Explaining the etape du tour to non-cyclists always follows a similar course.  ‘How far is it?’ followed by, “Gosh, 199 km is a long way you must be very fit.”  I soon grew tired of explaining that it is not the horizontal distance but the climbing over 5 mountain cols that makes the ride this year through the Pyrenees the challenge that it is; easier simply to agree that yes it will be tough.

Alongside training for the physical demands, serious logistical planning has to be undertaken by the would be etaper before reaching the start line in Foix, let alone the finish in Loundenvielle.  This is particularly so if you are attracted to cycling by its considerable environmental credentials and do not wish to undermine them by jetting to and from such events.  I was therefore determined to take the train.  Advance purchase 3 months ahead of travel allowed for very good value first class tickets from Paris to Pamiers (the location near Foix of my hotel on Saturday and Sunday nights) and even better value on the TGV back to Paris from Tarbes (not far from the hotel in Bagneres to which the tour company delivered us after picking us up at the finish in Loudenvielle on Monday).  The Eurostar from London to Paris was more expensive but at least a meal and a few drinks were thrown in with their tourist first class tickets.

If you are British, the practical reality is that you have to enter the etape via an organised tour and the tour providers start with the premise that their customers will fly.  Pick ups and drop offs are only at airports and certainly my tour provider was unwilling to make any allowance for train transportation.  I therefore had to sort out my own taxi to Tarbes from Bagneres the day following the ride adding a further 40 euros to the transportation cost and my modest contribution to global warming.

Baggage also had to be given considerable forethought.  The regulation size for baggage on French Railways is 120 x 90 cm.  Bike bags available in England frustratingly just exceed one or other of these dimensions.  Indeed I was solemnly told in one bike shop that I would not be able to fit my bike into a 120 x 90 cm bag without serious and complicated disassembly.  Since I could not risk the whole purpose of my trip being destroyed by an official with a tape measure I purchased a bag of precisely the right dimensions from France over the internet and experimented for myself.  My bike went in with ease after removal of both wheels and the chain ring.  Since I was going to fill up the spaces with my other luggage, removal of the chain and chain ring made a lot of sense anyway as it left only the rear mech to be detached and stuck in a bag to leave everything reasonably clean.  An afterthought which proved to be essential was a set of wheels with handle to which the bike bag could be attached by bungee hooks.

When I booked the trains it looked as though I would not be able to take any time off work on Friday 13^th July so I opted for the last Eurostar train out of Waterloo at 8pm getting to Paris Gare du Nord at midnight.  What I had not foreseen was the length of the taxi queue at some 40 minutes.  Worse though was to come as, when I eventually arrived exhausted at my hotel immediately opposite the entrance to the Gare d’Austerlitz, I was informed that my hotel room was not available notwithstanding my provision of a credit card number to guarantee the room and my pre-warning that I would be arriving late.  Had I been wearing my heart rate monitor it would have blipped close to MHR.  It was difficult to remain calm when I was given untruths both about the reason for the lack of a hotel room and about the supposed convenience of the sister hotel to which I was directed.   In fact the replacement hotel was not ‘just around the corner’ but back past the Gare du Nord from which I had come with such difficulty.  A taxi was summoned which was too small to take my bagged bike and there was further confusion and delay before an estate taxi was found.  I did not finally make it to an hotel room until 2am. 

My only retribution for this affront was to refuse to pay the hotel chain in the morning which resulted in the additional inconvenience of having to find my own taxi back to the Gare d’Austerlitz.  Thus, instead of, as planned, leisurely popping across the street to get my train shortly before it left at 10am, I was on the streets of North Paris at 8am on a eerily quiet Bastille Day looking for a taxi big enough to take my bike.  For a while things looked bleak but finally a large enough taxi came by.  The violin playing taxi driver, who wished me 'bonne chance' in the etape which he reinforced with a hearty slap on the back as we parted, restored my faith in Parisians if not in Parisian hoteliers.  Next time I will look a lot harder to avoid an overnight stay in the French capital.

The journey South was slow.  In the Loire valley I observed a farmer outpacing us on his bicycle, the sole vehicle on a quiet country rode paralleling the railway line.  The train pulled into Toulouse an hour late making a missed connection look certain.  However the onward train to Pamiers was itself late and sprints with a bike bag from one platform to another enabled me to make the connection.  A one mile walk through Pamiers saw me to the hotel in time for supper with my fellow etapers.  After reassemblage of my bike and a quick walk around the town I was ready for a good night’s rest.

The following day we all went en masse to the sign on in the etape village set in fields by the river just south of Foix and under the watchful eye of Foix castle.  Organisation for the registration was excellent.  Naturally I fretted about the condition of my bike and found I could not inflate my rear tyre because the valve extender I had brought with me was useless.  Although the time before the rendezvous to take our bikes for overnight storage in a gym 10km off was ticking away fast, I decided that to be safe I had better replace the short stemmed inner tube on the back tyre and the spare tubes with long ones.

Leaving the bike overnight in Varilhes I kept myself awake that night with thoughts of what if I had incompetently pinched the tube and returned in the morning to find it flat.  Tossing and turning I eventually got to sleep perhaps two and a half hours before the fire alarm in the hotel went off at 3am. The noise continued long enough for me to regain full consciousness and open the electric shutters so I had an easy escape route onto the flat roof should there actually be a fire.  I tossed and turned for another 90 minutes before getting up for the 5am breakfast.  The hotel had been great and had tried to give us the same welcome that they will have for the Discovery Team exactly one week later.  I hope for Team Discovery’s sake the hotel does not let itself down again with a false fire alarm.

After breakfast we sought a weather forecast from reception while we waited for the bus to find the hotel.  We were advised to expect it to be ‘big hot’.  The bus eventually came and we set off a little late in the pre-dawn to Varilhes to be reunited with our bikes.  The cut off time for entry into the start pens was 0630 so we did not have a lot of margin for error as we started the 10 km to Foix at just after 0600.  My start number was 4171 so I found my way to the second to last pen and waited for the off in the company of some 8000 cyclists including the American multiple tour winner of about my age: Greg LeMond.

We heard the excitable build up to the start at 0700 on the speakers but had another 15 minutes to wait before we began to roll slowly towards the start.  Once our timing tags had beeped at the starting gate it was possible to clip in and go.  There was definite congestion over the first few kilometres especially when the undulating road pitched upward but happily not to the extent that any walking was required.  It was great to be amongst so many other cyclists on closed roads with the view of the mountains and we soon reached the sharp turn at a roundabout that marked the start of the Col de Port.  Everything felt great on this 2^nd category climb.  No resort to the smallest chain ring required and I spun up at a pace I felt I would be able to sustain for a long period.  The road kicked up a little at the village of Prat Commune but never became unmanageably steep.  Once that village was behind us we were rewarded with the most fantastic open views above the skyline.  Looking down riders could be seen snaking up the switchbacks all the way back to the trees.

Over the Col de Port was a long long descent for around 20 miles to St Giron.  I have had no previous experience of mountains and am a relatively cautious descender so this was for me nearly an hour of descending.  All those I had passed on the way up were now flashing past me on the way down, many of them at twice my speed.  Given the large numbers this was unnerving.  I kept to the right but at around 30 mph I wanted a couple of feet between me and the cliff edge.  The congestion was such that a French rider advised me to keep even further right as he flashed by too close for my comfort.  I regret there were plenty of English clowns too, some passing without warning on my right and the worst, failing to see my earlier slowing signal and gentle deceleration into a lay-by, shouting that I should put my hand up.  He had disappeared down the hill long before I could retort that I lacked a foot brake.  Inevitably some riders lost it.  One came past me and then lost control spilling in the middle of the road.  Mercifully he announced that he was alright and I carried on.  Had I been going much faster I do not know how I could have avoided hitting him.  This was for me the worst part of the ride.  I can endure the discomfort (or even pain) of enduring physical effort better than the psychological discomfort of feeling at risk of injury.  After all the former is good for you; the latter potentially not so good.

Towards the end of the descent the road became distinctly less busy.  As the torrent of gravity propelled cyclists thinned to a trickle and then stopped, I realised that the fat end of the bell curve which I had overtaken on the Col de Port had now passed me by.  Alongside the river I also noted that I did not need the brakes.  The explanation was sadly not increased descending skill but a very considerable headwind which was neutralising the effect of gravity.  I pedalled up to a couple of riders and sheltered behind them until the feed at St. Girons.

Having taken on water and bananas I headed along the flat stretch before the next climb.  The wind was now to one side and I joined a through and off.  This worked well for a few miles but then no one would come up to replace me at the front so I accelerated away to a large group ahead.  There followed an easy ride to the next climb punctuated only by the failure of one member of the group to negotiate the bend over a bridge and by a tree which had fallen across the road.

On to the Col du Porte d’Aspet, another 2^nd category climb to 1069 metres.  Again perfectly do-able with the main problem becoming the ever increasing heat.  Down the other side was another steep descent though with the field now spaced out it was less unnerving and perhaps the Casartelli memorial served as a brake on the more reckless.  The bottom of the descent turned straight into the climb for the Col de Mente, a 1^st category climb.  By now the heat was causing some suffering and for the first time I saw the odd person pushing his bike on foot.  I used this as an excuse to move down to my bottom gear deciding that I would only do so where others were walking.  The heat was getting to me as much as the incline and my priority was to try to stay in the shade where possible.  I paused at the switchbacks towards the top to take a picture and gulp down fluid. 

At the top (1349m) was the second refreshment stop where I filled my bidons, tried to wash the salt out of my eyes and forced down some food.  I noted that I was now 2 hours ahead of the broom wagon; I could afford to ease off and since my gaol was to finish, and my main risk of failure was now from overcooking, I did just that.  My dislike of fast descents was compensated by the breeze and I enjoyed the run down into St Beat.

Back on the flat I joined a large group and we had the benefit of our own police escort.  Bells were rung in the villages through which we passed and the locals lined the route and cheered us on.  We then started the next ascent on a steadily narrowing road as we started the climb to Col du Port de Bales.  This was a long climb of around 12 miles but was at first not at all unremitting with welcome stretches of flat and even downhill interspersed with the up.  Things changed higher up and thanks to the continuing intense heat I had my first experience of cycling on (or rather through) molten tarmac at the switch back turns which pointed at the sun.  The road steepened further as we passed through the forest.  The most terrifying part of the day then occurred as a large boulder fell down the mountain onto the middle of the road.  Fortunately those immediately ahead of me had heard it coming and stopped.  Equally fortunately for me it did not then roll down the hill taking out cyclists but lay where it fell.  My first thought was to stop, my next to get away from the whole area so I sprinted up the hill until the side of the road was less precipitous, then stopped in the shade to recover and pour powdered High 5 in one bottle in preparation for the refreshment stop on the summit.

The last few kilometres from there to the summit turned out to be the toughest part of the ride justifying the ‘Haute Category’ classification of this climb.  Numerous people dismounted to walk and I responded by clicking down to my lowest gear.  I also saw people giving up and descending the hill to greet the broom wagon with open arms.  Some were wailing by the side of the road.  For the first time in my cycling experience I ran out of fluid.  At the top we reached the highest point on the route at 1755m and the scenery took on a dramatic lunar aspect.  It was time to take on loads of water, a ham and cheese sandwich and loads of those cuboid sugary things before heading down the brand new road to St. Aventin.  Again I took the ten mile descent cautiously.  The road surface was good but there were no barriers at all increasing the stakes if anything did go wrong.  In addition I was suffering severe shooting pains in my feet which oddly the absence of pedalling was doing little to alleviate.

At St. Aventin a policeman must have worn his mouth out with a continuous blowing of his whistle warning us of the right turn straight onto the famous Col de Peyresourde 1^st category climb.   This climb would have been pleasant but for the 110 miles already in my legs at the start of the 6 mile grind to the top.  Close to the bottom, first at a roadside fountain and then at a water stop, I paused to wash my smarting left eye.  The temperature was at last dropping and the wind picking up to the extent that at the top the switchbacks in one direction could be taken two gears higher than those in the other.  The view opened out and the roads at the top were lined by picnicking spectators cheering us all on.

At the summit (1569m) it was all over bar the fast 6 mile descent to Loudenvielle.  The picturesque lake was a welcome sight.  At the finish my timing chip was exchanged for a medal.  My official time was 11 ½ hours meaning that my earlier two hour advantage over the broom wagon had shrunk to just 30 minutes!  I was 3,740^th of the 4,357 finishers and it appears that nearly 4,000 did not make it to Loudenvielle in the required time.

It was now 6.30 pm and the advertised departure time of my tour bus was 7.30 pm with a requirement to rebag the bike.  I therefore paused only to wolf down the pasta before crossing the river to find which of the many buses was mine and then to disassemble the bike.  Unfortunately the tour organisation (up to that point reasonably good) then fell apart.  The bus did not in fact leave until well past 9 pm so I could have sought out the beer tent, if not champagne bar, to celebrate my survival properly.  The arrival at the hotel in Bagneres was too late to celebrate with any conviction.  That would have to wait for the next day.

Next morning a half hour taxi ride saw me to the TGV in Tarbes.  The train made up in speed for what it lacked in directness.  We meandered first back into the Pyrenees to Lourdes before heading for the Atlantic at Bordeaux and then at high speed to Paris.  I was sorry not to be able to communicate effectively with the French etapers on the train propping up the bar.  However I was able to get involved in the animated discussion involving my whole carriage, with the services of a Canadian acting as interpreter, about how an English couple returning from Lourdes should get across Paris.

The consensus, after much animated discussion, was that taxi would be better than Metro.  I spoke up volunteering that I was doing the same trip and would willingly share the taxi.  This was greeted with gratitude it did not deserve and to my embarrassment the couple insisted on meeting the whole fare.  The consensus in the carriage was of course quite wrong.  The taxi got stuck in heavy Parisian traffic and it would have been much faster in the Metro, if only they had been able to manage the stairs.  Anyway they made their Eurostar train with seconds to spare.  Mine went an hour later so I had time to enjoy a coffee on the pavement outside before wining and dining on the journey back to Waterloo.