Etape du Tour - Day Three -- Variety Day

Today was a great mix of random experiences. Started with picking Eric up from the airport, heading into Pau for a great lunch (omelette smothered in dijon mustard -- I'm telling you, it may not sound good, but it's awesome).

Then to registration to pick up our race numbers -- delayed 45 minutes waiting for the army paratroopers (insert your favorite WW2 jokes here). No idea what paratroooper's have to do with cycling...

Then a short ride today (yes, behaving ourselves). Climbed 10 miles, then descended. Went to Laurent Fignon's shop here -- amazing collection of trophies.

Dinner and then a very random experience that has me laughing on the way to bed tonight. It's captured in the video here:

Etape du Tour - Jour Deux

For the past couple of days, my cousin Kent and his friend Steve talked up an amazing climb they'd done here in the Pyrenees a few years ago - the Pont de Espana -- literally climbing up to the Spanish border.

We made plans to drive to the base of the climb as our ride for the day. We had to take a couple of cars to get the bikes and people over (David, Kent, Jim, Steve and I). As we popped out of the cars, Kent said, "Hey, how about riding Luz Ardiden first?"

Hmmm. I'm thinking that this Pont de Espana climb might not be much of a challenge if they want to tack on another climb. Now Luz Ardiden isn't just any climb, it's a whopper with long sections at 10%. It's famously the site where Lance Armstrong's handlebars were caught by a spectators bag several years ago. He crashed hard, and then roared back to win the stage.

No such antics here today, just a beast of a long climb. The weather was great, foggy and cool all the way to the top, then the sun broke.

We descended back down to our starting point, grabbed some lunch (probably the best ham and cheese sandwich I've ever had in my life), then headed up to the Pont de Espana.

The sun has now taken over the sky -- beautiful day, but getting hot on the climb.

It starts gradually and I was hanging onto Kent's wheel. I see a sign that says 15km to the top. Hmmm. This must just be a long gradual climb. 6km later, Steve declares the gradual part of the climb over and says, "it get's a bit brutal from here."

Turns out, this was going to be a long climb.

I'm now wondering how I get myself into these messes. I ate lightly this am, thinking there was only one climb on the day. No salt tabs, no gels. 6km later, I'm in trouble. Grades are 10%+ and I'm cramping badly. I haven't had that tough of a stretch on the bike in years. The cramps would lock my left leg and mandate stopping every km or so.

Thankfully, somewhere near the top, the guys reappeared. Tired of waiting, they'd started the descent, turned around and encouraged me up the last 1/2 km. One more cramping episode and I'd finally made it.

The day ended like all good rides in France -- at a Pattisserie (pastry shop).

Tale of the tape: 51 miles, 8,000 feet of climbing.

This is definitely not tapering!

Day 2 - Video here:

Etape du Tour -- Day One Video - now up!

It's hard to do a bike trip...without a bike. Etape - Day One

The airlines managed to make a bike disappear. But David (our French friend and guide) had one waiting for me this morning. Amazing that he can make a carbon bike appear in just a few hours.

After breakfast, we headed out to "stretch the legs" with a two hour climb. We're surrounded by them here at the base of the Tourmalet in the Pyrenees.

I've wanted to climb the Aspin (famous TdF climb) for years. David suggested a twist. It turned out to be a great twist. Captured some of the video here tomorrow (when upload finishes).

Etape du Tour 2010 - starts here

Day one: just landed in Madrid en route to Toulouse. Sea of Red jerseys here, horns blowing in airport at 7a. Felicidades Espana!

Early morning TV showing Running of the Bulls. I think the Etape looks way smarter than that mid-life crisis exercise. Can't wait for first pan almond + Orangina.

Cycling Killarney - Molls Gap to Gap of Dunloe

This has been an amazing week. Start with skate skiing at the local track, board a flight to Arizona and sneak in Mount Lemmon on Monday, arrive home at 2a on Friday, laundry, repack and out the door to accompany the girls to Ireland for the Irish Dance Championships.

Given that the Ritchey was still in the car, why not bring along the bike to the airport? Actually, it was a bit easier than that. I'm not exactly invited to the pre-competition practices (something about having a challenge keeping my incessant questions to myself). It's been made clear to me that insights on wigs, makeup, etc. aren't in my wheelhouse.

What's a guy to do? Sneak in a ride (hee, hee, hee). So headed out Sunday, Valentines Day afternoon for a ride down Lovers Lane.

I'd mistakenly thought that Ireland was flat to rolling. How wrong I was. As we pulled into the hotel in Killarney, that became abundantly clear (pic above). Staying literally across the street from the Killarney National Park and at the base of the Molls Gap -- I found a highly recommended route on mapmyride.com over two gaps.

I don't think I've seen more amazing scenery on a ride and luckily had the video cam along. Apologies in advance for the ground shots (still getting the hang of climbing one-handed, dodging cars, potholes and shooting at the same time).

The ride turned into a bit of an adventure of navigation -- had no idea that I'd be riding a cartpath and leaning on a local shepherd for directions (queue the "Deliverance" theme).

On the way into the competition yesterday, another guy and I witnessed a very minor fender bender. Turns out that he was a cyclist and had been out the day before also -- riding the 107 mile Ring of Kerry. He gave me about a half dozen hard sportive style ride suggestions. Guys -- a trip over here to ride is definitely in order!

Perfect Etape substitution and or Training!

PS -- the competition was also amazing and our girl did us Very proudly!

Etape du Tour Training starts with a kicker - Climbing Tucson's Mount Lemmon

Breaking some ribs in early January meant a lot of time training indoors (falling was a no-no and apparently the basement is the safest place not to fall). That meant my ski racing season was bye-bye, but I finally got cleared to skate ski the first week of February.

Skate skiing last Saturday gave way to a flight to Tucson on Sunday to host our annual client conference. One of our guests, Tom McAleer was up for some riding, so I brought the trusty Ritchey Breakaway (can't say enough about travelling with this bike).

Now there are golfers who carry a top 100 courses list and look to play them all before they kick the bucket. Crazy enough, cyclists also have lists like that. There's a top 50 climbs list that I carry in my briefcase. Only a handful are in the US. One of the top climbs in the world is in Tucson - Mount Lemmon -- and rises from the desert floor to 9100' over 25 miles. There's ski resort at the top (how many places can you golf, ride and ski in the same day?) that's boasting a 60" base right now.

Tom and I met before dawn to make our way to the base. The hotel bell captain was a former mountain bike pro and all smiles as we headed towards the car with road bikes and hopes of getting to the top. "Ice may be the only thing that stops you guys, but you'll have a blast."

Hmmm.

We made it to the base and started climbing -- 6-7% right from the start. Now I haven't ridden outside for almost two months and this was quite a wake up call. Not to mention, I'd forgotten to throw climbing gears on the bike -- this ride was going to go the hard way right from the start.

It was about 40 degrees in the valley when the sun started to rise and we climbed steadily to about 4000' of elevation at milepost 10 (just like Europe, you get the reverse torture of knowing just how far it is to the top). That's when we hit the snow-line.

As the sun had melted the snow a bit the day before, it had drained across the road and frozen into 3 foot wide sheets of black ice. After spinning out once, we learned not to pedal, just build some momentum and let the bike roll as these came up every couple of hundred yards. The climb from there on up was freezing -- in the mid to low twenties -- definitely well below Schlager standards.

This was beautiful though. The views were amazing. Pure alpine environment. It's comparable in scenery to climbing Independence Pass outside of Aspen. Two differences though -- Lemmon gains about 2000' more altitude over the same distance AND they keep the road open in the winter.

We hit 5000' feet at mile 12 and had to get off of the bikes every couple of hundred yards as the ice patches were getting wider. At mile fourteen, the sign was up across the road, "Chains and 4x4 required past this point." Apparently 9" of snow had fallen the night before and apparently our IQ had fallen with it -- neither Tom nor I was going to be the first to volunteer to give up the chase.

We climbed up to 6000' at mile 15 and I looked up the road and saw Tom off his bike, on a ice patch, looking like a deer on a frozen lake (limbs and bike flailing everywhere). I was the first to break down -- "T, if we're killing ourselves going up, it's going to be impossible to stay up going down."

So we turned, but not before taking some pics. Just over 2 hours and 15 miles of climbing.

The descent was murder for the first mile and a half -- three quarters of the time off the bike, grabbing the guard rail so we didn't slip on the ice. Once below 4000', it was a blast.

We left the last 10 miles on the bucket list. Will come back when the temps are above freezing!

What a way to start the 2010 training season though.