France, Part un!

I know people are probably keen to find out how I'm doing on my tour of le Tour (hopefully somebody, somewhere cares), and it's been 3 or 4 days now, so here's the lowdown...

After arriving in Grenoble late afternoon Saturday, I laid low Saturday night to attempt to catch up on some much needed sleep and to try and get my body clock on some time zone close to where my body actually is.  My objective for Sunday had always been a solo mission up l'Alpe d'Huez, but unfortunately for me, I woke to teeming rain in Grenoble, and further research indicated it was no drier 60km away on the top of the climb, and given it sits 1600m higher than Grenoble, the rain that I was seeing outside my window was falling as sleet, hail and snow on the top of l'Alpe.  Making an ascent would have been doable, I would've suffered like a dog in the conditions, but climbing in such weather is relatively safe, descending however, would be suicide.  I wasn't that worried about binning it on the descent, what worried me was exposure on the way back down, and since I hadn't packed remotely appropriate weather gear for the conditions, I decided to give it a miss, as I'll get another shot later in the week (with vehicular support too).

I reckon 4 out of 5 buildings in the centre of Grenoble pre-date
european settlement in Australia.  If I had any idea about the French
Language, I may have even been able to describe what this building
was/is

When the rain finally stopped in Grenoble, I hit the town in search of food, and i managed to successfully buy a bunch of Bananas, a couple of apples, a loaf of bread and some chocolate biscuits with no practical knowledge of French.  The people in stores may have indeed been able to speak english, but I decided not to force my laziness on them by just greeting them with "bonjour" and handing them a larger euro bank note than what I figured the food to cost, and thanking them with a "merci" (then figuring out how much things actually cost based on what change I was given).  Thankfully, upon returning to my hotel, I ran in to my tour guides for the week in the lobby as they were bumping in all the hire bikes and other gear for the tour, so I quickly befriended them in order to obtain some local knowledge and some local lingo (or at least a translation of the menu at the hotel restaurant).

As I arrived in Grenoble a day and a half before my tour was scheduled to start, and the balance of riders weren't due to arrive until Monday afternoon in time for a "warm up" ride, I managed to invite myself on a reconnaissance ride with 3 of my tour guides, Steve (tour leader and recently retired pro), Paul (mechanic) and Ed (trainer and physical therapist, who'd also unfortunately binned it earlier in the week on a descent in the Pyrenees).  What followed may only have been a 50km ride, but with a former pro to chase up a 700m ascent, I managed to set a 2011 best 20 minute power score (298 watts).  Still not enough to break the 4watts/kg barrier that I've been chasing since last summer based on my weight when i left home, but having not weighed myself for 2 and a half weeks, maybe I did break it and I just didn't realise it.



In the afternoon, this time with the group, I did the same climb again, this time with a different descent (and nowhere near the same power).  I think I was entitled to be a little slower to the top given it was my second time up for the day, it also made me feel a bit better knowing 2 of the 3 riders who beat me to the top either get paid to ride their bikes, or have been paid to do so before.

The view from the top of Monday's unnamed cat4 climb

We woke Tuesday to dry ground but dark skies as the group readied ourselves for a bus transfer to our home for the next 2 nights, the Alpine village of Ancelle.  The threat of rain was on everybodies mind as we began our 2 hour bus ride, and the threat was realised about half an hour in as light spits and spats turned to full blooded rain, lightning and thunder.  The decision was made to dice the ride to Gap for the finish of stage 17 of le Tour (an 18km ride, all downhill), instead, we would load the bikes and us back on to the bus, head for Gap, and make the decision there.

Gap sits around 700m lower than Ancelle, and although we were greeted with wet roads in Gap, the shocking weather we were presented with in Ancelle was breaking further down the valley.  Within an hour or so, the roads had dried.  The peleton came through the township of Gap once before doing a loop around the town and up the Col de Manse, the stages only real climb of the day, and "only" a cat2.  i headed up to the lower slopes of the climb in time for the publicity caravan to pass and score plenty of free crap, I mean, "valuable, unique souvenirs".  I lobbed just beyond the 20km to go kite among a swathe of Norwegians, who all went bananas when the days breakaway came past with an insurmountable lead and containing Norwegians Thor Hushovd and Edvald Boassen Hagen, who would eventually battle it out for victory on the stage.  Once the break passed through, I started to move back down the climb to get a posy in the finishing straight, but not before seeing the main bunch pass under the 20km to go kite.

Cadel on the bottom of the Col de Manse, ably supported by George Hincape.  Where's Andy Schleck? Crying like a nancy pants at the back of the bunch and losing the tour, that's where he is.  Cadel would follow a move by Alberto Contador over the top of the Col de Manse, gapping the Schlecks, then make his own move on the descent, gaining another 3 seconds on Contador.  When you've lost the tour once before by the second narrowest margin on record, you take any time you can get.  I can't understand what the French media are saying, but the majority of the cycling press are still making out like the tour is still the Frank and Andy sideshow versus old mate Albert, but have a look at Cadel here, game face on, sipping on a bidon while the bunch suffers.  20 minutes later, he ripped Andy's heart out then showed it to Frank in a Mortal Kombat style fatality move that even scared Jens Voigt.  Contador and Samuel Sanchez couldn't even catch him with their best Spanish team time trial tactics (the butcher, like a lot of other shops in Gap, were closed for the day)

As the peleton hit the final climb, the heavens opened again causing the GC carnage described in the caption above, it also made any attempt at viewing the finale futile since the French covet their umbrellas as they do baguettes.  i struggled to a spot where I could at least see a big screen, just past the finish line, where I could also just see the riders as they came through to the scrum of photographers.  In case you missed the result of the stage, the Norwegians walked away happy on the day, with victory going to Thor Hushovd, beating out Eddie BH with the help ofGarmin Cervelo teammate Ryder Hesjedal.  The 2 Garmin riders in the break were also enough to return Garmin to the top of the teams classification, so 3 of my 4 pre-tour predictions are looking good right now (Cadel for the GC, Tom Danielson to be the surprise top 10 finisher, and Garmin winning the teams classification).  The rain broke again after the finish, giving us JUST enough of a window to ride the Col de Manse for ourselves and continue back on to the hotel in Ancelle.  A misaligned rear derailleuer after 2+ weeks of packing/unpacking my bike saved the Schleck's from further disgrace, as I didn't have a full compliment of gears to attack the climb, but I managed to trim it well enough at the top of the climb to be able to smash it back to the hotel as lightning and thunder entered the valley, it's amazing what a storm like that can do for a cyclists motivation, to get home anyway, not to leave the house...