Confessions of a cycling addict

Okay, okay - it's true! I have been to France before on cycling escapades - cycling the first time, tour watching the second and a bit of both the third! Luckily I have no evidence of the first Alpine cycling adventure back in about 1992, otherwise you'd be howling at haircuts - mine somewhat mushroom-like , Big Bruv beponytailed, and the crasher with hair! However, here's a little photo montage from the other times...


The second escapade was captured on film, which I think was 1995 - well at least the Ev Brothers were, haircut, oakleys and all! As if preparing us for the Croix de Fer it dared to be about a million degrees on this particular day whilst we sat for 4 fours on the Champs Elysee waiting for a miniscule glimpse of the pros razzing by! Big Mig won the Tour that day, along with coca-cola, hat sales and nearly some dodgy guy at the Parisian portaloo... He was maybe just a few years too early though??? You can see from the attached, Nat was in particularly good form that day... It was commonly believed that at this tender age travel outwith the boundaries of Hull didn't agree with him!


By the time I made my third escapade in 2000 you can see that Nat had clearly overcome his "out of Hull condition" and was in top form! In fact he slept so soundly in the hostel we're pictured in below that the other 4 guys we shared a dorm with (plus another 4 the second night) had the pleasure of his sonorous and anti-soporiphic tones all night. Two nights. Two very long nights... We only ended up in a hostel because of a bomb scare at the tourist info that prevented us getting sorted with a hotel.

Anyway, just like the recent Alpine adventure, this one also consisted of going up...

And coming back down again!
I think Nat does a particulary good job in the "going up" picci of hiding the absolute disgust of being made to walk up not just one tier of the Eiffel tower, but two... just to save 20minutes of queing by the ice-cream stall for the lifts! Coming down was much more fun. That particular July there was still heaps of snow up at the top of the mountains. This snow was at the top of the Col D'Iseran, just up the road from the famous Val D'Isere ski resort where we'd had lunch in the poshest ski-resort cafe in France - both of us in shorts!

There was some cycling done that trip - with I think it being the one and only time I've beaten Dez to the top of a climb on account of him taking a tumble on a wet bend on the way down from the chalet. I have no photos of the cycling - presumably because I was trying to blot the pain of those climbs out of my head...

Well, no cycling since getting back from the most recent escapade. I've promised myself a weekend off and then spent most of it twitching and fidgetting. Road again next Sunday I reckon!

Anyway, better go 'cos I still need to sort the video out!

Cheerio,

Col.

The Gadget data!

Well back in Paris since yesterday, Millie and the Chalet Maid family (Thanks again xx!) packed off this morning. Still not ridden bike since Thursday's race. It's not a bad last bike ride, racing up the famous Alpe d'huez. Still it'll have to be broken at some point and replaced with, countryside to the west of Paris....Anyway, that's for another day/week.
Today, I managed to get the data off the Garmin for the Big Ride. As I noticed on the day for some reason it was 700meters too high on the Altitude but looking at it, it has remained constant - it's 700m out all day! Bit of a pain but at least I noticed straightaway as I knew we started at 911m in Embrun. Still very useful on the day as I knew how much was left of each climb so could impart that knowledge to those around me, sometimes it went down well (only 100m of climbing left as we hit the 12% on the Galibier), sometimes it didn't (telling TGMM there was still 600m to go as the Croix de Fer steepened again out of the last town).

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/510336

So, it says we did over 5000 meters of climbing!! That'll be why the legs hurt on Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday...... Distance and speed might be a little different from the other guys as I did a few loops here and there looking for people on the Croix de Fer and the Alpe but Jeez, nearly 10 hours riding time. Crikey.

Still can't believe we did it and it all went so well - no punctures, no crashes, no wrong turns (apart from me!). Perfect.

So boys, there can only ever be one Nathan Evington Memorial Bike Ride (and you've got the shirt to prove you were there!) but what I want to know is - what we doing next year?

The young supporters who stayed at home.....

Miss T.G 6 weeks
Mst T.G 19 Months

Congratulations to all the riders for completing such an incredible challenge! And a massive well done to all the support group for making it possible. We are very proud of all of you. xx

Perspective from the Seatpin

Okay... just about got my breath back, so time for the lowdown. Here's how the ride went from my perspective.

1st Col of the day - Cote de Sainte Marguerite:

Pretty straight forward this one. Sat nicely on Dez's wheel admiring nice new racing jersey! Seemed to be over fairly quickly. Knees knocking a bit at this point, but teeth gritted so rode through this. Temperature and tempo bearable. I reckon I've done bigger climbs in training.

2nd Col of the Day - Col de Lauteret:

Bit of a head wind through up a valley that seems to go on for ever! We were holding back a bit on this one, me kidding myself that I'd love to be going faster when really energy conservation was the name of the game. Seemed to take all day to get to the top at 2067m! Felt pretty good though when we did, which was lucky, 'cos the top of this is the bottom of...

3rd Col of the Day - Col de Galibier:

First proper climb of the day. They say this is the easy side of the climb, and I kind of agreed right up to the last 2 clicks when suddenly the road goes vertical and the guys in front must have taken whatever spare oxygen there was out of the air before I got to it! Still, I was expecting to be proper caned up here and was only 150 yards or so off Big Bruv and TGMM at the top! If I'd known they hit 182bpm on this bit I'd have given it all to stay with them, but given my pulse hadn't been below 178 all the way from the bottom I figured I ought not to push my luck... View from the top was amazing. Decent even better! Quite technical at the top, which meant lots of opportunity for flying past cars and motor bikes! Excellent! Halfway down the descent was the lunch stop in Valloire. Oxygen had returned to the air, but unfortunately so had the heat! Didn't bode well... Left from lunch straight onto...

4th Col of the Day - Col de telegraphe:

From the side we hit this it's fairly straight forward. I say that... If I hit this climb in Scotland I'd be pretty cheesed off; but in the Alpes anything that's only a couple of miles and barely breaks 5% is just a warm up. Group stayed together up this - great sight seeing the 4 jerseys together, especially given we then got the formation flight down the descent to the lowest point of the day (altitude wise) in the valley through Saint Julien Monts Denis. It was proper scorching down here! Despite the fact that I was pretty much free wheeling along the sweat running in my eyes was totally blinding me through the valley! Felt like my eyeballs were on fire. And then things got much, much, much worse...

5th Col of the Day - Col de Croix de Fer

Croix de Feu would be a better name (cross of fire!). The first few km of this climb are insane! The gradient's up and down so I never got a rhythm going, the temperature's well over 30, there's no shade at all and the road winds out in front of you laughing at you for being so massively under-prepared for its hellishness! We regrouped about 4km up this, by which point I was a couple of hundred meters down on the lead 2, but when I stopped I was practically passing out from the heat. Luckily our roadside angel arrived with water which was promptly poured straight over the head!

The middle bit of the climb was okay-ish apart from that niggle in the back of your head telling you that it's only the middle bit. When I got onto the last 8mile slog and saw my speedo barely registering 6mph I knew I was in for a very, very tough afternoon! All in all it took about 3 hours to get to the top from the valley. Two stops - one at the top of the inferno section at the beginning and one just out of the last village, where just like on the Galibier, the road builders saw fit to put a couple of vertical sections in! Buggers! There's a pretty long straight near the top where one of the cars stopped twice to ask if I wanted a lift! Apparently I wasn't looking my best... I was begging for Nathan to pop out and give me a push at this point, but instead he blew a head wind right into my face! I can hear him now, "what kind of a wuss are you? Armstrong would be in his big ring up here... Ciappucci would be wheelying and bunny-hopping..."

It was nearly 7pm by the time I got to the top of here. I was starving and feeling pretty sick from taking too much energy drink and not enough solid food. 100miles done though at this point and I knew I only had another 9miles of climbing to do.

The descent from the Croix de Fer was absolutely amazing! Long meandering roads tucked in at 45+ mph. I had a bit of a hairy moment when I got a speed wobble at 53mph which felt like a front tyre blow-out, but that aside the descent was great! Was cool to have Doug back with us as well and have the full compliment of Nathan's flyers tearing down the valley together and onward to our final ascent!

6th and last Col of the Day - Alpe D'Huez (okay, not strictly a Col as it doen't come down again...)

I felt there was a huge sense of anticipation as we rode the final valley through to the Alpe. Not just 'cos it's such a mecca for all cyclists, but because this was the where we'd pay proper tribute to the big fella. His ashes are scattered there at Bungo bend (hairpin 7) but his spirit is in every name written on the road all the way up - every one of them a cycling story that would have been wittily recalled. I felt we all wanted to ride this one well despite the miles in our legs. I felt at the top that we'd all ridden it well - we'd all given it everything we had and left a piece of ourselves on the mountain to keep Nat company.

Concentration and rhythm are everything on the Alpe - the gradient's much more constant than the Croix de Fer so despite being steeper, if you can keep a rhythm going you give yourself a fighting chance! After clinging onto TGMM's wheel for the first 3 hairpins I had no choice but to let them go, find my rhythm and ride this one alone as I had the Croix de Fer. I had to stop for water a couple of times to avoid the knock setting in, but made it to the top just as the last of the daylight disappeared.

The last km of the Alpe is fantastic! It dips down ever so slightly so I managed to get it in the big ring, and as I came round on to the final uphill straight I felt like I was flying to the finish, such was the rush from finishing! It ended pretty abruptly mind when I crossed the finish line and realised that, 132.8 miles from Embrun, I could finally stop pedalling, lie on the floor and weep!

Average speed for the ride was 13mph. TGMM did 13.4, which means in total I'd lost 18 minutes between last the two climbs - if someone had told me in January after I cracked on a 23mile flat route that I'd have been anything like this close I'd have laughed in their face!

Prior to the ride I'd had this crazy idea that we ought to be able to do it without support cars. Just for the record - this was clearly an insane notion! Without the support we'd never have finished it in the day - so big thanks are due to all those who followed us round! You were our back winds and you brought us home safely. Many thanks to you all!

Seems strange that it's over now after being so focused on getting through it for the last 7 months. I guess this is pretty much it for the blog too... I'll probably have one or two more posts with pictures and then it'll be cheerio for good. For now though it's just TTFN.

Col.

Another £20 for chariddy

Fatsprinter said he'd give £20 if I did the weekly race up Alpe d'huez. Well, I did, and it hurt like hell!! Got to the finish in 55mins 40 secs which is fairly whipping along until you realise the winner did it in 43.55! He was about 15 years old and 2 stone - not that I'm making excuses or anything. Official results show I was 17th out of 61 starters but I was aiming for top 10 as it was another £30 from the boy but it was also another 4 mins quicker too which I don't think I had in me. You'll be pleased to know I didn't top up the tan as it piddled it down - I didn't think I'd ever get wheelspin up Alpe d'huez but you touch all that paint out the saddle and it's change of shorts time believe me! Got to the start abit late (organisation a bit weak) so had to hold my race number in my hand all the way - Liz is sure it cost me the race but I'm not so sure.... maybe 2 seconds.

Also managed to get the Garmin data off (can't get the big ride as the connection is too slow - it's a near 10 hour ride!) so here is Alpe d'huez at my speed.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/510397

Got some brilliant pictures too, having a REALLY big one of the last one made up as I look great even if I do say so myself.

http://www.photobreton.com/c/227/p/c7f1bb1896f8bd94b09a65f5ff8f4ad1/ALPE-D-HUEZ-AOUT-2008-7-AOUT-08.html

No more bike for a while, tired now.....

Big Bruv's side of the story

We aimed to be out the door of the chalet at 6am and were only 5 mins late - not bad for 5 cyclists and 4 other sleepy people! The 2 cars were packed the night before including the emergency bike rack we had to source on saturday. The drive to Embrun is a scenic one but not quick progress, Holly and the support were behind the 'race car' and we got a call soon to slow down but we were practising our cornering for the mountains!
We were ready to roll at about 8.30am and surprised Millie with the Nathan's Flyers kit that Seatpin had organised (Thanks from us all, I think we looked great!). The first hour was almost flat with a cross/headwind and we were still making good progress to the foot of the first climb, a Category 3. TGMM, Seatpin and I rode up at a cautious pace together, followed a little bit later by Fatsprinter. I stopped for a comfort break and paced Col back on. I'm sure TG and Seatpin weren't freewheeling as it took quite an effort!!!
Up through Briancon saw us thin out a bit but we were soon back together for the Col du Lautaret. Although not steep, it does go on forever and after I'd won the hotspot sprint in Moutier les Bains it got a bit tougher and Fatsprinter trailled off a little. We regrouped at the top and after a short rest we onto the second highest road in France - the Col du Galibier.
My word, there is NO oxygen at the top of there! TGMM and I were fighting it out at the front, closely followed by Seatpin. We got some great pictures there (They're in the post boys!). TG and I had the same max pulse on the steepest section (182) and when we stopped we felt a bit dizzy to say the least.
After a short break to put something warm on, TGMM flew down the descent passing the other motorbikes, with me hanging on for dear life! Boy that man can fly! We got to the planned lunch stop ahead of the support teams as they can't go as fast as we can! Ham and our favourite swiss cheese (in joke) and something to drink. A chance to sit down together with everyone and share stories of the day so far.
Fatsprinter felt better after his coffee (or two!) and led us up the Col du Telegraphe at his speed but little did he know we didn't want to go any quicker anyway! Another roaring descent where we all made a little error or two ;-) but always safely and onto the valley road. We got paced along there by a local cyclist and when I asked if he was going our way he say no, it was too hard.
Probably the hardest climb for most of us was next, the Col de la Croix de Fer. It didn't help that it was about 30 degrees at the bottom and it ramps up steep straight away. There is no shade at the bottom and we were literaly cooking as we tackled the first 4km. A few strategic stops for cooling down and then we continued. There's a short descent and then another torturous 4 or 5km at 9% before some tunnels. TG and I stocked up on water and food (we'd been on the climb for nearly an hour already) and rode the next false flat section at a steadier pace. I think what makes the climb hard is the uneveness of it - there are steep sections, easy sections, flat sections and downhill - all in the space of 30km. Into a town and then BANG!! it gets steep again. It's exposed too so you get hot again and I think we all struggled up from there to the top, a savage climb on a hot day.
The descent of the Croix de Fer is probably one of the best we've cycled. There are a couple of nasty uphill sections to clamber over but the rest of it is all smooth tarmac with a good mix of hairpins and sweeping bends. We all recorded over 50mph down there and it was perfect. A little more valley to the foot of the Alpe d'huez and we were nearly there, 122miles done, another 8miles to go. I don't know how but TG and I blew up there in about 1hr 9mins, passed Nathan's ashes on turn 7, cheering us on all the way.
It was a wonderful, emotional, memorable and epic day. It was all perfect, cycling along with my new brothers in the most brilliant surroundings supported by the best support team in their team issue gear too (they have pro contracts for next year).

Finally thanks to everyone for doing the ride, whether that was pedaling with me, cheering from the support cars, cooking something at the end, stood at the finish line or watching for text messages at home. We love you all. x

WE MADE IT!

Hi Everyone

Well, after much preparation, planning, pain and perserverence, we completed all 130 miles of the ride! Here's a little video taster.... I'm sure all the guys will come on here soon when they get home and give their side of the story and I'll do mine soon!



I'm sure all the riders want to say "Thankyou" all so much for your support, sponsorship, patience and assistance - we couldn't have done it without the support teams and donations xxxx

8 hours and counting....

Have just spoken to Mr T.G the legs are shaved and he is raring to go! The flyers have been sorting out logistics today, getting ready for tomorrows big event. Part of this was driving round France trying to find a bike rack... they succeeded. No doubt with charm, wit, charisma and "fluent" French! It's up at 5am for them all tomorrow, to leave at 6. Then it's a two hour drive to the start of the ride. Here's hoping that they all get a decent amount of kip. I know that you will join me in wishing them all the best for this mammoth task. A huge dedication to a much loved Nathan. I know he is watching you all, feeling so proud of your preparation and determination.

Up, Up, Up

Mrs T.G x