A Very Funny Summary of 2007

SaturdayCatch the plane and meet a few eager beaver cyclists on the flight. "Are you doing the etape?" Exchanged stories about training schedules, which were a lot of words from them (Tour of Wessex, flew out to do the Pyrenees pre race, are you really 93kg?! etc. etc.). And from us? Well, we did about 15 rides around the infamous "Surrey legs of steel" circuit. Heard of it? No, thought not...
SundayHave to cycle 20k from lodgings to registration point. First time I've been on a bike in a month. Tried to adjust odometer sensor 500m in and it gets caught in the spokes. Fall off bike. Chase the "peleton" and find that once caught I'm knackered keeping up. The rest of the team can't even feel it. Oops, this isn't good...
Thankfully on the way to overnight bike storage, worked out that I was using an inefficient gear… Riding wasn't so difficult. But annoyingly, we're told that overnight storage is 10k from the start. How do you think we are supposed to get from there to the start tomorrow? You've guessed it. 199k challenge for the day becomes 209k. Excellent.
Win the eating pasta competition in the evening. Sipping fluids all evening then go to bed. Can't sleep, but that's a good thing - I'm visiting the loo every few minutes.
The stageA 199k stage with 53k climbing over 5 mountains (3.5k gross vertical ascent) - 8,500 entries had dwindled to 7,000 starters, by all accounts because a lot of the amateurs think this year is just too damned difficult.
http://www.letapedutour.com/2007/ETDT/presentation/fr/parcours.htm Monday7a.m. We're off! 6 minutes to cross the starting line and we're into the stage proper. Saddle bag stuffed with gels, water bottles full, spirits high. Hoorah!
First 16k on the flatAll looking good - working the big gear and for the first time enjoy haring down a motorway on a bike. Bring on the mountain!
11.4k ascent (at 5.3%) of the Col de Port (category 2 climb)Well, here's my first real ascent, yes, even longer than Surrey's Ranmore Hill (2k). The big boys (well, make that actually very light boys, but on very expensive bikes) are screaming past and have leg definition like not previously seen. Still, a few of the poor b@st@rds have punctures so get past a few of them (Nelson laugh). Bad karma however, and immediately overtaken by a flurry of women and geriatrics. Have had bigger morale boosts...
Manage to make the ascent in a little over an hour and feeling fine. Time for first descent. 2nd bend on the way down and the marshals are doing some good windmill action. Some poor guy is holding his head in the middle of the road. Salutary reminder not to get too clever.
A few more bends down see a dog (maybe the same one that took someone out of the peleton proper the other day). Lot of shouting of "chien" - 3rd year French comes flooding back… I thought it would be funny to shout "cheval!"
Quite a long run in to the first food stop and manage to get on the back of a peleton that's got a head of steam. Interesting dilemma - work a little harder than you think you should, to get the benefit of some serious slipstreaming (and hence time), or conserve energy? Reckon the speed comparison was 27mph to 18. Wind resistance (or avoidance of) is what the sport's all about so go with the peleton and make some great time.
Arrive at Revitaillement 1 to wolf some coconut / oat cakes and take on some water. Rejoin Pete and Andy who had gone ahead on the first climb.
Bit on the flat to hill 2Andy / Pete put on a good turn of pace leaving Rev 1. Too much for me in fact. Heart rate's at 170, so drop back. Now I'm effing lonely. The various peletons flying past are just too quick to latch onto, and I'm in no man's land in the frickin' wind and inefficiently burning precious energy. Eventually draft some frog for 45 minutes before he gets properly p1ssed off with me (when he slowed I slowed - in hindsight I think it was a cue to take a turn in front).
Get to the base of hill 2. 5.7k ascent (at 6.9%) of the Col de Portet D'aspie (category 2 climb)Can't remember a single thing about this hill. Can't have been that bad. 7k ascent (at 8.1%) of the Col de Mente (category 1 climb)Sadly the sun comes out - we have had 7 to 11a.m with lovely cloud cover but now it's over and conditions are testing. See Andy taking water 100 yards ahead and join him for the last 3k of a pretty tough ascent. Take a wobble getting of the bike (ahh) at the top as Revitaillement 2 makes a welcome appearance. Try to eat some more coconut / oatcakes but they now physically repulse me. Only thing I can stomach are bananas and jelly cubes. Take 3 bananas in double quick time and remount for the descent.
Flat en route to climb 4Mentally just thinking "2 hills to go" but the flat seems to stretch out interminably and there's a strong headwind. No-one's out on their own now and the esprit de corps seems to have vanished from the peleton. No bashfulness up front in suggesting it's someone else's turn. I stay safely out of sight at the back and thankfully have Andy for a bit of company (he's also another 14/15 stoner and is quite nice to pedal behind!) Notice the frog I drafted 2/3 hours ago - couldn't resist jumping off Andy's and onto his wheel, just until he noticed me.
See Andy's bird at the foot of climb 4 and he stops for a chat. Apparently a guy with one leg was seen only a few minutes behind us at this point...
19k ascent (at 6.2%) of the Port de Bales (out of category (i.e. difficult) climb)Now I was rather done in by climb 3 - mentally was thinking that while climb 4 is twice as long as 3, at least the average gradient was 2% less. Sadly it's not an "out of category" for nothing. The first 7k were at 2/3% with bits at 0%. This was fine. Sadly however, 1st form maths tells you that means the average for the final 12k on this ascent therefore had to be much higher. And 1k into the last 12 the legs stopped turning. Dead. Genuinely thought the dream was over. 11k to the summit, and a 10k mountain after that, and the legs were well and truly shot. You could say a low point. Looking around though, could see some clowns walking their bikes up, so decided to do the same while contemplating life and a course of action. And then met some top Welsh blokes (up until that day an oxymoron!) who recommended doing it in bite sized chunks, so remounted on a shallower section and managed another k. Walk a hundred metres, ride a few hundred metres. And so on. The kilometres ticked by, those with average 10.5% were less enjoyable than those at 7.5% but made it to the top (and revitaillement 3) in 2 and a half hours. Tired, but thankfully, unlike some others, had yet to throw up.
Allowed gravity take the bike back down to earth and went in a demented search for bananas. Knocked back numbers 8, 9 and 10 and took on board 3 for the descent and final climb. There were a lot of broken men taking in the evening sunshine, but one guy lifted spirits when he said the sweeper was 20 minutes behind. "You could walk up Peyresourde and still make it" he ventured. So the objective changed back from finishing, to finishing inside 12 hours (time cut off) and jumped on the bike with renewed vigour.
Starting to get quicker on the descents now as the margins became quite tight. Fly past the lightweights down the mountain (93kg finally having an advantage) and make it to the bottom of Peyresourde...
9.7k ascent (at 7.8%) of the Col de Peyresourde (category 1 climb)I now can not feel my nuts or any other part of my genitalia, or the outside of my palms or the ends of my toes. It is hot, and I welcomed the soaking the girl with the hose offered. Think about showering her face with something from my hose, but back to the work in hand, so to speak. I have 1 hour 20 to get to the finish.
Thankfully there is one quite long and quite steep bit to Peyresourde, so get a lot of walking out of the way in one go. And on y va. Ride, walk, ride etc. Now knew I could get to the finish but could I do it inside 12 hours? Felt sorry for the guys lying flat on their backs under the trees (don't know whether mechanical, physical or mental breakdown) as it must have been soul destroying. Turned up the pace for the final k (that'll be 3mph to 4mph then!) and hit the summit at 11h52 official (11:46 from crossing line). Just the final descent! If I could average 40mph (hmm?) could do a sub 12h official time, but 25mph gets me inside 12 hours from the start line...
Coming home!Safe to say the descent was quick. Couple of hairy late braking moments but all fine. Heart breaking moment at the bottom, when look up and see a few cyclists 20m higher than me (is there a mini climb?), but thankfully it's just a small ramp. Hare it over the line (clock at 12h 3m, start to finish 11h57), then some quivering bottom lip as given finisher's medal and shaken warmly by the hand.
And now for the bad news. While times are adjusted for the time it takes from the gun to crossing the starting line (to prevent jostling / risk taking at the start), this only applies to persons finishing inside an official time of 12 hours. For some reason 1m 6 seconds latitude was given (to Bruce Mackie), but that was not sufficient for me, so you won't see me in the annals. Shame but I'm quite sanguine about it. Right! Now planning the firebombing of Mondevelo's headquarters!
4357 official finishers - I'd unofficially be 20 or so behind. As for the others, Pete did 10:55 and Bruce 11:20. Andy was swept 3k from the final summit, poor s0d. He appreciated the irony in only seeing septuagenarians upon being loaded onto "the wagon". Not brave enough to ask if he was exaggerating.
And as for the nuts? Well, full sensation happily returned in 2 days. Too late for any finishing celebration and, interestingly enough, about the same time I stopped cr@pping banana sludge