TUESDAY JULY 17TH
STAGE EIGHT
LE GRAND BORNAND TO TIGNES 165 km
THE last day before the rest day saw us face one of the toughest stages of
the 07 Tour, with three first category climbs to end the day and, while I don~t
want to tempt fate, it was one of my better days on a bike.
Actually, I wasn't alone. I think a few of the lads are finding their legs
after nine days of the Tour and people are looking a little bit stronger. At
least that's how I feel.
It was one of those days where we seemed to either be climbing or descending,
nothing in between, as we made our way through Alberville to the Cormet de
Roselend, which we climbed two years ago on the Tour. That really is one of the
most stunning climbs in all of cycling 20 kilometres up a mountain, around a
picture postcard lake and on to the top. I wasn't going too badly at this stage
although I'm not claiming for a moment that it was easy. What it did bring home
to me is how incredible it was that I managed to do things like this two years
ago!
It was a day when the bigger riders in our peloton were battling gravity and,
as you'd expect, generally losing the fight.
Before the Tour, when I went riding with Griz and my coach of the past couple
of years Paul Bailey, Paul pointed out how much food Griz would have to consume
because he is a big bloke and will need so much energy to haul his body up these
climbs. Paul thought Griz might need to consume four times the calories that the
lighter guys in the group would need.
I suppose that's how Griz and our guest rider Dan, from kit suppliers
Impsport, found themselves at the back of some of the big climbs of the day,
chatting about Big Macs, re-enacting that scene from the start of Pulp Fiction
(you'll know what I mean if you've seen the movie) and generally talking about
how much they were going to eat on the rest day.
In fact, I have to take my hat off to Dan for his emergency dietary procedure
at the top of the Roselend where he consumed a choc ice, a bucket of jelly beans
and a can of coke then set off down the mountain at 100 mph, fuelled by the
biggest sugar rush anyone could ever remember seeing. Sadly, by the foot of the
descent, Dan's sugar rush had burned out and he was back at the rear of the
group.
Dan seemed quite proud of his unique nutriotional strategy and he was also
making his excuses that, being as he is based in Lincoln, the flat countryside
around there is hardly ideal preparation for the Alps. In fact, the only hill he
could find was the Lincoln by-pass which involved him climbing for ten minutes
then descending for ten minutes until he got bored or forced off the road by
truck drivers!
Dan has taken over the role filled by Ian Wright last week as the comic
relief of the group but he is also a good cyclist, as he proves with his bike
handling on the descents. He had us in stitches at one stage when we stopped
briefly outside a shop and the shopkeeper came out and started lecturing him on
the gearing he had on his bike, telling him he had the wrong equipment to do all
the climbing ahead of him. Dan has been a very welcome addition to our group
over the past couple of days.
As I say, I was going quite well with the only problem being my usual old
complaint about a lack of vision. On the descent of the Roselend, I saw what I
thought was one of the lads standing by a gate and slammed my brakes on thinking
we had stopped for some reason. When I approached the shadowy figure at the
roadside, I don~t know who was more surprised ~ me or the person I was shouting
at, who turned out to be a woman on a bike with a shopping basket attached!
Another of our guests had a lot less pleasant experience with us today,
sadly. Clive Weston is a friend of Pete Slater~s from SIS and rode around London
with us on the prologue day. He is on holiday in the Alps and had arranged to
ride with us today up the Roselend.
Unfortunately, he was on the way down the mountain at great speed when a
woman cut across the road in front of him and knocked him flying from his bike.
Thankfully, he suffered no worse injury than some bad gravel rash across his
shoulders so we were all thankful about that. According to Pete, Clive makes a
habit of such crashes, an every day occurrence for riders in London, so it was
all in a day's riding for him! Get well soon, Clive.
As the day ended, we climbed up the awesome Mt Iseran towards the finish in
the town of Tignes and, slow as I was, I found the climb okay. We had been
joined by yet another new friend ~ Dave, a barrister from Birmingham who is a
friend of one of my colleague's at the Foundation and has a place in Val
D'Isere.
Dave was a great host and told us a lot about the area and climbed the last
section with us in Tignes before heading off. It was nice to have yet another
fresh face on board and, following the rest day, he is going to climb the Iseran
with us at the start of stage nine on Thursday.
Quite frankly, I don't want to think that far ahead right now. After nine
days of the 2007 Tour de France and 970 miles of riding, the rest day cannot
come quickly enough.
Especially as, in shades of our Tour in 2005, there is a chance of snow on
top of the Galibier on Thursday!
