of the stages. We also had a random French guy cycle with us for the first 30 miles. Chatting amongst the group made the first 30 miles tick by quickly. We were greeted by the support car that happened to have peanut butter- woo-hoo! Finally. I have been craving it since we began and haven’t found any so far (the French obviously don’t know the secret to endurance cycling!). I thoroughly enjoyed an enormous French baguette filled with a banana and peanut butter. I couldn’t have been happier.

The other great part about today’s ride was the scenery. We passed many of the sunflower fields that are often captured as the background to the Tour pelaton. Today was the first day that I really felt like I was on the Tour route. It was also the first day that I wasn’t counting down the seconds to get off my bike. It took my legs ages to warm up ~85 miles, but started to feel really good (the peanut butter must have kicked in). My spirits are high now and I’m looking forward to stage 5. Andy, we made it past your stage 3 wager (!) and still going strong.

Kyle
Today was an outstanding day of riding – definitely what I had in mind when I pictured riding in France and a far cry from the stages in England and Belgium. Laura, Amy, Mark, and I worked well into a steady head and crosswind for the 125 mile stage, and the roads were remote, scenic, in excellent condition, and we passed more than a few sunflower seeds with the sunflowers in full bloom – an awesome sight! Other than stage 2 in Belgium, little is actually flat as both Stage 1 (122 miles) and today (125 miles) have had over 6000 feet of climbing. Certainly not bad, but not exactly pancake flat either. Tomorrow the real climbing starts with Stage 5. Although not a true mountain stage, tomorrow’s stage is considered the toughest outside of the mountains at 125 miles with four Cat 4 climbs, three Cat 3, and a Cat 2 climb which is a 3000 foot ascent over Haut Folin. This should be our first real sampling of just how bad the climbing will be. The little Cat 4’s we’ve encountered so far and which have only been thrown in to distribute some minor King of Mountain points and give someone the jersey for the early stages certainly have seemed like “proper climbs” to me. I fear the real mountains may be a bit more than I’ve anticipated.

For those wondering about my injuries and my crash. I decided on Wednesday that I could ride one-handed and at least manage the 5 mile prologue. The thought of missing this epic stage in London was too much for me. Well, this stubborn idea was a bad one, but luckily it worked out with no crashed or further damage done, but riding one handed in rush hour London traffic in a downpour navigating buses and taxis driving on the wrong side of the road was not on the agenda. So, like it or not I was forced to really test the back and broken collar bone on the bike, and surprisingly it wasn’t such a problem. I could hold the bars and brake and shift without pain, but my back was the biggest problem. I survived the prologue and figured I’d start the 127 mile stage out of London the next day and see how it felt. It was tough and I was in a good deal of pain and any bump or crack in the road was to be avoided or the impact absorbed with the legs, but I got through the day. I held up the group a bit and was in a world of hurt by the end, but I got through it. Stage 2, a 110 mile slog in Belgium was simply miserable. Cold, 30+ mph winds and a steady rain made for a miserable day as I had no booties or long-fingered gloves. And the roads chosen for the stage may have been fine when closed for the 200 person peloton, but for a group of 4 it was not fun as we were primarily on shoulders of major roads with trucks and cars flying past. One of our Tour magazines gave the stage a 2/10 scenic rating, but with a caveat: 0/10 if it’s raining. Well, it was cold, windy, and pouring. Not fun, and the day ended with my 2nd puncture of the ride. We’d more than covered the stage distance (having ridden from the campsite to the start) and just called the van to us to end the day. I decided it may be prudent to skip Stage 3 as my back gave me great difficulties on the first 2 stages and was preventing me from sleeping nights. I still needed assistance getting on and off the bike and out of bed and in/out of the campervan, etc… and the 148 mile stage looked to be on more heavily trafficked miserable roads and the thought of bumping and bouncing around for that duration seemed a poor means to help the back heal. And, as Laura was arriving that day and the campervan needed to be diverted to Brussels to pick her up, I jumped at the excuse to skip the unappealing day in the saddle. The choice turned out to be a prudent one as my back improved nicely with a day off the bike.

It’s been one week since my crash and Stage 5 is tomorrow. I am far from being back to my old self on the bike, but I’m far better off today than earlier in the week. The collar bone is giving me surprisingly little trouble and pain (aside from the occasional jolt of pain on some bumps), and the back seems now to be mending quickly. I still cannot generate much power and cannot get out of the saddle, but the improvements are noticeable by the day and I hope to be at full power by the mountains next week. Today was the first day where I felt like I was riding and not just somehow or other forcing the pedals around. Thanks for all the well wishes and I plan to keep the rubber side down from here on out! Wish me luck!

Stats and Google Earth Link here