I got out for the club red ride on Saturday – and thoroughly enjoyed it. The weather was really (unseasonably) decent and we were on some roads we rarely visit, including a long slog out of Eastbury that got the heart pumping. I decided to ride in the front group – if I could – and ended up finishing with two particularly strong riders to make up a front three. My Garmin mis-fired but judging by the records of fellow riders I did about 74km at an average of 28.9kph.
I’m still on the Rose but am completing the upgrades on the old Giant. It now has a new seat post (with faux aero design) and my spare carbon saddle – by good fortune its all open weave carbon fibre so I think it looks pretty good. I’ve managed to buy a right hand shifter on Ebay so once that arrives it should be good to go. I may decide to ride that for the winter to give it a good shake-down before riding it out to the alps in the summer (I hope) but might revert to the Rose (with its winter wheels) for special occasions.
The Giant weighs in at about 8.3kg compared to the Rose (in fighting mode) at about a kilo less (until the winter wheels are added) – looks like I’ll have to keep some control over my weight to make life as easy as possible. The exercise needs to step up a bit!
With thoughts turning to the summer, the unveiling of the route of the 2018 Tour de France is tomorrow. Next year the fun starts a week later because of the World Cup. Rather long odds on an English double, I fear.
The first few stages, as always, are already revealed but my favourite rumour site is:
– it’s usually pretty accurate. After the start in the Vendée department in the Pays de la Loire, it points to Brittany for the end of the opening week, but the expectation is that it then heads east (a clockwise year) to the cobbles of Roubaix before the Alps (possibly including Alpe d’Huez), and then the Pyrenees.
For me, the 10th stage looks to be the most interesting as it comes closest to the apartment in Les Carroz. We’ve cycled the 40km to Le Grand Bornand (the 10th stage finish) on previous visits to the area but it’s hard to guess exactly where the route might go as the shortest distance between the stage start and finish is only about 30km – but the stage is rumoured to be 151km.
The rumour is that it goes up to the Plateau des Glières. It’s the site of an important battle between the French Resistance and the German army, in the second world war and it also has a fine national monument to the Resistance, constructed in 1973. We cycled it two years ago from the East side and it’s a bit of a beast that way with, I believe, 7km averaging 12%.
It might be too much to hope that it could take in the Col de la Colombière and the Col de Romme which are even closer. I’ve climbed Colombière several times but have only ridden Romme the easy way – from Le Reposoir (half way up Colombière). Riding it from Cluses is a lot tougher (9.6km at 8.4% average – or 9.3km at 8.8% depending where you read it) and I’m surprised it’s only been used once in the tour, in 2009.
Although we don’t organise our annual trip only by reference to Le Tour, we do try to take in a stage or two if it comes close and the dates fit people’s availability, so the third week of July is pencilled in – can’t wait.
(an Old Man in Lycra) 