Luz Ardiden

Today I paid in spades for my Hautacam prowess. At the last minute I enrolled in a time trial from Luz Saint-Saveur up to Luz Ardiden, another classic Tour arrival climb. Organized by the Lavedan cycling club and by the local tourist office, the contre-la-montre offered about forty among locals and non-locals a chance to try their skills against each other and the once more unforgiving weather, which presented a menu of thick brouillard and rain all the way up to the ski station.

I thought I could easily make it in the middle positions: how wrong I was! The club riders went up fast, soon disappearing uphill. I tried to chase them, but ny heart and my legs would simply not cooperate to keep the pace, easily going into overdrive on ramps that yesterday I took with much more panache. In the end I made it in one hour eight minutes, definitely not a world record.

Coming down after the refreshment at the top was even worse: once more I'm happy I stopped before the dreaded Tourmalet descent at the Étape. My hands froze in place in spite of the long gloves. Thankfully, they froze in the "brake pulled" position, preventing me from dropping to almost certain death. And thankfully they came alive once more after the mandatory hot shower, allowing me to type this today.

Hautacam

Thinking back about the Etape, I don't think I would ever have made it to the end, weather or no weather. Today I had a chance to try the final climb, Argeles to Hautacam. Hautacam is relatively short but nervous, twisty and vengeful climb, always ready to surprise the daring rider around the next corner and cut his legs with a surprise ramp. With several changes in grade up to 10% average on the kilometer, I was happy just to see a 8% sign.

All this said, this is a fun ride, if not taken on after 150 kilometers and the Tourmalet. There is always a cyclist to race against: Jurassic era French riders on old Peugeot bikes, solid Germans, Tour enthusiasts in full racing uniform. And this season, hundreds of camping cars (we call them RVs in the US) are already lining the road set up for the Tour arrival on Monday. Local paysans are transforming their grandfather's field into parking lots and refreshment stands for the day of the event. Old ladies are already sitting in camping chairs facing the road a full three days and a half before the the Tour. I can just hope that they are going to feed them until then, or at least remove the bodies from the road afterward.

I climb too fast, excited for the course and perhaps thinking too much about Riccardo Riccò's victory in Super-Besse. The last 3 kilometers are totally immersed in the clouds. I'm blind, I have to take off my (prescription!) sunglasses, with the result of making things even less clear. I pedal avoiding the shadows of bystanders and the occasional maneuvering camping car. One shadow I recognize as a young guy, Bouygues Telecom uniform, carbon Trek Madone. He shifts feverishly hearing me approaching. I follow in his tracks, wait for the right time, then take off fast, too fast. I don't want to give him a chance to respond, and I push as hard as I can and more. I feel have started too far from the finish line, my heart at 180, my lungs explode: I just hope he's nowhere behind me. I finally see Monday's finish line with relief, then I stop to catch my breath and wait for my instant competitor to say bonjour. It's just too much fun.

Le Tourmalet

Tourmalet

So did I give up? I prefer to think that I postponed the challenges to better enjoy them. After all, competition was never the top of my priorities.

Yesterday I rode down to Luz Saint-Saveur to climb back up to the top of the Tourmalet. All they say about European mountains is true. I don't think I'll be able to ride again in Southern California without thinking what a pitiful comparison our local climbs are to all this. The green, the raging streams in the middle of summer, even the occasional sheep in the road contributed to the tough, spectacular climb up to the 2115 summit. After the descent it took me about 20 minutes to find the right rhythm, which I kept almost to the top, happily passing quite a few locals in the process. Every kilometer a sign announced the distance to the sommet and the average grade. On this side of the Tourmalet the climb is quite constant and easy, usually around 7%, with a few kilometers at 8-9% and a glorious last kilometer at 10%. It took me about 1:40 minutes to realize I was at the top and still ready for more. Too bad it was lunch time and I had to ride back.

Lanterne rouge

And we're off
Originally uploaded by amawby75

What a comedy of errors! I spent six months preparing myself athletically and forgot to make a couple of essential six-minute purchases.

Don't misunderstand me: it was fun, immensely fun, even in the disgrace the day began as.

The night did not go very well. In fact I'm positive I did not close eye for longer than a couple of minutes. And I wasn't the only one: at least a couple of veterans of many battles in our group suffered from the same event-induced insomnia. However, as they said, it's not so important how much one sleeps the night before the event, if enough sleep has been enjoyed in the previous week. Unfortunately, I am not doing well on that front as well, having traveled through quite a few timezones just a few days earlier. Yet that proved to be the least of my problems.

The endless night goes at the rhythm by thunder and lightning. No, the weather was not going to be that good. At sunrise, only a light drizzle salutes the early riders. At 6AM it's time to decide: vest or rain jacket? I go for the vest, considering the previous days of heat. The drizzle will just dry off while climbing under the sun, right? Wrong: while in the pen with other 8500 riders, waiting to start for over an hour, rain starts pouring. We curse the sky, but to no avail. We can't leave or go back now, we're locked in by metal gates waiting our turn to start. People leave in batches of 1000. I have bib number 7170. The rain keeps falling. I suffer in silence. It takes just a few minutes to realize the full extent of the "colder than hell" expression. I realize there is only one way out: after starting, pedal full speed back to the hotel, then back to the race to avoid the feared broom wagon. Yes, because as I found out, my high bib number has another unfortunate consequence: leaving at 7:30 or so leaves only 10 minutes advantage over the dreaded fin de la course.

I literally fly back, adding already a few extra kilometers to the long day ahead. Then I rush back passing the extremely unlucky, those who got all the way here to be eliminated in the first mile due to a flat. Me, I only have myself to blame so far. I'm going super fast, catching up with all the stragglers. But I'm still cold. Even if now protected by the rain jacket I am completely soaked underneath. Worse, my feet are protected only by very light socks, and are drowning in the well ventilated shoes I so appreciated during the Mulholland Challenge. Why didn't I bring my shoe covers? Because, as many other spoiled Sou Cal riders, I own none, nor would I ever ride if such implements where actually needed. But the lack those cheap pieces of nylon could change the course of this gray rainy day. Soon enough every descent will chill me to the bone, and at some point I'll stop feeling my toes.

Yet I'm rocking and rolling to the first hill at Rébénacq, explored a couple of days before, and I catch up with a couple of hundred of the slowest, hungover, invalid and misguided, imagining the broom wagon losing more and more terrain. Old ladies and children defied the weather, standing at the window or along the route cheering and applauding the riders, shouting "bon courage." I'll never forget them or thank them enough. "Yes," I think, "I'll make it!"

Then everything stops.

A couple of accidents in the next few kilometers stop the gruppetto in its tracks for ten minutes or so. I feel my advantage evaporate while the unfortunate victims are picked up by the ambulances. It gets worse: really slow people are descending carelessly on the wet pavement, way above their demonstrated skill level. The group however is spread thin enough that it's easy to avoid the worst elements, and pass them easily at the next hill.

The weather does not improve. When I get to Lourdes, I know I won't make it much further. It would be crazy to climb the Tourmalet in my condition: I'm already shacking for the cold, and there are nine degrees more than the reported three on top of the pass. After all, I'll be in the Hautes Pyrenées for an entire week, and I'll be able to take my chances with the mythical climbs then, if I don't catch my death today, that is. "Live to ride another day," I think, cutting to Argeles-Gazost to the arrival hotel, dreaming of the hot shower that will put an end to this unfortunate, but ultimately epic day.

Le jour avant

Things are not made easier by the news back home. The Gap Fire is lighting up old Goleta, and a mandatory evacuation order is pending for people one block away from my house. The level of anxiety is also not improved by watching a couple of mass crashes in the first stage of the tour in Brittany. Needless to say, stress is not the athlete's best sleeping aid.

The sun has disappeared behind a thick curtain of clouds, and the forecast for tomorrow are uncertain, but mostly bad. Sure, it's nice to avoid the heat while climbing the Tourmalet, but the cold, slippery descent might not compensate for it. After all I train in Sou Cal: when it rains, if it rains at all, we do the easy thing: we stay home!

Everything is ready: bike, clothes, food and supplements. Will I be as ready when the time comes?

Recon

The second day is dedicated to general preparation and recon. After breakfast, however, the first thing we do is play tourists and take in the atmosphere of the place. Pau is a great little town, amazingly green, with a remarkable Chateau where Henry IV was born. As the legend goes, his father right after birth touched his lips with garlic, which made him grimace, then with a drop of the Jurançon, the local, sweet wine, which made him smile. A true king was born. I would have liked more the garlic perhaps roasted on a tartine and accompanied by some red St. Emilion, but on the other hand I'm definitely not that in favor of monarchy.

After lunch I pedaled to the Pau Hippodrome, which hosted the Welcome Village for the Etape. A welcome made of music, blinding sun, and lots of extremely expensive bike accessories: definitely a step up in quality and three steps up in price from any US cycling event. It's hot and humid, and this makes the 50 kilometers recon that follows not entirely pleasant, making me worry about riding in the heat for day of the Etape. Following the advice of local cyclists I explored the first few crowded miles of the course, including the surprise turn and climb at Rébénacq, notorious for claiming unsuspecting victims in group rides. Aside from the heat and humidity, nothing seems out of the ordinary, and I can't wait to ride all this without the obnoxious traffic and diesel exhausts that accompany all my ride.

In Pau

One remarkable thing about the Etape experience has been meeting lots of great people along the way. Yesterday, I spent my first hours in France reassembling Aida out of the Trico Sports Iron case that miraculously brought her intact all the way to Pau. While assembling the bike in a Euro-size hotel room was easier than I imagined, I definitely wanted an expert to take a look at the result. I took a quick tour of the city, also to find a decent pump to bring the tires to the correct running pressure, and to work out the jet-lag with some pedal-pumping.

I stopped by chance at CYCLES DANIEL PLANAS (un pro à votre service: 41, Rue Castetnau, Pau, 05 59 27 50 42). A former pro and all-around nice guy, Daniel kindly checked my bike and fixed the play in the fork my hasty assembly of the headset had left. I ended up spending more than an hour in the store, meeting local cyclists, chatting and learning more about the Etape, its pièges, tricks and tips for the ride. One ocean and some away from home, it was very nice to feel so welcome and to meet other cyclists ready to take on the mountains.

And the cyclists are coming in droves: yesterday, the small plane that took us from Paris to Pau was full of them. All looked like your average Joe, until the baggage carousel started unloading a dozen bicycle cases for rouleurs of all ages and fitness level. Cycling is in the air here, even our chubby cabbie wen on about the Etape, the roads and expectations for Sunday's event as well as the imminent start of the Tour de France.