Sorry no photos on this blog today as I’m exhausted and in dire need of sleep.

This was always going to be an interesting day simply because we have completed the first set of mountain stages and are now in the rolling hills of Le Midi, in the southern part of France. This is a huge and varied country and the tour brings a lot of the country together. It also gives the French and other holiday makers reasons to visit parts they probably would never have thought if visiting.

Meeting Lance Armstrong at the hotel last night along with Elizabeth Kreutz his fabulous photographer was also interesting and I’m sure like us he too was a little nervous about the reception he might receive. I believe Sam Bagnall got some nice photos of me and Lance having a chat at the breakfast table.

As part of the team for a couple of days Lance joined us on the team bus to the start of stage 13 and it was quite something to see the press frenzy as we arrived at the car park of the supermarket Leader Price – the Tour de France is not short of luxurious start points in supermarket car parks, for us anyway.

So my 15 seconds of fame ( more like 15 milliseconds ) happened as he coach door opened and the paparazzi cameras clicked as if I was a superstar; then they stopped suddenly when everyone realised I wasn’t the one they wanted. I got a laugh from them with my disappointed face when they stopped clicking. Eventually, after a media scrum around him for about 25 minutes, along with our stand-in-bouncer Mr Paul Morton (ex Met police) literally lifting a rather naughty journalist right out of the scrum, we finally got going. I think our Paul got a message across loud and clear to he journalists that although this is a charity bike ride there will be no messing around with our team and our safety and wellbeing were paramount – thank you Paul!

We set off around 08:15 with more cyclists, motorbikes, press cars, paparazzi and general hangers on than you could  imagine. Press groupies of about 20 cars and motorbikes hung with us all day and it was nice that we managed to get a large room to ourselves for lunch without interference from the press – they still hung around outside in the 43degrees heat though. I can’t knock them because if you want publicity then it comes with a price.

So to the ride. Yes, I’m told the temperature peaked at a sweltering 43 degrees Celsius and our morning ride to lunch stop was so intense I really questioned for the first time whether I had the stamina to make it through. Lunch was long, perhaps too long but the positive was that the afternoon saw a little light cloud cover, and I mean light, just enough to give us some respite on the last 40 miles. I’ve never drunk so much water filled with electrolytes or water on its own as I have done these last couple of days. The support team are doing an incredible job of making sure there’s plenty of supplies. I’ve played support role on long distance rides before, nothing on this scale, though, and I have a small understanding that the support role is a very enduring and tough one. All our team are very supportive of what we are doing on the bikes but I can assure you that we too appreciate fully what they are doing in incredibly hot temperatures in vehicles moving so slowly up mountains. Thank you support team !

The route from Muret to Rodez was actually really nice, with rolling hills and some stunning views. I took pictures and will post another night but I don’t think they do justice to the views in real life – a bit like that sombrero you buy on a Mexican holiday which doesn’t seem quite the same on a Saturday afternoon in Guildford!

Every time we stopped, whether for lunch or for a pee break, the press were on top of us. Rather they were on top of Lance for that throwaway sound bite or headline they could use to either support us or otherwise.
There is no doubt that the man is, as one journalist out it to me, both “toxic” because sponsors or organisers won’t go hear him and “box office” because he absolutely makes headlines and sells newspaper lines. He’s a character, hats for sure. Someone said to me “of course he’s nice, but then so was Reggie Kray”. Ahem, to me, and I’m sure to my blog followers there’s a big difference between the two.

When we finally arrived at the finish line in Rodez you shouldn’t be surprised that the route organisers again threw a little kick in by routing the last 600 metres up a 9% gradient !
Actually, that was fine because there was a clear goal to those last metres – the bus!
Trouble was that we couldn’t get into the bus because of? You guessed it. The melee was there right at the bus door and I just couldn’t get all those journalists to turn round and see my final crossing of the line. Needless to say you’ve also guessed by now that Mr Armstrong did indeed beat me to the line.

So that’s it. Stage 13 in the bag. Although there’s 21 stages I’m not counting the last one as t is a bit of a show case ride into Paris from the suburb of Sevres – and we get to lie in as we don’t leave that day until after midday because we have a very specific window of time in which we must arrive at he Arc de Triomphe. So for those of you planning to fly in from all around the world, keep an eye on this blog for more accurate timing of our arrivals.

Tomorrow should be a nice day. Temperature is going up or down depending on whether you speak to locals or the Dutch (journalists of course). I’m hoping we get a view of the magnificent Millau Bridge as it’s supposed to be stunning.

A bientot mes amis – and please donate as generously as you can using the link on this blog.

Thank you.