Yesterday we woke up in Gouchen, far from the start of Stage 18. We were close to the Start of 16 and near the end of 17. The last two days had been filled with nasty weather and no bike riding. We were getting antsy. The plus was that our stay here was a rather idyllic Shangri-La in the Pyranees Mountains, with our lodging and our host, Vincent, a wonderful combination of bucolic comfort and relaxation. But, I wanted to ride. And I wanted to climb Tourmalet. We had scheduled breakfast for 9am to give us a chance to get a good measure on the weather for the day. And..based on Vincent's advice, we wanted to get to the St. Lary's weekly outdoor market by 8am to purchase some cheese from the "best cheesemaker" in all of France. We made our cheese run - apparently French TV was showing up later that morning to do a special on this extraordinary cheesemaker - purchasing five different local cheeses from his extraordinary inventory. Our sales lady spoke English, worked in a cheese shop near Fran's home near London where Fran bought her cheese. Small world.
When we returned to our lodging and checked the weather on-line, our highest hopes were reinforced. The weather on Tourmalet was to be sunny with a few clouds, returning to rain the following two days. I was thrilled, but still anxious that we would run into fog. While I wanted badly to climb Tourmalet, I was also concerned that Gwen and Fran would find the drive too treacherous in the fog, and my objective was not important enough to put them in any sense of danger. We would just have to set out and see what conditions we faced.
We had breakfast, packed, and headed out back up to Col d'Aspin. This was Saturday, the sun was out, and the bicyclists were out in droves. (Or gaggles, or herds, or whatever.) We must have passed at least 50 cyclists coming down or going up the Col on our way up. When we reached the top the weather was totally different from the previous day, sunny and much warmer. We headed towards Tourmalet. When we reached the base we found the weather to be sunny with no signs of clouds or fog. This was going to be our day!!!
Why Tourmalet? Tourmalet is the mother of all bicycle racing mountain stages. I am new to all of this, and my first real exposure was last year's Tour when Andy Schleck had a sizeable 20 second lead in Stage 16 headed up Tourmalet, and everyone felt, short of a major setback, he had the Tour won. About 100 yards short of the top of Tourmalet he was riding next to Contador, the number two rider, he "cross-chained" his gears, and his chain came off. He had to dismount and put his chain back on. By the time he had fumbled around, got his chain back on and back on his bike, Contador had taken off, and his lead was erased. He never caught Contador in the remaining four stages of the Tour, and he finished in second place, Contador wearing the yellow jersey of the winner. Unbeknownst to me when I first attempted to "trick" Roy into joining me on this Tour de France, Roy had been an avid fan of the Tour many years back. He was watching it on TV well before HDTV existed, and had seen many historic Tours decided on Tourmalet. He watched Armstrong essentially win his yellow jerseys here, climbing faster and harder than any other mere mortal, developing or extending his leads to insurmountable minutes on this mountain. When he started down Tourmalet, he had declared himself master of the mountain and champion of the Tour. No one could climb like Lance Armstrong, and at these grades, the sheer will to believe that no matter how much it hurt or how tired you were, you could reach that top without letting up, and, in doing so, could build an insurmountable lead was stronger than in any other cylist in the world. Roy had watched other cyclists win or lose the Tour on Tourmalet. He had a feeling of the history of this mountain that passed over to me.
Over the past two days, as I recommended over and over that we not give up the opportunity to climb Tourmalet, I sensed a certain ambivalence on the part of Roy. We had been riding for many days, and the long rides had begun to get to him. The difficulty in reaching the top of our first HC weighed heavily on him, and I think he believed he might fail to achieve success on Tourmalet. But, sometimes, friends know the other better than we know ourselves, and, in this case, I knew that Roy was both capable of climbing Tourmalet, and would always regret not trying, if that became the outcome. I was going to get him started up the hill, and I knew his own tenacity, physical ability and desire to reach this goal would kick in, and the rest would be history. I was right, as we were to find out.
We started up Tourmalet and within a half mile of the bottom I signaled to Roy that I needed to stop and remove my rash guard shirt I was wearing under my cycling shirt. While the temperatures were expected to be cold, the mountain had warmed up considerably and we were in the 55-60 degree range, not the 35 Degree range we had dressed for. As I pulled over on the side and dismounted, I dropped my head a bit and entered the shady area. Suddenly I became very dizzy, dropping to my knees and almost collapsed in a faint. The same thing had happened to me about 10 years ago after a run, when I stopped and then entered a dark room from bright sunlight. I crashed to the floor in a faint. I have no explanation, but the combination of the very tight rash guard shirt creating a lot of body heat, and the movement into the shade seemed to have triggered something. I sat back and began feeling better as Gwen and Fran passed by in the van headed up towards the top. We signalled them to stop, and I told them I might not be feeling "quite right" and asked them to follow about 10 minutes behind us so I could determine if I had a problem. (Naturally, I was not going to tell them I had almost fainted. One can only guess where that would have led.) I got on my bike, sans rash guard, and as Roy and I peddled off, I felt fine. The remainder of the ride, I never again incurred anything but enjoyment and hard work.
At about the 3 mile mark, we stopped for an energy bar and a brief rest. Roy expressed how wonderful it was we had decided to try Tourmalet. I knew he was into this 100% and would give it his best effort. We were going to make it. We continued the ascent, following a few other cyclists. We were moving a little faster, but stopped again to take a picture. While many of the riders going up seemed to be motivated to make it all the way without stopping, most of them seemed to be local road warriors who had done this before. I wanted to stop and take a couple of pictures here and there, and wasn't going to let the goal of reaching the top without stopping get in my way. Besides, I had already climbed an HC to the top without stopping, I knew I could do it, I wanted to enjoy this. So..we ran into Gwen and Fran at the 6 mile mark and pulled over to let them know we were fine. We were just below the Tourmalet ski area and could see the large hotels looming ahead of us. We had considered meeting at this point for a brief lunch, but I was concerned about cooling off, so suggested we keep moving to the top, taking a break there. Roy agreed, we peddled on, and passed through the Tourmalet ski area, passing under multiple ski lifts, shops and hotels ringing the road for about 1/4 mile, and then we were above them, headed to the top of the lifts and the top of the mountain. We stopped again at the 1km mark to get a picture of Roy by the sign, and then re-mounted and headed for the top. When we reached the top we found Gwen waiting by the van. "Wow, I didn't expect you, yet" she said. "I wanted a picture of you coming over the top. "
We dutifully descended about 100' and came back to the top as she took pictures. We had to do this twice, but I would have done it 50 times if that's what it took to get the right picture for posterity.
At the top we found commemorative statues and, on the lighter side, about 20 cyclists celebrating their climb, many of them sitting on a sun-soaked veranda in a small bar, having a beer. Gwen accommodated us with a couple of cold beers, and we basked in the glorious warm sunlight. We ate a little food, had another beer, and I let it be known it was time to descend Tourmalet. Going down Tourmalet was also one of those dreams of mine, about 10 straight miles of downhill with lots of S curves and windy turns on steep descents. The pros descended at speeds in excess of 50 miles per hour, but I was resolved to stay below 40mph (or thereabouts.) Roy decided that driving down with Gwen and Fran was fine with him, going up was all he wanted, so I changed into a dry shirt and headed downhill, agreeing to meet them somewhere in the next 10-20 miles. Immediately after beginning my descent, and as I picked up speed going around a right curve against a cliff, I almost smacked directly into an uphill climbing cyclist. He not only was not in his own lane, he had drifted all the way over to the far side of my lane against the cliff. I was able to avoid him by going outside him and between him and his buddies who were in their proper lane. Close call at 30 mph. He was apparently zig-zagging up the hill to reduce his slope. He should have been hung. Fortunately, you don't see this kind of bad etiquette very often, and I had no more close calls for the remainder of my descent. By the time I reached the "bottom" I felt great, and decided to continue on with mostly downhill but a fairly strong head wind. I wanted to ride. After about 20 miles, I assumed Gwen, Fran and Roy would be close behind, so picked a nice place to pull over and wait. Surprisingly, I had to wait almost 20 minutes for them to arrive, and they were very surprised I had gotten so far ahead of them. Needless to say, adrenaline and gravity go along way when they're on your side. I just wish I had ridden another 10 miles before the pickup.
We were still about 50 miles away from the start of Stage 18, and it was clear that we were not going to have time to do this stage. We decided to find the fastest road and head for Bordeaux. As we rode through corn and wheat flatlands, we were reminded of our rides during the early Stage of the Tour. After climbing Tourmalet and riding in the Alps and the Pyranees our motivation for bicycling these rather mundane stages had lapsed. We were happy to drive to Bordeaux and skip this stage. After all, we were now seasoned warriors who had mastered the Alps, the Pyranees, and Tourmalet. Still, we didn't arrive until 7:30 pm, making this a long day.
We stayed in a nice modern business hotel about 5 miles outside the center of Bordeaux. Fortunately, we were a block's walk to the light rail station, where we could catch a train into the center of the city. By 10pm we were hungry and tired, found a nice place for more Italian food, and then returned to our hotel. Bordeaux deserves much more effort than we were able to give it. It is a grand old city, the center is filled with cathedrals, ornamental fountains of gigantic proportion, wonderful sculptures and grand buildings. Perhaps, someday, we will be able to return and do it justice. Sorry, Bordeaux.
When we returned to our lodging and checked the weather on-line, our highest hopes were reinforced. The weather on Tourmalet was to be sunny with a few clouds, returning to rain the following two days. I was thrilled, but still anxious that we would run into fog. While I wanted badly to climb Tourmalet, I was also concerned that Gwen and Fran would find the drive too treacherous in the fog, and my objective was not important enough to put them in any sense of danger. We would just have to set out and see what conditions we faced.
We had breakfast, packed, and headed out back up to Col d'Aspin. This was Saturday, the sun was out, and the bicyclists were out in droves. (Or gaggles, or herds, or whatever.) We must have passed at least 50 cyclists coming down or going up the Col on our way up. When we reached the top the weather was totally different from the previous day, sunny and much warmer. We headed towards Tourmalet. When we reached the base we found the weather to be sunny with no signs of clouds or fog. This was going to be our day!!!
Why Tourmalet? Tourmalet is the mother of all bicycle racing mountain stages. I am new to all of this, and my first real exposure was last year's Tour when Andy Schleck had a sizeable 20 second lead in Stage 16 headed up Tourmalet, and everyone felt, short of a major setback, he had the Tour won. About 100 yards short of the top of Tourmalet he was riding next to Contador, the number two rider, he "cross-chained" his gears, and his chain came off. He had to dismount and put his chain back on. By the time he had fumbled around, got his chain back on and back on his bike, Contador had taken off, and his lead was erased. He never caught Contador in the remaining four stages of the Tour, and he finished in second place, Contador wearing the yellow jersey of the winner. Unbeknownst to me when I first attempted to "trick" Roy into joining me on this Tour de France, Roy had been an avid fan of the Tour many years back. He was watching it on TV well before HDTV existed, and had seen many historic Tours decided on Tourmalet. He watched Armstrong essentially win his yellow jerseys here, climbing faster and harder than any other mere mortal, developing or extending his leads to insurmountable minutes on this mountain. When he started down Tourmalet, he had declared himself master of the mountain and champion of the Tour. No one could climb like Lance Armstrong, and at these grades, the sheer will to believe that no matter how much it hurt or how tired you were, you could reach that top without letting up, and, in doing so, could build an insurmountable lead was stronger than in any other cylist in the world. Roy had watched other cyclists win or lose the Tour on Tourmalet. He had a feeling of the history of this mountain that passed over to me.
Over the past two days, as I recommended over and over that we not give up the opportunity to climb Tourmalet, I sensed a certain ambivalence on the part of Roy. We had been riding for many days, and the long rides had begun to get to him. The difficulty in reaching the top of our first HC weighed heavily on him, and I think he believed he might fail to achieve success on Tourmalet. But, sometimes, friends know the other better than we know ourselves, and, in this case, I knew that Roy was both capable of climbing Tourmalet, and would always regret not trying, if that became the outcome. I was going to get him started up the hill, and I knew his own tenacity, physical ability and desire to reach this goal would kick in, and the rest would be history. I was right, as we were to find out.
We started up Tourmalet and within a half mile of the bottom I signaled to Roy that I needed to stop and remove my rash guard shirt I was wearing under my cycling shirt. While the temperatures were expected to be cold, the mountain had warmed up considerably and we were in the 55-60 degree range, not the 35 Degree range we had dressed for. As I pulled over on the side and dismounted, I dropped my head a bit and entered the shady area. Suddenly I became very dizzy, dropping to my knees and almost collapsed in a faint. The same thing had happened to me about 10 years ago after a run, when I stopped and then entered a dark room from bright sunlight. I crashed to the floor in a faint. I have no explanation, but the combination of the very tight rash guard shirt creating a lot of body heat, and the movement into the shade seemed to have triggered something. I sat back and began feeling better as Gwen and Fran passed by in the van headed up towards the top. We signalled them to stop, and I told them I might not be feeling "quite right" and asked them to follow about 10 minutes behind us so I could determine if I had a problem. (Naturally, I was not going to tell them I had almost fainted. One can only guess where that would have led.) I got on my bike, sans rash guard, and as Roy and I peddled off, I felt fine. The remainder of the ride, I never again incurred anything but enjoyment and hard work.
At about the 3 mile mark, we stopped for an energy bar and a brief rest. Roy expressed how wonderful it was we had decided to try Tourmalet. I knew he was into this 100% and would give it his best effort. We were going to make it. We continued the ascent, following a few other cyclists. We were moving a little faster, but stopped again to take a picture. While many of the riders going up seemed to be motivated to make it all the way without stopping, most of them seemed to be local road warriors who had done this before. I wanted to stop and take a couple of pictures here and there, and wasn't going to let the goal of reaching the top without stopping get in my way. Besides, I had already climbed an HC to the top without stopping, I knew I could do it, I wanted to enjoy this. So..we ran into Gwen and Fran at the 6 mile mark and pulled over to let them know we were fine. We were just below the Tourmalet ski area and could see the large hotels looming ahead of us. We had considered meeting at this point for a brief lunch, but I was concerned about cooling off, so suggested we keep moving to the top, taking a break there. Roy agreed, we peddled on, and passed through the Tourmalet ski area, passing under multiple ski lifts, shops and hotels ringing the road for about 1/4 mile, and then we were above them, headed to the top of the lifts and the top of the mountain. We stopped again at the 1km mark to get a picture of Roy by the sign, and then re-mounted and headed for the top. When we reached the top we found Gwen waiting by the van. "Wow, I didn't expect you, yet" she said. "I wanted a picture of you coming over the top. "
We dutifully descended about 100' and came back to the top as she took pictures. We had to do this twice, but I would have done it 50 times if that's what it took to get the right picture for posterity.
At the top we found commemorative statues and, on the lighter side, about 20 cyclists celebrating their climb, many of them sitting on a sun-soaked veranda in a small bar, having a beer. Gwen accommodated us with a couple of cold beers, and we basked in the glorious warm sunlight. We ate a little food, had another beer, and I let it be known it was time to descend Tourmalet. Going down Tourmalet was also one of those dreams of mine, about 10 straight miles of downhill with lots of S curves and windy turns on steep descents. The pros descended at speeds in excess of 50 miles per hour, but I was resolved to stay below 40mph (or thereabouts.) Roy decided that driving down with Gwen and Fran was fine with him, going up was all he wanted, so I changed into a dry shirt and headed downhill, agreeing to meet them somewhere in the next 10-20 miles. Immediately after beginning my descent, and as I picked up speed going around a right curve against a cliff, I almost smacked directly into an uphill climbing cyclist. He not only was not in his own lane, he had drifted all the way over to the far side of my lane against the cliff. I was able to avoid him by going outside him and between him and his buddies who were in their proper lane. Close call at 30 mph. He was apparently zig-zagging up the hill to reduce his slope. He should have been hung. Fortunately, you don't see this kind of bad etiquette very often, and I had no more close calls for the remainder of my descent. By the time I reached the "bottom" I felt great, and decided to continue on with mostly downhill but a fairly strong head wind. I wanted to ride. After about 20 miles, I assumed Gwen, Fran and Roy would be close behind, so picked a nice place to pull over and wait. Surprisingly, I had to wait almost 20 minutes for them to arrive, and they were very surprised I had gotten so far ahead of them. Needless to say, adrenaline and gravity go along way when they're on your side. I just wish I had ridden another 10 miles before the pickup.
We were still about 50 miles away from the start of Stage 18, and it was clear that we were not going to have time to do this stage. We decided to find the fastest road and head for Bordeaux. As we rode through corn and wheat flatlands, we were reminded of our rides during the early Stage of the Tour. After climbing Tourmalet and riding in the Alps and the Pyranees our motivation for bicycling these rather mundane stages had lapsed. We were happy to drive to Bordeaux and skip this stage. After all, we were now seasoned warriors who had mastered the Alps, the Pyranees, and Tourmalet. Still, we didn't arrive until 7:30 pm, making this a long day.
We stayed in a nice modern business hotel about 5 miles outside the center of Bordeaux. Fortunately, we were a block's walk to the light rail station, where we could catch a train into the center of the city. By 10pm we were hungry and tired, found a nice place for more Italian food, and then returned to our hotel. Bordeaux deserves much more effort than we were able to give it. It is a grand old city, the center is filled with cathedrals, ornamental fountains of gigantic proportion, wonderful sculptures and grand buildings. Perhaps, someday, we will be able to return and do it justice. Sorry, Bordeaux.
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