My rest day in Morzine was a welcome break after the tests of the last few days, but it looks like it will be worse next week. Many people have commented on the photos, some are mine, some are others in the group and some are taken by a lovely lady – Joolze Dymond – please take a look at some of her work.
Yesterday I was tempted to take a trip on the cable car to admire the views, but thought it better to just rest up and relax before the alpine rides coming up, which started with a relatively easy ride today. I say relatively easy but it was still just under 100 miles and had a few categorised climbs, including a Category 2 at the end adding up to over 9000 feet of climbing. I suspect it will be a day for the break away in the tour, which was in Dunkirk yesterday. Andy and Loz were there and got talking to a winner of the Tour De France – Sir Bradley Wiggins, and he was kind enough to record a video message for me, what a fantastic boost when I finished today to hear him praising my efforts.
Doug’s Wife Kate joined us today and rode with the slower group, I rode with Kate in my training, joining her for a ride from Bristol to the Midlands as she rode from Lands End to John O’Groats to raise money for Cure Leukaemia. For me it was the fast group again, although with the mountains it wasn’t too fast, we are learning now to ride within our limits, to take it easy even when we feel good, despite feeling good at the end of the day on that last climb I left the group to it and rode up at a steady pace to conserve a bit of energy. All the others are also doing well but there are some injuries which I am hoping will not affect them too much. I have been lucky so far, despite my off on Stage 2, I have no major issues, yes I have some aches, after 10 stages of the The Tour de France you have to expect it. I am full of admiration for all of the team, we are all different levels and abilities, but we are helping each other out. Seeing some of the others riding through the pain of injuries is so inspiring, each has their own personal motivation to continue to pedal each day but it all revolves around reaching our £1,000,000 target, so each day when we finish we are there to cheer the next rider over the line.
That line today was at an airfield on the slopes of Mount Blanc. After a steady ride towards Lake Geneva we turned around to headed up a different Valley toward the impressive mountain. Before riding along the lower slopes and then turning up a section of switchbacks leading us to the airfield. Normally I would have said this was a hard ride, but my body is acclimatising to the workload, as the saying goes ‘Eat, Sleep, Bike, Repeat. Tomorrow however is our first HC climb, too steep and too long to be categorised, a new challenge to overcome.
