Life during the tour was somewhat strange in parts for the riders. The further through the tour we got, the more strange it seemed to become.
“If it doesn’t begin with a 2 it’s a recovery day”
The thing I found most odd was what became normal to us in terms of a ride. I remember quite vividly my first ever 100 mile (160km) ride during training for the tour, it wasn’t that long ago. By midway through the tour, any stage which did not cover at least this distance we had started to view as “easy” days, chances for us to recover a bit. Rides which were less than 100km (a nice evening training ride before the tour) were almost annoying due to the faff involved getting into kit, etc.
Eat, eat and eat some more
During the tour we ate a lot, a awful lot! In order to ensure we always had enough energy we generally had four feed stops in a day, one of which was lunch. This was in addition to breakfast and dinner. Breakfast was generally buffet style and I’d say we made the most of it, bowls of cereal, yoghurt, fruit, croissants and rolls. You’d think that this would keep us going until lunch, but no, by the time of the first feed stop (around 40km, maybe an hour and a half later) our stomachs would be feeling empty and we’d be cramming cakes, sandwiches and fruit in like we’d missed breakfast. This would be repeated at the second, lunch and final feed stops of the day. Dinner couldn’t come to soon either, with some riders having a pre-dinner meal at some local establishment, typically involving burgers of some description.
Pain, a welcome companion
The Tour de France is tough, very tough, pushing even the worlds best athletes to their limits. For a normal person to do this is madness, a huge challenge to even the best club riders. Even the best riders had their moments when they had pushed themselves to their limits and then beyond, when your legs are screaming out to you to let it end (and you have to say, as Jens Voigt said, “shut up legs”). To get through this it isn’t enough to ignore the pain; it is going to get worse and at some point you can’t ignore it any longer. Eventually, after a time riding through this you start to welcome it, know that it’s coming and look forward to it. I think for me the latter climbs in the tour is where this happened, I just accepted the fact that they were going to hurt and looked forward to when it did, I knew I was pushing then.
The other side to this is the respect that pushing the pain barrier seems to gain you within the peleton. I know that following my accident (when my leg, hip and arm were all cut and grazed and I was obviously struggling with my back and ribs) being up and ready to go the next day seemed to gain me more acceptance within the group, or at least other riders made it be known that they appreciated the effort.
“No time to say hello, goodbye …”
The tour was hectic, perhaps more for us at the back than the quicker guys but I suspect even for them. A typical tour day started at 6:30am (leaving it as late as possible) to get washed, prepare kit for the day and pack bags to be dropped off before breakfast at 7am then ready to be on the bike at 7:30am. You would then ride for the day and arrive back at the hotel for maybe 5pm to have a massage, shower before dinner at 8pm, maybe some blogging or catching up on emails before sleep, ready to do it all again tomorrow. This was all assuming it was a normal day, some days starting as early as 5am and not arriving back until almost 10pm.
A wheel and some tarmac
How much of France did I see? Certainly not as much a I rode through. I don’t really remember much about several days and have snippets of others. What I do remember a lot of is rear wheels and tarmac. When riding in groups, particularly when riding as a chain gang, you have to pay a lot of attention to the rider in front of you, trying to maintain only a few inches between their rear wheel and your front, in order to maintain the best aerodynamic efficiency. This means that for large parts of a stage, particularly the flatter stages, you spend most of the time looking down at the spot immediately in front of your own front wheel, your surroundings flying past.
Sometimes it is nicer to put in a little more effort and ride alone. At least that way you see some of where you are riding through.