6am alarm, 6.30 bags in the van and then breakfast, and by 7am we were cycling out of Montargis and heading to Gueugnon on the longest day of the Tour, a day that sees the pros ride 227.5km. Pretty early on in the ride we went through the 1,000km mark, but by the end of the day that total had ballooned to 1,240km, just over one third of the total.
The weather was a beautiful 28 degrees with blue sky for the second day running. Plenty of suncream and fluids were needed again, and by the end of the day i had drunk a total of 7.5 litres whilst on my bike.
The biggest issue of the day however ended up being with my bike itself... after about 3 hours the rear hub (which holds the cassette) stopped turning, so when i pedalled the rear wheel did not budge, i simply free-wheeled. Hearing the bike pro state "oh dear, this is serious" on examination was not something i wanted to hear (especially the day before entering the Alps) so with just 5km to go until one of the feed stations, i got pushed by Jake and Sandy before jumping on a spare bike (when the mechanic arrived in his van) to limp into the feed station. Once there i was able to borrow a rear wheel from one of the spare bikes, and i thought my mechanical nightmare had been resolved. However, a few hours later something worse happened.. on ascending a small hill suddenly my rear derailleur sheared off completely.. Disaster. I waited for around 30 minutes for the mechanic in his van to arrive, and then jumped onto Rick Wates's bike (who was not riding today) for the final 80km of the stage. A smaller frame and different gearing meant it took a bit of getting used to, and probably meant i had to work a bit more than i normally would have done, but i arrived in a group of 6 after 7.30pm.
The good part of the ride in the morning
The mechanics are frantically searching in nearby towns for new parts to fix my bike but, so far, with no success. For tomorrow it looks like i will be on one of the spare bikes again, just as we arrive in the Alps and have 6 climbs to get over.. Hope it will be ok. gulp
The reason we rode the extra kilometres was down to road closures on the official route.. this is a problem we have faced a few times now, but nothing we can do to get around it. The actual tarmac for the race route gets re-laid in the final few weeks before the race begins, but this has caused us a few issues. We sticked to the route until we were forced on a detour, and this happened 4 times today. The end result meant an extra 17km to the longest day of the whole challenge, not an ideal day for it to happen!
Here is a list of what i ate today:
Breakfast
Bowl of muesli
Pain au chocolate
Croissant with jam
3 glasses fruit juice
4 squares tortilla
2 mini pancakes with honey
yoghurt
Snack 1
banana
handful of nuts
2 ginger cakes
Snack 2
marmalade sandwich
pate sandwich
handful of cherries
5 dried mini-sausages
half an orange
half an apple
lunch
large plate of rice,sweetcorn,carrots,peppers with celery
Packet of crisps
2 pieces of watermelon
snack 3
chocolate eclair
10 toffees
orangina
banana
dinner
Pate salad
veal and spaghetti
apricot "surprise"
Drinks: 9 litres of water (with electrolyte and carbohydrate)
I cant quite believe how long this list is either.. but this is what is needed to cover the 7-9,000 calories consumed each day!
Highlights of the day
Colin getting a hornet down his jersey travelling at 40km/hr
Removing my bike helmet in my hotel room at the end of the day and a large dead insect falling out
Having 'mouth open & no sound' giggles a few times today (exhaustion?!) with Mark & Sam, for some reason the fact that at 150km we were "..only just over half way..." seemed to be the funniest thing that i had ever heard at that moment.
Today's distance: 242.36km
TOTAL distance (6 days): 1,249.13km
Cycling time: 9 hours 23
TOTAL: 48 hours 42 minutes
Calories burned: 9,500
Total: 48,008
GARMIN data with MAP for today HERE
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