Sponsor Ciaran Doran at : https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/ciarandoranbeforethetour
So it’s goodbye to the Pyrenees and bring on some less aggressive days of Le Tour One Day Ahead.
No photos this evening as we arrived in Toulouse very late and I desperately need sleep. Check in over the next few days for some more interesting photos.
Excitement, and just a little anticipation, mounts as the press and fans start to get excited about Lance Armstrong riding with us tomorrow for two days. We encountered cyclists all the way from Utrecht and asking us whether it was true and that they’d be there. 99% of the feedback has been really positive so let’s see what happens.
After a gruelling stage over the Col d’Aspin and the Col du Tourmalet yesterday we thought it couldn’t get tougher even though we could all look at the stage profile and see clearly that today included the same number of metres of climbing but over four, yes 4, mountains.
To make matters worse, when we stopped for lunch having conquered the Col Dr Portet d’Aspet and the Col de la Core, we were informed that a protest group had thrown tacks along the route leading to the next climb. He road was closed and we may have to finish the stage there and then at lunch – hurray !!!
Ahem, no. That’s not what we came here to do.
Paul Morton, one of our illustrious leaders found another way to get to the final climb and avoiding the road with the tacks. Any sensible person would think that a flatter route would be the order of the day, thereby missing out one of the climbs. After all, it wasn’t our fault a bunch of Eco warriors are doing stupid things to upset a bike race – yes Eco warriors trying to upset a bike race, I don’t get it.
So our new route took us over the Col du Port, a 17km climb rather than a 12km climb. Well why the heck not. I can’t feel my legs any more anyway so what’s another few kilometres at 6% gradient going to do to make it all that much worse.
In our first real climb of the day we stopped at the memorial to Fabio Casartelli, the tour cyclist who died after crashing on the descent and cracking his head on the small wall at the side. Cycling is a dangerous sport. Crazily or perhaps foolishly I descended the Col du Tourmalet yesterday and peaked at 95kmh. After that I took today’s descents slightly slower but they were still quite quick. It’s easy to get drawn into speedy descents – perhaps it’s a mid-life thing getting the speed thing out of the system.
The final climb of the day was 16km with an average gradient of 7.9%. Average is a wonderful term. Given that a lot of the final 6km was at about 3% that means there were long stretches of the climb at much more than 7.9%. That climb hurt. It really hurt. My legs have disappeared and my next muscles are like a coat hangar. We have 4 masseurs who work on all of us after every single day and I have been very grateful for the work they’ve done on me over the last week. The cycling has made my muscles hurt more than I’ve ever hurt before. The masseurs make them hurt even more ! but it’s for the better and it works – I don’t have cramp in the night and I wake up feeling I can walk and face another day on the bike. So thank you to Sarah, Dean, Paul and Damien.
I’m still amazed at the number of motorhomes that exist in France not to mention the number that decide to drive all the way up a mountain and park at the sides of the roads. It is, however, a testament to the popularity of the Tour de France and the holiday celebrations it helps create. The higher we cycled up the Plateau de Baille the more motorhomes there were and towards the top there were literally hundreds on the fields with music blaring, bar-b-que’s on full heat and many families enjoying the carnival like atmosphere.
On the route we were shouted at by an Englishman who wanted to know which of us was Geoff Thomas and when he found him he shouted:
“I was here 10 years ago and I stuffed €50 in your pocket for the charity. Keep going Geoff, keep doing it!”
That’s the sort of support we’ve been getting more and more of on the ride. I’m sure there will be even more in the next couple of days due to Lance Armstrong being with us. I can only hope that the extra publicity caused by this will raise the profile of the ride, why we’re doing it and bring in more money to reach our target.
We passed the £600,000 mark yesterday so there is a chance we can make the target over the coming weeks.
Please remember to donate whatever you can to my BTMyDonate page, link below and above – especially if you have a spare £30,000 you’d rather not give to the tax man and would prefer a great cause.
Thank you
Sponsor Ciaran Doran at : https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/ciarandoranbeforethetour
Thank you to our sponsors, without whom this challenge would not be possible.
One Response to “Stage 12 Lannemezan to Plateau de Baille”
Quite an achievement so far stage 12 given some of the peleton gave up.