Our Tour de France – We Did It!

Maybe you read about our preparations for our Etape du Tour (stage of the Tour de France) on this website. Well, now we can proudly say that we did it! An unforgettable experience it was too, a great challenge and a real sense of achievement.

We drove down to Pau on the edge of the Pyrenees which took two days, as it is a very long way; but at least we arrived with our bicycles intact. Some people who had flown down found that their bikes had not been loaded on their flight and did not arrive on the following few flights either. The bikes appeared at 2:30am before the race start at 7am on 6 July!

We arrived in glorious sunshine on Friday but soon learned that the weather was about to change. Saturday dawned dull, and rain developed through the day. This was the most nerve racking day as we had little to do other than collect registration details for the race and set up the bikes just as we wanted them. In the afternoon, to break up the waiting time, we met a few friends and drove to a nearby village café. There we sat under the parasols in the rain – nice of the French to lay on some true English weather for us! Our spirits were high though, and none of us had gone all that way to turn around or give up if the weather was less than kind.

During the night before the race I was woken (yes, I did actually manage to go to sleep) by a dramatic thunder and lightening storm with torrential rain. This was not in the plan! Cycling out to the start at 6am it was dark and wet, as we got closer the numbers of cyclists increased. We lined up in our starting pens, 9000 bikes in total. Then the thunder started again!

Once on the road all nerves went and the focus was just on the ride. We had to cover 60 miles on relatively flat ground before reaching the first mountain, the Col du Tourmalet, and needed to arrive at that point as fresh as possible. The rain eased off as we rode, thankfully. The atmosphere among the cyclists was very sporting; everyone was enjoying it and chatting as they rode. As we reached the start of the climb an eerie quiet fell on the groups as everyone began to think about the next 15 miles of uphill work! Actually it passed relatively easily – of course it is a long way, but we had trained hard and were as well prepared as anyone. As we got higher we ascended into the clouds, so it was damp and cool which was nice for uphill riding, but when we reached the summit there were no beautiful views as the cloud was so thick that visibility was very low.

Next the mountain descent, the part I had been most worried about … I did well, reaching speeds up to 36mph (with the brakes on) whilst guys flew past me at up to 60mph, they have stronger nerves than me. We were surprised just how cold we got on the way down. It was 22 miles of downhill, and within 10 minutes my teeth were chattering uncontrollably, then my arms began to shake as I held onto the brakes, and my knees had completely seized up by the time we reached flat ground. Later we learned that everyone had got frozen on the descents, so it was not just me!

Last of all the challenging Hautacam Mountain. This is steeper than Tourmalet, though not as high. At least it warmed us all up after our deep freeze descent, but it was hard work and again we quickly got above the cloud base and could not see any of the views. Many people were very tired by that point, walking with their bikes, but we kept going to the very top.

Hooray! Celebrate with a bottle of water and a medal!

First thing I did was to phone home to let the kids and family share our success. I can honestly say that I enjoyed the whole thing. The exhilaration of finishing is so great that it makes you forget the hard parts.

We raised £655 for The Autism Trust through our efforts, and when gift aid is added this will be over £800. That is also fantastic, and we are very grateful for all the support we received from family, friends, work colleagues, and staff and parents at school.

Here is an atmospheric picture of the finish line on the Hautacam summit!!