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Published: July 25th 2008
Tour Update July 24th
Apologies if I cover some ground I have already gone over in brief detail in the last couple of blogs however this is the first chance I have had for a while to do a decent update.
My last detailed blog saw us in the Pyrenees at Luz St Sauvier. We packed up the vans and headed (in various directions due to tom tom programming and dodgy navigation) for Carcassonne, a medieval walled city in central southern France. Some went back up over the Tormalet riding parts of it and the Aspin on the way . Carcassonne was fine but like many well visited tourist haunts, it had lost some of its magic to tacky tourist shops and loud American tourists. Having said that it was still a pretty awesome place with its turrets and high walls, murder holes, portcullis etc. Medieval life would not have been a fun time - especially if you were a cathar!
We left Carcassonne pretty late and drove along a minor road looking for a lace to stop. We were in vineyard country interspersed with small villages (and not much else). We headed for a village on the
Aude canal - ominously adjacent to the river cesse (pit?). The village was Sallales d’Aude and it was a very authentic un-spoilt French village with a great little “camping municipal” and the outskirts of town. As usual we were pretty buggered from a day of travelling and turned in pretty early……..well the two vans that made it to Salleles did. The two others stayed in Carcassonne and had a few to many sherberts.
Saturday 19th dawned hot and we packed and headed off after deciding to try and intercept the tour again in Provence. We chose the hill village of Bonnieux, a wonderfully pretty town a few of us had visited previously. Unfortunately being a Saturday and summer in France, half of the French population was also on the move which made travel slower than it might have been. Progress was not aided by a wonderfully French tradition of “peage” stations on the motorway which as far as I can tell are planned, designed and managed by French preschoolers. The whole system is crap - often four lanes of traffic divert into a ridiculous maze of pay stations to emerge on the other side into 1/100th of the number
of lanes that entered the system. The other main feature of these stations is that in paying their fees, the French have the same modus operandi as old grannies approaching the checkout at woolies. That is, they hand over their ticket and only then does it occur to them that they need to find their wallet, purse etc to pay. Needless to say the whole business is a joke! Regardless, we pushed on and arrived in Lourmarin, a small village near Bonnieux where we set out on our bikes to catch the tour (except for Craig and James who went for a dip in the Mediterranean). It was hot and hilly up and over the Luberon range and we arrived in Bonnieux 5 mins after the tour passed through. The compensation was revisiting Bonnieux and having a Grand café a lait and a beer before a quick explore around town. After cycling back to Loumarin we decided on a detour to Fort Buoux, an ancient edifice in the middle of the Luberon range with frightening drops and few if any warning signs (DEC people note that we would not get away with this!). The drive there was also notable as
the road was two way but had we encountered any other vehicles in the vans we would have been stuffed as it was very narrow and windy. The drive ended in the usual comical routine provided by Gavin and Roger in parking their van. This alone was worth the diversion. After the fort it was getting late and we hade decided to make for Mt Ventou James and Craig having gone ahead to find a campsite. We all got there late and again worn out after another long day riding and travelling.
We awoke to rumbling thunder and increasingly threatening rain as we got prepared for the ride up Mount Ventou. This is a 20km plus climb with some sections 10 - 12% plus for Kms at a time. With the weather threatening we started early and all made it to the top before the storms hit. It was about a 50/50 split in which side we went up - some going from Malaucene and other from Bedoin. Both climbs were challenging although by now we were getting aclimatised and used to the pain. At the top was the usual carnival of nations of riders - someone is making
a fortune in lycra sales. On the way down the rain started making descending pretty scary. A quick shower and change and we were off again this time headed for Alp d’Huez. I was pretty happy as it was the 20th of July - my birthday and spending the day firstly riding a mountain and then heading for the mythical Alp was pretty hard to match.
On the way to Alp d’Huez a couple of vans hooked up and we stopped at a small town called Clelles and cranked up the satellite to catch the last hour of stage 15 of the tour. The drive from Ventou had been great and the mountains continued to grow as we headed north on a small road over the Col de la Croix Haute. Spectacular country and getting higher and higher as we approached Grenoble.
On the road in to our camp from Grenoble we were stopped in a traffic jam - at first we thought there was an accident but we later found out it had been a mudslide caused by huge thunderstorms. It had been belting rain all day and our campsite at the base of Alp d’Huez was
sodden and getting fuller with visitors by the minute. The guys bought me a great cycling jersey from Lourdes and we feasted on the vianentta icecream cake. Another long day, another exhausted fall into bed, surrounded by high mountains and a rising moon.
There really has been no let up for days now and the 21st was no different. Up early and up Alp d’Huez for our first look at the mountain - this time by car as we drove up for a scheduled downhill mountain biking day. We arrived at the hire place a little nervously - especially after our local diver had strongly recommended taking out insurance with our lift passes. The hire joint decked us all out with bikes and full body armour before we set off into the unknown. Most of us only novices on mountain bikes at best we were none to confident of what lay ahead. We bought our lift passes and distressingly found that insurance was not available! Into the gondola with our bikes and up to 2100 metres then 2700 m, before plummeting down what was supposedly the “easy” track. We made it safely down (only a few stacks) most notable
of these was by Roger who returned to the lift station looking shaken and reporting that after a minor stack he had lay on the ground for 20-30 seconds experiencing some type of tremor through his body. Roger has a very off beat sense of humour and I thought at first he was joking, but I could see our emergency medicine doctor was a little worried at what he had experienced. The mystery persisted for the rest of the day until Roger finally realised that his symptoms had been caused by falling against an electric fence - strange tremors - mmmmmmm, electric fence…….that will do it.
The other most notable prang was by Gavin who performed the Praying Mantis manoeuvre (over the handle bars with the bike landing on your head). Luckily the only injury was to his skins which required several stiches.
We were all quite relieved to have got thru this adventure unscathed and then headed into the village atop Alp d’ Huez to try and work out how to get home. A couple of chilly hours waiting on the mountain and a frightening taxi ride down later ……you guessed it we fell into a heap
once again.
I recall little about the next day. It was supposed to be a rest day, I took it a little too literally and slept all day after contracting some nasty stomach bug - I suspect from drinking the “Eau Potable” at the top of the Alp - “Eau Potable” it was not. The rest of the guys spent the day tweaking their bikes and getting ready for the next days tour stage which finished at the top of Alp d’Huez.
I woke still seedy and unconfident in my ability to not soil my strides but donned my knicks and packed my back pack for a ride up the mountain and a day waiting for the tour to arrive. I was hoping Alp d ‘Huez would not become Alp d ‘Pooez. We all left camp…… well nearly all as Anthony was having one of his slow days - and on these days nothing will rush him. We both left a while later and started up the mountain - me slowed by a lack of having eaten for the past twenty for hours and Anthony with the onset of a cold - What great preparation, what a great
team!
Anthony was patient and helpful and coaxed me up the mountain where we all met up elated to be here with the ski village buzzing and all of the tour circus cranked to its highest setting (11 so spinal tap says). We heard a whisper that Phil Liggett was in the media area so we made a dash to try and see him and ……bingo we bumped straight into him. The look on his face was priceless when he saw 8 blokes approach with his name and face on their shirts. He was rapt in the concept and after accepting his own jersey, which he put straight on, he posed for photos and signed all our jerseys. …..then proceeded to sign anything else James had on and various parts of his body. A great moment was when Johan Bruneel, Lance Armstrong’s director sportif leaned out of the media van to check out what was going on and give Phil a good ribbing. Phil was then off to show off his new Jersey to his media mates.
We had a couple of hours before the road down was closed so we filled up on coffee and food in
the village and soaked up the atmosphere. It was fantastic apart from one small issue and apologies here to my American friends. There was a huge CSC contingent on the mountain and it mostly appeared to be an American CSC employee junket. While there were probably dozens of nationalities on the mountain many in weird outfits and hardly being shy and retiring it was impossible to miss this American contingent from CSC. They were loud and slightly obnoxious - noise cancelling earphones were required in their presence. But this is minor piffle - the place was jumping and excitement was in the air.
Now we rode down the mountain to find a place on the roadside to cheer on Cadel - just beating the road closure. We stopped at turn 5 - about 6kms from the finish and as it turned out a great place to stop. We had some Luxembougers to our right, Germans behind, more Aussies round about and…..what a turn up, the past Mayor of Alp d’huez and his mate……18 times Tour de France director Jean Marie le Blanc to our left. We had a good chat and he was a good sport posing for pics
with us. Apparently they had both seen the race many times from the sponsors boxes or in the tour directors car but wanted to spend a day in the crowd soaking up the noise and colour. Well with that in mind we couldn’t disappoint them and over the course of the afternoon traded songs, chants, jokes and ribbing with our Luxembourger mates. Great fun and it built to a huge crescendo as the riders approached and rushed by - with Sastre putting his stamp on the tour and claiming yellow. Apparently we got a few seconds air time on the coverage - it was a exciting day made all the more special by the inside of my cycling knicks still being the right colour.
Climbing Alp ‘d Huez, standing all day in the sun singing the national anthem and waltzing matilda and yelling like hell…..you guessed it we all fell into bed.
The 24th we went into Bourg d’Oisans, the town at the foot of Alp d’ huez to watch a race start. All of the tour caravan was there, a crush of people including bumping in to Trenchy, Sara and Graham Iddles. We watched the riders sign
on, with lots of encouragement for the Aussies especially Cadel. The tour moved on and with it the most of the people leaving us to Bourg for lunch and a look around before a lazy afternoon until…….. most of the guys (me and roger excluded) decided to take a short 7km ride - problem was it went straight up the side of a mountain - they came back buggered and cursing. It was hard (apparently) and Gav was forced to take comfort in a huge ice cream.
Time to sign off for a while ……not too much time left…. maybe one more mountain tomorrow before we pull the bikes apart and head north and back to Frankfurt for the trip home.
Love to all.
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Ellie Annear
non-member comment
Hahahahahaha. That was very funny. Good to see that Roger is living up to our silly expectations! Those jerseys look great...but it looks like you've been wearing them every day...so I won't be touching yours when you come home ;). Hope you had a good birthday and we're all looking forward to seeing you (even Oishii misses you). Ellie