Etape du Tour - round 2

Due to the history of Alzheimer’s in my family, I’ve taken to journaling significant events, so that, if nothing else, family members can have something to entertain me with in my “sunset” years (“That’s a nice story, could I have another popsicle?”). After several requests, (and admitted shock over people having actually read last years summary), this 2003 edition of the Etape du Tour summary is as close to prime time as its probably going to get..

Saturday, July 12 –

Our flights over to France and then down to southwestern France (an area known as the Midi-Pyrenees) went off pretty much without a hitch. We landed in Pau at an airport adorned with the uniforms of local cycling heroes (this country loves it’s cycling). World champion mountain bikers Cedric Gracia and Chrisophe Dipouy had their uniforms on display as did several current and former Tour de France riders, including Bernard Hinault – a member of the exclusive five Tour winners club – a mark Lance Armstrong was striving to equal this year.

Minutes after landing, we were on our way to our first stop, Lourdes. At our hotel, the manager on duty asked if we were there to do the Etape du Tour. We replied that indeed we were, and he responded, “Oh difficult, the course is very difficult.” Hmmm.

This year’s trip included some new friends – parents of children in our son's school class. Eric arrived first, and our plan was to conquer two climbs relatively close to our ‘base camp’ in Lourdes. About an hour after arriving, we were busy assembling our bikes and headed off for the Hautacam with a group of about six riders.

After a ten mile ride and a few missed turns, we arrived at the base of the Hautacam. The Hautacam carries with it some tour nostalgia as it’s the site where Armstrong captured the yellow jersey for the first time in the 2000 tour in a pouring cold rain.

As we contemplated the mountain in front of us, Carol Ryan (a very strong rider who has been under the tutelage of Lance Armstrong’s personal coaching organization for the past year -- Charmichael Training Systems), announced that climbing the 8K to the summit with an average grade of 10% might not be the best idea a couple of days before the Etape. Given the pedigree of her coach, it caused us pause. Carol’s husband Leo, Eric, Dave Currie and I decided that we’d climb the first 3-4K’s just to experience the climb. Carol and Dave’s wife Jackie agreed to wait at the bottom and we headed up.

After about a ½ mile, we entered a lovely village and the grade began to crank up – to 10%. The French love their cycling and seem to hold climbing on a bike in very high regard. Every kilometer of a climb is marked with a road sign telling you how many kilometers are left to the top and the grade of the next kilometer. This is one of the most advanced forms of mental torture invented.

The grade started at 10% and then cranked up to 12%. I cannot do a 12% grade justice, other than to point out that the Army Corps of Engineers has decided that no major road in the US should be constructed with a grade of over 6%. Anything above that is deemed unsafe for trucks. At any rate, if you’d like to experience the feeling of climbing at 12%, find a building locally of 10 stories or more and bicycle up the side of it. This will recreate the feeling of climbing in France and save you loads on plane fare.

Leo took off up the climb like a man on EPO with Dave and I in tow. Usually, I experience the site of Dave only rarely on our climbing training rides, and typically as a small blip on the horizon. For some reason today, Dave was hovering off of my back wheel. “Wow, all this training must really be paying off,” I thought to myself. All delusions of grandeur were to quickly evaporate as Dave wizzed by at the 3K mark in pursuit of Leo. “I was trying to keep my heart rate at a low level at the start,” he smiled and said. I looked down and my heart rate monitor read 176.

After a fast descent and a 22 mph “race” back to the hotel, we retired for a quick shower and dinner. At dinner, Eric announced that he’d found a great local bike shop. Eric’s flights had put him in Lourdes a day early and he’d taken the time to explore options for renting bikes in case ours didn’t show up. The shop was owned by a former Renault teammate of the aforementioned Bernard Hinault.

After Eric told him of his plans to race the Etape, the shopowner and former Tour pro said, “Are you sure American? Those climbs are very steep and the route this year is extremely difficult.” Hmmm.

Eric insisted that we come see the holy site in Lourdes that night – my Jewish friend said that he had been converted the night before ;). We stepped out of our hotel into a stream of hospital beds and wheelchairs making their way up the street – dozens of sick people being pushed by nurses.

When we turned a corner and a massive cathedral was on the top of a bluff to our left. I’d never seen anything like what I saw surrounding the side of the church. Thousands of people, hundreds in hospital beds were lining up for a procession. The crowd was respectfully quiet in anticipation of what was to come.

“You’ve got to get some holy water,” Eric said as we made our way through the crowd. On the West side of the cliff at the base of the cathedral, a large sidewalk flanked the river Pau. The river was to our right and the cathedral to our left. At the far end of the walk was an open cave, or a grotto.

In the 1850’s a shepherd girl name Bernadette watered her sheep in a spring-fed pool at the opening of the grotto. One day, she had a surprise visitor – a woman dressed in glowing white with a halo hovered over the spring. “Tell the sinners to repent. Build a church,” were her only words. Several more days and the same thing happened.

Bernadette went to her priest and explained what was happening. He requested the Bernadette ask the apparition her name. The next day, Bernadette did just that. The woman smiled, said nothing and would disappear. On the 18th visit, Bernadette asked her question. The woman replied, “I am the Immaculate Conception [translated, Virgin Mary]” and ordered Bernadette to drink from the water that came from the rock, telling her that the water had healing powers. Bernadette obeyed and was further ordered to hold a nightly healing procession for the sick.

Today, Bernadette is a saint and Lourdes is a pilgrimage site for Catholics. In the procession line, it seemed like every country of the world was represented with their flag. The pure faith of the people in the line strikes you as you pass through. They’ve brought sick, crippled, infirmed relatives half-way around the world for the hope of healing. Each night the procession circles the plaza and returns to the base of the cathedral for a healing mass.
Along to stone wall leading up to the grotto are spickets from which the holy water flows. Eric led the charge and we applied the water to our legs, hoping to overcome the “Charmicheal effect” of the ride up the Hautacam.

Sunday, July 13

The next day, we had our hearts set on conquering the Tourmalet, a legendary climb about 20 miles from the hotel. Despite Carol’s warnings, we couldn’t stand the thought of being so close to an HC climb and not giving it a go. The organization that puts on the Tour de France rates each climb along the route with a category 5 climb being the easiest and a category 1 climb the hardest. The monsters are rated HC, h’ors categorie, or “beyond categorization.”

The Tourmalet is one of those climbs. It’s legendary in the Tour. When climbed from the West, it rises to 6300 feet over 18 kilometers – the highest pass in the Pyrennees. It’s a tad easier (6K shorter with less elevation gain) when climbed from the East, but we were West and had no choice. A group of six or seven of us left the hotel and rode 15 miles or so into a valley where the mountains began to rise dramatically up around us. We stopped to snap a few pictures and Dave, who was feeling sick decided to turn around. Citing Carol’s warning, the others decided that wisdom meant turning back and Eric and I decided to soldier on.
“How could we not do this? We’re so close!,” Eric said. He was right. We were here for more than just the Etape.

We turned to the East and started towards the town at the western base of the Tourmalet – Luz St. Saveur. Little did we know, reaching the ‘base’ meant an 8K climb. Clearly the holy water had worked for Eric as he set a steady pace up the first half. Finally the village of Luz was in sight, but it was so far up on the horizon, I began to wonder if the map had it wrong and that Luz was at the top of the climb, not at the bottom.

Reaching Luz, looking up to the right was the climb from the village up to the ski resort of Luz Ardiden – the site of Lance’s now famous crash with a spectator. It looked like a headwall of switchbacks it was so steep.

Looking left revealed the towering slopes of the Tourmalet – clearly the highest peak in the area. We decided to fill our water bottles and ran into two Americans at the base. We ran into two Americans from the Quad cities – a cardiologist named Mike and an experience racer named Rick.

Starting a conversation with a cardiologist about health is taking a risk. As we heading up the first kilometer, I kiddingly asked Mike if I should be doing this climb after a bout with an irregular heartbeat had landed me in the emergency room a few months earlier. After a few pointed questions of increasing seriousness, Mike asked if I’d brought my EKG’s along – “I’d like to have a look.” Eric looked back in amusement and I suddenly let myself get dropped, wondering if this was such a good idea, Charmichael aside.

About 10 minutes later, I ran into the group along the side of the road. They were clearly debating whether to go on. Mike said, “Look, it’s 95 degrees and this is not a good idea two days before the Etape.”

“Two more kilometers and we’ll be 10K from the summit,” I cajoled. Two more kilometers and it was down to Eric and I.

Eric and I decided to climb another 2K and make the final call there. Two more kilometers came and went and without a word, we both carried on until we reached a café 6K from the top. From here, you could see the switchbacks snake up the mountain as we were now above the treeline. We’d been climbing for 90 minutes and had been through six water bottles after the break at the café. Eric was stiffening up and needed to go on. I needed to drain a couple of more cold orange juices. “Order me a double cheeseburger when you get to the top,” I joked.
Every descender we saw was wearing a jacket. I began to wonder if my sleeveless jersey was going to cut it on the descent or whether I was going to have to join the healing parade that night in Lourdes.

Those last 6K averaged 10% and I cramped at 4K when the grade reached 13%. Walking seemed to take away the pain and at 3K, I climbed on the bike again. At 1K to go, I was weaving in and out of mountain goat herds and the drop offs were scary as the cars went by. Half riding, half walking, I finally reached the summit and spotted Eric’s bike parked against the restaurant at the top. To the left, I spotted the famous statue that’s shown when the Tour summits the Tourmalet – a statue dedicated to cyclists who make the climb.
Inside was a shrine to the Tour de France. Bikes from the first race in 1903, 1910, 1925, 1935, etc. were hung from the ceiling and the tour was on the TV in the corner. Eric had a French burger (a steak) waiting for me along with some macaroni and cheese. We finished up and got up to leave and spotted something out the window that we didn’t expect. Pouring rain and the temperature had dropped to 60 degrees.

No fan of descending in the first place, Eric was not excited to descend the Tourmalet in a thunderstorm. Frankly, the thought of tumbling down a 1500 foot shear drop-off didn’t excite me either.

I ran across the street to the gift store in search of jackets. A reminder of how remote the summit was greeted me in the parking lot – a herd of wild donkeys came through begging for food (yes, you read that right). Inside the gift shop, I was striking out.

Eric, however, was far more enterprising (while I’m taking donkey pics, Eric is in the background negotiating with the bus driver in the photo). He’d been outside using his best French to talk our way onto a tour bus from Belgium. “Jon! Jon!, I’ve gotten us a ride, hurry up!”

Outside, I met Marga, a tour guide for 50 or so Belgians who were touring the Lourdes area. They had no seats, but had graciously offered us the steps on their bus and a ride to Lourdes. With our bikes safely in the luggage compartment of the coach, we might as well have been on the Concorde. Marga asked the Belgians to welcome Lance Armstrong and Eddy Merckx aboard. We laughed and agreed to feign injury if the police pulled us over.

On the way down, Marga told us of her friend that races bikes and trains regularly on the Tourmalet. “She’s decided not to do the Etape this year – much too hard a course.” Hmmm.

Monday, July 14

The next day brought a 30 mile ride to Pau to pick up our race numbers. The 30-mile downhill jaunt was a welcome relief – especially when followed by a train ride home. The conductor, a cyclist himself, let us (and our bikes) ride back to Lourdes in first class while he regailed us of stories about his two $5000 bikes. A Colnago carbon and a Pinarello Prince.

“You look a little bit large to do the Etape,” he said to me. “It’s a very difficult course.”
Hmmm.

Upon return, we had dinner and immediately headed to the grotto for a booster shot of the holy water and took in the Bastille day fireworks.

Tuesday, July 15
In a couple of hours, the rest of the group arrived from the US and the following morning, we headed out to repeat our partial Hautacam climb as a final prep. After climbing the Hautacam, we jumped into a 55 degree river (“good for the legs” I was told).

By the time we left Lourdes, Eric was about to be elected mayor. The guy is amazing – he’s got a great ability to befriend almost anyone he meets. The owner of the café next to the hotel, the bike shop owner, the convenience store owner and others are still missing him in Lourdes.

Wednesday, July 16

The next day (finally as you read this ;), brought the Etape. A 5:00 a.m. departure on the coach to the starting line in Pau. It’s hard to describe the thrill of lining up with 8800 racers. Our numbers put us in the top third of the pack. Famous racers were announced at the start line, including Miguel Indurain, the last 5x winner of the Tour. Over 8,000 riders lined up at the start – only 112 were from the US!

My cousin Kent and I said a prayer and headed down the start chute together and the first 25 miles were a hammer fest for me – clearly the holy water was working -- I felt like I’d inherited Indurain’s legs.


At the 10 mile mark, we started a category 3, 7% climb. It didn’t hurt so much climbing in the pack and the descent was fantastic as the crowd started to break up a bit. Around the 25 mile mark, we entered a village called Oleron St. Marie, moving at about a 22 mph pace (for non-cyclists, that’s a pretty fast pace). The village street narrowed and the pack of 100 or so riders I was with began to compress. Suddenly a guy appeared in my peripheral vision, his hand on my shoulder and he was shouting French in a panic. I glanced down to see that he had hooked my bars from behind and in a nano-second, I was flying through the air. I landed on my hip first, then my back with a thud and slid down the road on my back, helmet bouncing off of the cobblestones. A guy behind ran over my leg, another over my hand and I flipped up on the sidewalk, gasping for breath.

My fingers moved, my legs and toes were still attached, but blood was already coming through my shorts and I could feel the Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote bruise rising from my back. Across the street, things weren’t going so well for the guy who hit me as he was writhing in pain with what looked like a broken collar bone.

A frantic search for my bike ensued as hundreds of racers whizzed by. Two spectators had grabbed it and pulled it out of harms way. They were looking at it, shaking their heads. The impact had blown the tire off of the rim, bent the wheel, bent a shifter, torn the seat and bent the rear derailleur hanger (the derailleur controls your ability to shift – a rather important feature in the mountains). I’d never crashed on the road. Adrenaline took over and trembling fingers resulted in the longest tire change of my life.

Mountain biking requires racers to fix their own bikes as no outside assistance is allowed. Thank God for that experience. One of the first things you learn is that a swift kick in the right spot can often return a wheel close to its ‘true’. A new tube, tire back on, a swift kick and the front wheel was somewhat back in commission. A few yanks and pulls later and the shifter and derailleur were in close to working order. One of the spectators gave me a push and I was off again in a mad rush to regain the 30 minutes or so I’d ‘lost’.

In retrospect I was blessed to have not been more seriously hurt. The other guy’s race ended 25 miles in and mine could have easily ended there too. The first thing I noticed once back on the bike was that I couldn’t grip the bars without my right hand throbbing – it had quite a bruise forming from the impact.

Unfortunately, the adrenaline tire change didn’t go perfectly either and a couple of miles later I started to hear a ‘ker-thump, ker-thump, ker-thump’. I hadn’t seated the tire and the tube was beginning to stick out of the rim like an angioplasty gone bad. I loosened my brakes to help with clearance and hoped the tube would make it 10 more miles to the rest area.

Needless to say, it didn’t and I ended up in the ditch, changing another tire – the second longest tire change of my life. Luckily, one of the guys from Nebraska stopped to offer encouragement and got me going again. The rest area seemed to come in an instant and there was Eric, filling his water bottles. We agreed to meet at the end of the rest area and ride up the first mountain climb together. I wandered over to the Mavic support truck for some wheel help, while Eric made friend after friend in the rest area. After 15 or 20 minutes, Steve, John and Robert showed up and we yelled for Eric (a pattern that would repeat itself throughout the day) and the ‘Weston Posse’ headed up the first climb.

The category 1, 14K Col de Soudet starts with a bang – a 15% grade greets you at the bottom of the climb. My shifting went crazy and I had to pull over and take a couple of more attempts at pulling my derailleur back into place. Having to stand and grind this early in a climb was a bit disconcerting. Eric agreed to wait at the top. The Soudet was supposed to be a bear, but the climb of the Tourmalet helped in retrospect. Comparing the two on the way up made the Soudet much more bearable than earlier reports had made it. At the top, Steve and I waited for Eric and Robert. Posse partially complete, we donned our jackets and headed over the top and down a fantastic 45-minute descent.

The descent had been described as twisty and tight by both Tyler Hamilton and Lance Armstrong. Tyler had previewed the course by bike and predicted that if a group got away on the Soudet, they’d be hard to catch as the descents were so tricky. His prediction turned out to be prophetic – he did just that and won the stage a couple of days later.

For us, the descent included a surprise that surely wouldn’t be faced by the tour riders. Lurking around the second turn were free-range long-horn steers (yes, you read that right) – standing in the middle of the road! This wouldn’t be a huge concern if we weren’t doing 45 mph at the time. Weaving in between these big boys combined the worst and best of OLN’s programming – cycling and rodeo meet in an unlikely combo.

The descent of the Soudet ended with another categorized climb – the category 3 cote de Larreau – averaging a punishing 10.5%, but ‘only’ for 2.5 K. At the top of this little beast, a village was full of excitement. We’d learn later that Miguel Indurain had abandoned just a few minutes earlier and was celebrating his birthday with the villagers. He apparently was intimated at the progress of the Weston Posse.

Up and over the Larreau and we looked up to see a towering mountain right in front of us. The top 1/2 of the mountain was above the treeline and you could see the sun reflecting off of tiny specs at the top. As we got closer, we figured out that those specs were cars. That mountain was the big boy of the day – the Bagargui – 9K at 9.2%.

Robert stopped at the bottom and pulled a box of mystery potion out of his back pocket. After downing it, he started climbing like a man possessed. The first kilometer had a 6% grade, the second ‘only’ 6.5%. After a few days of experience with the road sign/torture instruments, this was not good news. If the entire climb was going to average 9.2%, these 6% sections were going to be made up for in a big way.

We rounded a corner and headed into a 10% grade and the numbers just kept increasing until we were above the treeline – then the fun began. The sign read – 4K to the summit, next kilometer 13.5% grade. The sign was accompanied by an angel of torture and he spoke English. He appeared in the form of an American with an altimeter on his handlebars.

“Hey the sign says 13.5%, but this says we’re only doing 7%.” We rounded the corner and the non-stop commentary continued, “Uh-oh, this reads 14%.” Thirty seconds pass. “We’re now at 16%”. Thirty more seconds. “We’re at 17%.”

After two more kilometers, I was beginning to understand what Armstrong means by suffering. If this wasn’t suffering, I don’t know what is. Everything hurt – back, hip, hands, quads and especially the knees. The world was beginning to spin. I looked down at my heart rate monitor – 190. Not good.

I looked up. Shouldn’t have done that. We were above the treeline and the entire balance of the climb was in view. Switchbacks seemed to go on for miles and the peak seemed impossibly high. At this point, about 75% of the people were walking their bikes. Finally, I succumbed to my hip’s cries for mercy and stopped and rubbed it out. I walked while rubbing it. My walking speed: 3.1 mph. My riding speed: 4.0 mph. Hmmm. Not a bad tradeoff.

The walking lasted only a couple of hundred yards and then it was back on the bike. Somehow, the walking didn’t seem to shake the angel of death. “Wow, this is an 18% section.” I was now making strange promises to God – “please, just get me over this thing and Heidi will never have to wash a dish again.” The world was reduced to one pedal stroke at a time.

The crowd in the last kilometer was lined the entire road and were cheering each of the riders on. They were wearing hats and parkas – it was freezing at the top. Steve and I waited for Robert and Eric at the top, donned our jackets and we headed over the top for the final 60 miles. On the profile the last 60 miles was basically downhill.

It turns out the angel of death must have developed the profile. After a 30 minute descent we were climbing again for 3K over a category 3 climb. It started to sprinkle a bit and the next descent was the trickiest of the day. The first s-turn came up as a surprise and you could see that missing this turn looked like a sure trip off of a cliff – no guard rail, just space – about 1500 vertical feet of it off of the side. I grabbed all of the brake I could muster.

The Weston Posse stayed together and we moved from pack to pack at a pretty good pace. At this point, we’d been out on the road for about 7 hours and my stomach was a swirling mix of Accelerade and Power Bars. The feed station at 30 miles to the finish had the best ham and cheese sandwich I’d ever tasted (stale bread aside). Eric disappeared into a hotel and took a 30-minute break. Steve, Robert and I waited outside and watched people we’d passed hours before wiz by. Apparently Eric was reading the entire paper cover to cover.

We were off again, straight into a headwind off of the Atlantic and large hills that just kept coming. The conversation amongst the riders went like this for the balance of the race:

“I thought the profile was flat!”

“This is not flat – those dirty rotten liars.”

“Wait that sign says were going up another categorized climb - -am I hallucinating?”

“No, and I don’t think I can get over another one of these things – do you think we can hitch a ride from some of these spectators?”

Steve, Eric, a judge from Vermont, and I took turns pulling. At one point we looked back and about 50 frenchmen were sitting on our wheels. We’d pull to the side to signal that they needed to pull. They’d just slow down and pull right back behind us. This snaking continued down the road. I turned and asked them to pull, everyone feigned an inability to understand my pig French. Finally, we resorted to gestures, pointing them to the front. A French guy (finally admitting to have the ability to speak) used his own gesture – pointed to his brow and muttered “We caahn’t.” It was up to the Americans to continue doing the work, pulling into the headwind. The French were just going to sit on. This was WWII all over again ;).

Eric and Steve would pull up the hills, nearly dropping me on every one. I’d barrel down the other side and pull on the flats. At 15K to the finish, kids were begging for our water bottles as a souvenir. Figuring I could get through 9 miles on one water bottle, I tossed a kid mine and got a great smile in return.

At the 10K from the finish sign, Steve and I hit the base of the last climb – switchbacks up a ridge – somehow we had lost Eric and Robert. The other side of the ridge was the finish line. Steve could tell I was on the ropes (maybe begging him not to drop me was a sign), but the former Stanford swimmer was strong and powered up the switchbacks.

I dropped back a few guys, hoping that if he couldn’t see me, maybe he would figure he’d dropped me and slow down a bit. It didn’t work. He stood up like Armstrong and danced on his pedals up the climb. It was everything I had left to get up to the summit. I had no water left and was hallucinating again.

The next descent was sketchy – over speedbumps and drain covers, but we were now winding to the finish line. I stayed 3-4 guys behind Steve, hoping against hope that he’d slow down – he kept hammering. We turned into the finishing straight and at about 250 meters, I came around Steve and the guys on the inside like a freight train, hoping to surprise them with a sprint finish. They responded perfectly, by squeezing me into the barriers. After barely avoiding the second crash of the day, we crossed the line together, hands in the air at 9:58 and almost crashed again!


We staggered to our hotel in Biarritz – a beautiful seaside resort.