The enormity of the task is sinking in. Consecutive daily rides of over 110 miles, for three weeks. Yes, there are two rest days, but those just serve to illustrate the difficulty of the mountainous days either side of the rest days. I suppose it’s not for nothing that The Tour is described as the ‘greatest sporting test in the world’. Anyway, I accepted this event as a serious challenge and a chance in a lifetime opportunity – and I will therefore treat it as one.
In November, we had the luxury of a pre-registration preview of the route from Phil Deeker of Classic Tours, who had driven the entire route as couple of weeks previously. Phil is an extremely experienced cyclist, and cycled over 300 cols in 28 days in 2007, so has an intimate knowledge of many of the stages – particularly since the 2010 route passes through his homeland of Belgium. The talk was beautifully descriptive and truly inspiring for all us amateurs, but we left under no illusion of the severity of the 2010 Tour de France, which appears to have no ‘easy’ stages for recovery unlike previous years. My emotions about the Tour, which were clearly replicated by most of the other potential participants, swung madly between exuberant anticipation and nervous trepidation.
In November, we had the luxury of a pre-registration preview of the route from Phil Deeker of Classic Tours, who had driven the entire route as couple of weeks previously. Phil is an extremely experienced cyclist, and cycled over 300 cols in 28 days in 2007, so has an intimate knowledge of many of the stages – particularly since the 2010 route passes through his homeland of Belgium. The talk was beautifully descriptive and truly inspiring for all us amateurs, but we left under no illusion of the severity of the 2010 Tour de France, which appears to have no ‘easy’ stages for recovery unlike previous years. My emotions about the Tour, which were clearly replicated by most of the other potential participants, swung madly between exuberant anticipation and nervous trepidation.
I have set up a training plan, which doesn’t seem too bad on paper. But by the time we get to April I need to be averaging over 100 miles at the weekends, on top of my 80 miles of weekly commuting – a large workload and a big step up from my current weekly average of 100-125 miles. And that is going to put a lot more pressure on weekend family time and other home tasks. So a big thanks in advance to Mrs G and the kids for their sacrifice in accommodating my training and the three week Tour. That in itself should be enough to keep me committed to completing the long rides ahead.
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