Last full day in Paris

For our last day in Paris Steve and I decided to do a ride in the morning along the Champs-Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe but we had to be out early as the Tour was finishing today in Paris and as usual the roads would be closed early. We headed out and followed the Sienne river (if you're not careful you will go in-sane)somewhat through relatively empty streets and cute laneways. When we hit the Champs-Elysees near Place de la Concorde it was closed so we worked our way up parallel to find an entry spot not blocked by the Gendamerie and ended up at the Arc de Triumph thrilled to bits. We rode round the Arc 3 times on the cobbled stone road with vibrations coursing through our bodies and bikes but it was such a thrill to ride around this famous landmark knowing the riders would be coming through 8-10 hours later. We then rode along the Champs-Elysees as far as we could (the part that was closed ended up being the finish line later in the day) then headed back home past the famed Notre-Dame back to Bercy.

We met everyone at 1pm to take the bus into central Paris to watch the final race. We all had tickets to get seats to watch in comfort but you had to be early to get decent seats. The race was quite interesting as they came into Paris we could see the riders on the huge screen not far from us. Upon their arrival they did 8 laps of the Champs-Elysees before the sprint to the finish. It was a foregone conclusion that Cadel Evans would finish the Tour in 2nd place behind they yellow jersey winner Carlos Sastre (barring any accidents) given he was 58 seconds behind but it was great to see him on the podium with Sastre.

John M, Steve & I went back to the Bercy Village for dinner, drinks and some relaxation watching the talent wander by. The other boys and girls went out for dinner, drinks and a night spot on the Champs-Elysees.

Ahhh... Gay Paris...

A night on the Eiffel

Having not been to Paris before I was pleasantly surprised at the architecture and culture that this city has to offer. There is so much to see. The 3 of us visited the Louvre Museum but we didn't have time to go inside. It really is a full-day outing or more. This trip has given me a taste for coming back next year with my wife Ann.

The dinner outing to the Eiffel Tower has to be one of the highlights of the trip. The structure is amazing to see during the day but at night it comes alive with a wonderful light show. I am told that the golden stars (European Union symbol) has been added in the last couple of years.

Alpe d' Huez Race Day

I was determined to ride Alpe d' Huez one more time and the only opportunity to do so was this morning before the organisers closed the road for todays race which finishes at the top of Huez after 2 other Cols and 200 odd kms.

By the time I got going it was just before 9am. The road was already busy with lots of people riding or walking up the 21 switchbacks. It seemed like a pilgrimage to Mecca. It only took 20 to descend but I had to warm up at the bottom in the sunshine as the cold mountain air chills the bones. My ride up whilst not exactly easy was not as hard as it was 2 days ago. It only took 1hr 17mins and 20 secs to climb the beast (15 mins faster this time) but unlike 2 days ago when we had ridden 100+kms before ascending I was rather fresh in the legs today.

The rest of the day was spent enjoying the carnival atmosphere, the procession of cars and finally the race itself. There were a few of us watching the race on TV and as the riders ascended Huez we were on the balcony watching the riders fly by.

Dinner out and plenty of beer and wine ensured a great day was had. Here's some pics of the day.

A day off on Alpe d' Huez

After yesterday's mammoth day climbing 2 cols (mountains) it was nice to have a day off to enjoy the mountain scenery and to soak up the atmosphere of living in the Mecca of cycling locations Alpe d' Huez.

Talking about the Mecca of cycling I have never seen so many cyclists all converge at one location than have here. Even when climbing Huez yesterday arvo there were hundreds of cyclists of all shapes and sizes climbing the mount and many hundreds cheering us on the sidelines. The atmosphere is building for the race that climbs up Alpe d' Huez tomorrow. People everywhere are speculating whether Cadel Evans can wrestle back the yellow jersey from Frank Schleck.

The 3 most handsome guys in the group took a cable car ride up Pic Blanc (3300 mtrs) and enjoyed some wonderful scenery, a few snow fights (James was slipping and sliding in the snow with his thongs and shorts on) whilst John and I were reasonably dressed for the conditions. Some of the others went for another ride up Col Sarenne and down into the village of Borg d'Oisan for lunch then back up Huez.

Guillestre - Alpe d' Huez

Refreshed from a day off the bikes we set off on a 110km ride from Guillestre to Alpe d' Huez. We travelled along the beautiful valley of the river Durance past many farming villages and winter ski resorts.

The first major climb was after we went through the town of Briancon which was the start of the le Tour stage into Italy. The climb known as the Col du Lauteret was certainly long and steady rising from the valley floor over 36.5kms and into a 30km/hr head wind. A welcomed lunch of Steak Frites with a hot chocolate and we were off in rapidly cooling conditions.

The first downhill sections were really fast with speeds up to 60+ and lots of long/dark tunnels which were really scary coming from bright sunlight and with the sunnies on the tunnels were really narrow. Not much room for error with an on-coming truck! The descent continued 40kms into the village of Bourg d'Oisans at the foot of the imposing Alpe d' Huez.

After such a taxing 100+kms only 5 of us (Fitzy, Ray, Jason, Steve and I) decided to climb the monolith. Alpe d' Huez is famous for its 21 switchbacks (tirages) over over 14kms with an ascent of 1130mtrs at an average gradient of over 8%. Slowly but surely we climbed up and up and up.... With the le Tour stage up this mountain in 2 days time it was amazing the number of people riding up and down, the caravans parked bumper to bumper on the roadside, the people sitting on their deckchairs on the roadsides cheering the riders up. The carnival atmosphere with the loud music was really building up the higher up we got.

Each of the 21 switchbacks were signposted with the corner number and a famous rider from the past and as you climbed you mentally counted down the number of switchbacks to go until finally tirage 1 at 1713mtrs and then another 300 odd meters to the top.

At the end of such a long day the climb was massive both physically and mentally but such a satisfaction of achievement. It took me 1hr 19mins to conquer the beast, delicate derierre and all.

With a small mess up with accomodation we were treated to a lovely authentic French mountain meal thanks to Lawrie and Bikestyletours.

Au Revoir & Bon Appetit

Nimes - Dignes Le Bains

Another hot day in the 30's. We enjoyed a very pleasant ride through the valley flanked by crops of sunflowers, orchards and rolling green pastures. We rode at a solid pace peaking in the mid 40kms/hr. I was in a group of 4 riders, 2 of which were la femmes who produced very strong rides and kept both the boys on our toes.

The scenery was beyond description and has to be witnessed to be really appreciated. Our ride entailed a total of 60kms with some reasonable solid climbs finishing at Dignes Le Bains. The other 13 riders rode 100kms and we all re-grouped and rested 5kms out from the township and enjoyed some bagettes and a most welcome drink.

From this point the 16 riders in our group progressed into the township under VIP escort to the finishing line on what was an official leg of the Tour de France. We were welcomed at the finishing line by the crowds that were already assembled to greet the official Tour de France riders which were following behind us by 3 hours.

As part of the Bikestyletours arrangements we were then treated to official photographs on the podium following which we were given the opportunity to see the technical operations that support the Tour de France TV and radio coverages thanks to Dave McKenzie and his SBS crew. It was an amazing sight to see the technology that supports this event including kms of cabling on the ground.

When the riders finally came through we were very fortunate to have the opportunity to view and photograph both the yellow jersey winner (Cadel Evans, Australian) and the green, polka dot jersey winners from close proximity.

A memorable and enjoyable day that we will never forget.

Narrated by Sexy John, typed by Southern Hack (Steve))

We conquered Mont Ventoux

We awoke with a nervous apprehention to what was to lie ahead. After all most of us had only been riding 100-200kms a week with little climbing. Certainly not mountains. After getting the bike gear ready we hopped on the bus for a 1.5hr trip out to Carpentras. The excitement was building. As we got closer Ventoux started looming ahead as the monster of a mountain it is. Some of us shat ourselves (sorry french keyboard).

We rode from Carpentras to a cute little happening village of Bedoin at the foothills of Mt. Ventoux, stopped for a refreshment and leak break before we headed off up the mountain.

The first couple of kms were pretty okay as we rode out of town, however we soon knew that we were in for tough climb as we started up the mount.

It took most of us 2hrs+ to conquer the beast... What a great feeling it was to finally make it to the top. The muscles were aching and the body fatigued but the feeling of achieving a momentous climb made the pain well worth it.

The first "Wally Award"

Commissaire, Delicate Derierre has been too busy enjoying his pedalling to pen his travels until now. Enjoy!!!!

After the Prawn Laksa crew decided to join us the group headed for the airport Gard to catch the TGV to Nimes. Speeds of up to 250kms/hr through beautiful countryside, fields of ripening corn, harvested grains and verdant forests we arrived at Nimes 3 hours later to check into our hotel, our home for the next 3 days.

To stretch our legs we had a 36km ride through rolling country side, very pretty villages including a nice long down hill to test our speed abilities up to 60kms/hr. We then cycled to Pont du Gard through vineyards on country roads as well as nice bike paths. It was on one of these bike paths that the first mishap occurred! During our ride we were honing our bicycle ettiquette and doing very well until Steve went overboard with a cautionary signal for a bollard in the middle of the bike path. As a consequence he clipped a green metallic fence and came to grief adjacent to the bollard. To all our horror (including Steve's) we thought his Tour was over. But before anyone had a chance to say much more than "Are you okay Steve" he was back on his bike and off like a shot to keep his pride and save embarrassment. We were all very relieved that he, his bike, the fence and the bollard were okay.

We reached Pont du Gard without any further mishaps and visited a most amazing architectural wonder from Roman times built nearly 2000 years ago. The arched bridge built over a river is truly a monument to man's ingenuity. The river is a popular spot for the locals to cool off and for the fool hardy to leap off 10m cliffs and into the water.

Back at the hotel refreshed from seeing the beautiful Provence countryside and blowing the cobwebs out of our legs we had our first meal together. At this time Fitzy (John Fitzgerald) welcomed everybody and built up our expectations for adventures yet to come. He also made an important announcement of a tradition which was started at last year's tour in Tanzania. Without going into too much detail, at the end of each day the guy/gal who has done the dorkiest thing for the day gets the coveted "Wally Award". Steve was a natural for this award after his mishap with the fence and bollard. For his couragious dawkiness he was annointed the first wearer of the Wally Beret which he has to wear with sheepish pride until it is passed on to the next Wally.

After dinner it was off to bed for an early start the next day up the beast, Mont Ventoux.... Stay tuned.

Your Delicate Derierre. Photos to come.
(typed via French keyboard by Southern Hack (Steve))

Blame it on the prawn laksa

Wally of the day award has to go to myself, Chris, Dane, Mark and Fi for missing our connecting flight in Singapore to Paris.

It was a testing time as we were tired, were being told many conflicting stories and annoyed at ourselves for losing track of time, waiting for our prawa laksa's.

After a lot of stuffing around by our good friends at Singapore airlines NOT, we checked into the Crowne Plaze at the airport for some beauty sleep - and boy did we need it.

I opted to sleep on the floor leaving the love nest for Dane and Chris. I don't know what happened but the boys were like two ferrets in a sack. Mark and Fi were in the room next door.

It starting to get light and my tummy is rumbling - I hope thats not the prawn laksa!!

It's started...well almost!

9pm Sunday night and still not packed yet! Fi and I did our last blast on the bike today with a lazy 30-40km or so round Centennial Park here in Sydney. Not sure if we're ready...in fact I'm pretty sure we're not but nonethless, France, here we come!

Our important pre-tour meeting...

By the time I arrived for our “pre-tour meeting” last night James, John and their wives Jennie and Ann were already into the French Le vin, Le fromage (cheese) platter and having a good old Le cackle. I wasn’t asked to bring my better half but unfortunately as it turned out my wife Kee was at home with a cold with my son James in bed with a sore throat. It didn’t take long to get into the swing and the subject seemed to fluctuate between the 2 French bottles of Le vin we were consuming, salacious comments on all matters and Le Tour.


James brought the La Vieille Ferme from the Ventoux region which was a very nice drop and a nicer drop than the fall from Mt. Ventoux itself and I brought the Chateau Briand which was more than a little disappointing given the 1996 vintage but warmed to it slowly. John supplied the comfortable meeting location, warmth (as in hospitality not body), ambiance and the derriere (see photo) and a couple of bottles of Pepperjack Cab Sav (I think).


James decided we should take photos of the Le vin and Le fromage as proof and so ended up being a Le tour type competition between James and John for taking the best photo whilst I casually kept drinking. I think James won hands down (all photos).



Well onto matters of importance. We opened our meeting with James reading through his list of items to take and John and I ticking off ours and occasionally writing down items we hadn't thought of such as the bike computer's spoke attachment, chain lube, spare digital camera memory stick, spare cleats and a secret spare key to the chastity belts our wives are locking us up with (not a good look under the knicks). A heated discussion on whether to take the saddle post with us or not got going but soon fizzled out. I think we were on our 3rd bottle by then so there were more salacious comments flying around about all sorts of bike and body parts.

Finally we (the boys) retired to John’s computer room so I could teach the boys the ins and outs of posting to this blog and the ladies had a chat and then went to bed. That’s when the real fun began but we won’t elaborate on that. Thankfully there was a TV in the study so we watched Gabrielle Gateau cook up some saucy dish which I now forget and after getting the boys gmail accounts setup and instructions firmly planted in their minds on how to start blogging we retired to watch the time trial race and were very pleased to see Cadel post a great 3rd place time and a 4th overall.

Go Cadel!

This is what it's all about!

This is what it's all about! All the sweat, strain and sleepless nights ... for a great cause. Shortly after this we headed up and back down a category 7 or was it an 8? Survived atrocious conditions with gales, rain and slippery switchbacks. Great training for Mt Ventoux & Alpes d'Huez.

Here we go...........

Started watching the start of the tour last night on SBS. Ahh the memories. My problem is that after an hour of so I fall asleep and amazingly wake up with 10kms to go for the stage (me thinks its probably the extra noise of the TV and the voices of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin getting more excited).

Good on Cadel - I am pleased he stayed out of trouble and did not get the stage win (he looked great at the end). I think its better for his team to save themselves for when the going really gets tough, so not having the yellow jersey too early is a good thing.

Looking at the country side on SBS of the cycling is really geeing me up. In a weeks time I be over there with the rest of the guys.......can't wait....

Rain, sleet and debri won't keep us away

I can't speak for everyone but with only 9 days, 18 hours, 37 minutes and 15.25 seconds to go to boarding our flight to Sydney on the way to Singapore and finally Paris, I am truly excited and hanging out to go.

Yesterday James Jones and I drove out to Warburton (Vic) and rode up Mt. Donna Buang. It's only 1250m high and we started from approx 350m above sea level so it would be close to 1km in height and 16.2km uphill distance. Talk about crazy. It was approx 10c at the bottom with heavy clouds overhead threatening. Then from a cold start we rode the first half with a fairly constant 7% slope which levelled off at a hairpin intersection halfway up the mountain. We had to negotiate a fair amount of tree debri on the road from the last few days high winds.

We stayed together until then but once we started climbing the 2nd stage to the top which ranged from 8% to approx 10% James cruised ahead and was soon out of sight. I was struggling a bit with a tired lower back and had to stop to stretch it out. It was then that we climbed into the clouds and the bad weather. With only 100m to go I saw James riding down to give me a final psychological push with "Come on, you can make it. There are naked ladies waiting for us at the top". I knew that wasn't true even though I wished it was (after all he wouldn't have come down to meet me if it was) but it did give me the motivation to get it over with (at least the uphill part). By the time we got to the top after 75 minutes it was a near freezing 1c and we were not looking forward to the downhill trip. Thankfully there was a hut with the remnants of an open fire still burning so we were able to dry off our backsides and gloves which helped.

We had to eventually pry ourselves away from the fire as the wind was picking up. On the way down the warmth soon left our bodies. The last thing we wanted to do was to take it slowly as the fingers and toes started going numb. There was nothing to do but to JUST GO FOR IT. We were as careful as possible but we got up to 50km/hr on the straights and probably 35km/hr on the bends whilst negotiating the debri on the road. By the time I got quarter way down I had lost James in the fog and sleet, I had a terrible throbbing pain coming from where my fingers and toes would have been had I been able to feel them. I honestly don't know how I managed to keep my fingers on the brakes all the way down as I simply couldn't feel or move them.

Finally, after 20 minutes we made it down alive but frozen and the looks of relief and "WOW" on our faces told the story. We found a place to change into our spare clothes and a coffee shop with a heater to warm up by as we downed our hot chocolate & coffee and hot steak and bacon pies.

What a trip. Anyone want to join us for a return trip next week?

What is this all about......

This blog has been setup for the TOOGOOLAWA TOUR DE FRANCE CHALLENGE.

What is this you ask?

Well let me explain first what Toogoolawa does. Toogoolawa is an aboriginal word that means "a place in the heart", and is the name of a school that was setup to offer alternative education to youths aged 12 - 16 whose behaviours excludes them for mainstream schools in Australia. There are currently three schools in operation (one in Queensland, one in New South Wales & one in Victoria), with more planned to open in the future.

The tour de France challenge is a bike ride where a group of people are taking part in to raise donations for the Toogoolawa schools. There will be 16 people participating, of varying backgrounds, ages, fitness levels and from different locations around Australia. We will be riding parts of the 2008 Tour de France and past stages which is organised by BikeStyle Tours.

So stay tuned......