Stage 8 : Rennes to Mur de Bretagne – bring it on, the Wall of Brittany!

Starting in Rennes was nice even if the bus that took us 2km to the start in fact id 14km because of a wrong turning that made us do a look back into Rennes! Signposts !
That’s life, sometimes we take a wrong turning and getting back to where we were takes a bit of time. All well provided we enjoy the ride and take in the scenery on route.

The route planners did their trick again and wiggled a 179km route from a distance that direct would be about 100km. We took in some lovely views and many small towns and villages of eastern Brittany. The stage took us through Becherel and onto St Meen le Grand and then turned back up into the hills where we eventually encountered a category 4 climb before we stopped for lunch at the medieval town of Montcontour. We had, yet again, an excellent lunch provided along with excellent service and company. It would have been really lovely to stay and see around the town but as ever we had to hit the road for the remaining 70km to the finish at Mur de Bretagne.

Heading south south west with a south easterly slight wind meant that the team again worked together, as it had done so well on the way to Le Havre, to create a cross-line of 3 riders each for draughting into the wind. It was hard being up front but nice and cosy in the middle or back. This took us all the way to Rohan where we followed a beautiful river to the point where we made a right turn nearly back on ourselves and headed north west. Now the wind was behind us. It’s quite eerie when you have a reasonable tail wind because at some points it feels like a dead-heat because you’re moving in the same direction and at the same speed as the wind itself.

Plenty of down hills with stunning views led us to the town of Mur de Bretagne and I have to say that I began to find my legs again as the saddle sores were eased with some extra padding.

Also, I think it’s become apparent to us all that although we’re trying to ride as a group, we each have our individual styles. The stronger riders who are good racing cyclists and who train much more than me, seem to be very comfortable with a cadence of between 90 and 100 rpm whereas I’m more comfortable at 80 to 90rpm and when it comes to gradual inclines I will often grind a bigger gear and get moment up by standing out of the saddle. It causes me great difficulty to come down a hill and not use that momentum to get part way up the next hill in a bigger gear. This was very clear to me today there were a few occasions where I managed to perform better according to my own riding style. That boosted my confidence in so  much as I know that I have the strength to achieve this challenge, perhaps in a slightly different way to some of my fellow riders.
Perhaps one day, with a little more spinning training and strength training for different muscles, I will achieve the performance levels these other riders can achieve but in the meantime I can only say ‘chapeau’ to their strength and skill at doing what they do, it’s a really amazing thing to watch.

I thought there were many people on the way into the town of Mur de Bretagne but I was quite amazed to get to the other side of the town where the ‘mur’ begins to find not one but several fields with hundreds of camping cars (motorhomes) parked up in preparation for tomorrow’s stage finish.

The “Wall of Brittany” lives up to its name. The guide says an average of 6.9% gradient over 2km. The guide also says there are four parts to this 2km cliimb, one each at 10.1%, 9.5%, 5.5% and 2.4%
However, it’s interesting that on the descent in the bus we were able to see several roadsigns that showed 15% gradient !
I couldn’t tell whether these signs were aimed at those descending the hill or whether the organisers had cunningly turned them around so cyclists proceeding up the hill were not demoralised more than necessary by seeing such an aggressive percentage gradient !

After a day in the saddle with extra padding I felt I had a reasonable amount of strength going into the climb so I chose to attack it as best I could (I think I can claim that I was leading my team mates out into the climb 🙂 but I’m sure they’ll deny it all). The trucks placing the barriers for tomorrow were working their way down the hill so we had to carefully navigate our way through and were spurred on by the workers and many spectators who were admiring our team cars and motorcycle outriders with flashing lights and “I.S.E. Officiel” stickers.

After much grinding and internal cursing at the difficulty of this climb I made it to the lesser gradients which took me from tree cover to blazing sun again.
Achieved, ticked off the list, done and dusted, in the bag, all the relevant terms for having completed the Mur de Bretagne.
I felt fantastic despite the burning pain in my legs and my rear !

Photo courtesy @DWAWest

All of this pain is not simply because I’m a middle aged man in lycra trying to prove something to myself (that may itself be true).
It’s because others are going through pain that they didn’t choose to go through. They are not able to choose my pain. I’m very happy not to have their pain.
Every time I write this on my blog I feel emotional because I feel very blessed to have the gift of this wonderful life without having to go through what people like Geoff Thomas went through.

My goal of doing this is so that others may not have to suffer leukaemia and that Professor Charlie Craddock can indeed help find a permanent cure for leukaemia and eradicate it from our world.
Please support this cause in any way you can.