Yellow jersey held on 4 day stage

Rounding the final turn on the Col de Galibier, the passing Italian motorcyclists noticed not the touring cyclist sprinting out of his saddle to the summit and finish of the epic stage 18 (at just above walking pace as he hauled his panniers). The assembled masses at the finish line, similarly, and incomprehensibly, did not rouse from their self obsessed narcisistic picture taking, to acknowledge a new record being set right in front of their noses. Never before in the 100+ years of TdF history had it taken 4 days to complete one stage. But this is what the grinning, pannier clad Englishman was achieving. The moment was marked by a German cyclist engaging the hero in small talk about the technical details of the record setting bike, a picture captured by the aforementioned German, and an entry on this almost unread blog. Ca ne fait rien, I will remember it to my premature senility.

So after the shocking weather of day 2 on Col d'Angello, day 3 was a relative ride in the park up and over Col d'Izoard. I rode the Col with the Kiwi couple I mentioned previously. Well I say rode with them, the truth is that Karl turned out to be even better than the French guy Marc I had met previously. In all the days touring I have done over the last few years I have met very few serious race cyclists on a touring trip, not so with Marc and Karl. Anyway, as he powered up the 10% gradient I made myself feel better by counting the number of panniers on Karl's bike, 2, then recounting mine, 4.

Anyway, Izoard was a lovely climb and afterwards, Karl and I took a seat overlooking the final turn to encourage all the cyclists to the summit, and to bloody witness another accident! 2 cars rounding the corner simply collided into one another. My first thought was for the safety of the cyclists as I jumped up to clear the broken glass from the headlamp. No, seriously, I checked for the health and welfare... of my sandwich first, I didn't want it rolling down the hill, or ants getting at it. It was such a slow crash luckily, it was almost unbelievable it happened.

Anyway, the descent was great, as they always are, and given the time, I decided to utilise another day of my ever diminishing lead to find a campsite and watch my rivals tackle the Pyrennees on TV. As I made plainly obvious to the assembled campers in the lounge, I was ecstatic to see Geraint Thomas - who I have taught so much, and who thankfully, this year at least, is no challenge to my yellow jersey - in a breakaway up the Col du Tormalet. He's good, but put 4 panniers on him and he'd be great

Day 4 was a late start, this cyclist has to plan and book his own accommodation. And as the main peleton get closer, so do the hordes of Dutch camper vans and English lycra clad MAMILS (middle aged men in lycra) - oh, like me but within panniers - crowding the mountains and campsites.

Once underway, I felt strong and went on a solo breakaway from Karl, who was now 'sans' panniers, on the climb to the Col de Lauteret, the approach to the final climb of the day, the highest ever finish on the TdF, the Col de Galibier. Karl eventually caught up, and with Jez Loftus' coaching ringing in my ears, I realised I had gone too early as Karl powered past.

The headwind to the Lauteret turned a gentle climb into a testing one and at the summit I was glad of the opportunity to eat my sports dietician prescribed Camembert sandwiches, washed down with Haribo and espresso, as Karl and I waited for his girlfriend Lena. As it turns out she had carried on up to Galibier unseen by us, so as Karl returned to Briancon 700m short of Galibier, she was finishing the Galibier in fine form for an Alpine novice. Chapeau.

The Galibier is a spectacular climb, as my pictures will show in due course. My climb time was good, even despite the photography, and slightly repeating lunch. The pro team Skil Shimano descended passed me as I climbed, and despite my best efforts, did not respond even with eye contact to my inane banter as they sped past. Perhaps they didn't see me 80 kph!

Anyway, as I said too many redundant words ago at the start of this blog, stage 18 is now done. In all seriousness, it's a killer - the Queen stage of this year's tour and one not to miss folks. In recognition of my feet, my podiatrist, sorry, I meant my feat, my Directeur Sportif even allowed me to swap my regulation 3 beers for a small allowance (75cl) of red wine, and 3 chocolate mousses. Tomorrow, after all, is only stage 19, a mere 3 HC climbs starting with the Telegraphe, Galibier again but from the north, and then Alpe d'Huez.

I wonder if my now 5 day lead can survive? I wonder if my now 27 day old legs can continue? I wonder if my earplugs will manage to block the noise of barking dogs and car alarms  in this campsite? After all, good food (tick, if good is lots) and good sleep wins the TdF - Eddy Merckx. And he ate other human beings (le Cannibale), so he should not be argued with!

Col d'Angello, Stage 17 Day 2

Col d'Angello, Stage 17 Day 2

Well that wasn't in the script. Col d'Angello was always going be hard, but not that hard.

It rained overnight, and my hangover took a while to clear slowly in he morning. Unfortunately the clouds never really cleared. After about 20k of gentle climbing (around 5%) I stopped for coffee and a dry shirt in the last bar before the angels took over. The road immediately and rather rudely kicked up to 10%. And continued that way for 10k. Aside from, that is, the rather discouraging sign signalling that the next section was in fact 14%.

Now this would all have been challenging enough on its own, but by this point the heavens had truly opened revealing, not angels, but sleet and hail accompanied by a gale force wind. Occasional breaks in the cloud gave a sense of the stark beauty surrounding me as I climbed, slowly, but my main view was of 20m of tarmac in front of me disappearing into the cloud.

Given the relative visual blindness, the sounds of the Alps became heightened - those cows and goats must get truly driven mad by those bells under their necks.

Arriving at the summit was a huge relief, but by thirsting point my hands and feet were completely numb. This was worse than mountain biking in the Welsh mountains in winter. Had there been a bar I might have seen the funny side but at 2750m there's not too many customers - today there was no chance of being overtaken by lycra clad, carbon mounted cyclists!

After finding some semi dry clothes in my panniers, and managing to drop my underwear in a puddle, I started the challenging descent most gingerly. If the wind wasn't trying to topple me over sideways then it was trying to force me down the mountain at a speed that my numb hands couldn't slow me down from.

When the hail stones were rendering me blind by bouncing off my eyeballs (only a slight exaggeration) I took shelter under a tree outside a house in a tiny village. The kind owner called me over and gave me a most welcome shelter, tea and biscuits whilst the hail turned to sleet. Off I went again, teeth chatering, through rivers running across the road, this time ending up in a bar at the bottom it the valley.

As I drank coffee and ate panini, the bar kept filling up with customers taking refuge. As it turned out, they closed the road up the Col d'Izoard, my next destination, due to a landslide. I met up again with a Kiwi couple touring the Alps and we spent a couple of hours warming up and allowing the rain to empty the seas.

So there you have it, my lead in the GC has been somewhat impaired by the weather, and perhaps the little Col, (and perhaps my panniers). Indeed, I still haven't finished stage 17, and have the not to be ignored task of climbing 2 more HC climbs before the finish. Given the need to dry clothes, tent etc tomorrow it could be that I take 4 days on this stage, losing up to 3 days of my lead. The Tour will complete stage 17 in less than 8 hours I suspect. Given today's weather though, I bet the commissaires would have cancelled the stage. I think that is what I have to hope for if I am still to take yellow to Paris.

Dormez bien, James.

I'm leading the Tour de France...

(To avoid confusion note that the above profile is stage 18, not 17)

Yesterday I entered the TdF. In order to compensate for the weight of my panniers (have I mentioned that yet?), the lack of team mates, and other handicaps (talent?) I started 2/3 of the way through the race, midway on stage 17, at the base of the 1st category climb from Cesana to Sestrierre.

It was 3.30 pm before I rose from my park bench to start the race official, having already climbed 2 Cols and ridden 80ks to that point yesterday. With Chorizo and Camembert sandwiches fuelling me I made it up the 700m, 12k climb feeling a little fatigued.

At the feed stop at the top, instead of being passed a bag with everything in it, I popped into a supermarket and bought provisions including beer and wine. Such was the brilliance off my climb to Sestrierre I also had time to visit the Gelateria for a picolo cafe and chololati copo (the Tour is visiting Italy).

I then flew down the descent towards the finish of stage 17 in Pinerolo about 45ks away. With a decent gap to the chasing pack - they were on a rest day awaiting the start of stage 10 - I decided to soft pedal for a while, and take an overnight stop in Fenestrelle.

I continued Stage 17 this morning towards Pinerolo. It's a steady and long descent from Sestrierre, relatively easy for a chasing group to close to any successful climbing attacks. Luckily, I had a good lead of about 8 days, and I took this onto the 2nd category climb only 14k from the finish.

It's only a 400m, 7k climb, but I found it really tough. The gradient keeps changing, the road surface is rubbish and it's very steep in parts. And then the descent.... It's similarly badly surfaced for the first couple of k, and tight and twisty throughout. This climb, Col la Pra Martino, is where someone could do some damage to my lead when they come through in just over a week.  A lead which would have been bigger today if they had bothered to put the finishing signs out for me in Pinerolo. I must have lost a good 10 mins in the GC looking for the finish...

Anyway, like a martyr, rather than take an overnight break in Pinerolo like the TdF boys will, I had an espresso and kicked on to stage 18, perhaps three most brutal and decisive of the TdF 2011.

Remembering too late that shops shut for most of the afternoonin Italy, I also went into stage 18 on an empty stomach! Ice cream, coffee and coke kept me going for the afternoon, but it massively affected my chances in the overall race, meaning that I took probably 4 hours (with stops) to do the 75ks to Sempeyre that my competitors will probably do in not much more than 1.5.

I stopped in Sepmpeyre, ready to tackle tomorrow the 2000m climb from here to the top of the Col d'Angello and then the 1000m climb of the Col d'Izoard. Believe it or not, despite the fact that I will probably take an overnight rest at that point, this still isn't the end of stage 18. I'll tackle that the day after, the climb to the finish in Galibier Serre Chevalier.

So to prepare for this daunting stage, I chose to forego the massage and pasta on offer and instead took up a kindly Italian couple's hospitality of wine, genapi, and more coffee. Then at 9pm I remembered to eat and here I am at 11.30 still typing away.

I think I need the attention of a team of strategists, nutritionists, masseurs, sports scientists and a mattress. That is surely the only thing holding me back from converting this massive lead into a race win. Oh, that and the panniers. Did I mention those?

Bon note (good night in Italian I think), James

Les Alpes parfait

It's late, and my ability to write good English has been destroyed by my fluent French, so here's a few snippets if a great couple of days I had in the Alps...

In La Thuile I had my first day off the bike in 18.

I managed to pull a hamstring walking to the laundrette.

Said laundrette cost me nearly £20, perhaps including a stench tax, but certainly the folding and ironing was unnecessary.

I ate a lot and watched Bradley Wiggins break his collar bone.

The next day, with good form I flew up Col San Bernardo, and then up to Val d'Isere.

Only the offer of beer from my new French touring cyclist companion stopped me attempting Col de l'Iseran that afternoon - and the thought of the 1000m climb to the highest Col in Europe perhaps.

The Frenchman and I met on the ascent to Val d'Isere and within 20 minutes we were witnesses to an accident on the road, caused by one car being too cautious overtaking us, and the other being too aggressive - the result a rear end shut 100m ahead. Scary.

The next day, the authorities kindly shut the road for us up to Col de l'Iseran, well they might have been planning it for a while, and we had an amazing hour and a half climbing 14k and 1000m.

The Frenchman lives near Mont Ventoux, is therefore a good climber, and like me, enjoys racing lycra clad men on carbon race bikes up hills whilst hauling panniers on a touring bike.

It was an amazing climb, with great scenery and NO cars. hopefully the pictures will do it justice.

At the top, free coffee and cake were laid on and Nirvana was achieved.

I had a smile on my face all day.

I know I was fully relaxed and chilled out because I did not get annoyed when someone took a less than perfectly framed picture of me at the top with my camera.

This conclusion was reinforced when I gave up the opportunity to watch the British GP on the telly in the campsite lounge, to instead enjoy the Tour de France (not such a loss I have to admit). Ah yes, I was also talked into dancing a jig with the Madam of the Bar at the top of the Col de l'Iseran (no not that sort of madam).

It was also a day of meeting inspiring older people: a 62 year old man on a bike tour of the Grand Cols; a 75 year old British couple on a walking tour of the Alps - and he was 5 years into Parkinsons too, and; a 76 year old French amateur cyclist (now retired from racing) who raced with Jacques Antequil (amongst other famous French cyclists).

Et mon Francais est aussi pas mal - je peux avoir un conversation en Francais sans l'autre person frowning a moi...