IamGHinds

UK

28th July 2011
So the train pulled into Kings Cross St. Pancras train station and I realised finally that my Tour adventure was over and that my time in the UK had begun! I eventually got all my stuff off the train and headed out to get a taxi to where I am staying in London! I must admit that I was pretty lazy that afternoon and I didn’t really do anything of note. I did a small walk around the local area to explore and did a little shop but other than that nothing. I went to sleep. For a long time. I really had to catch up on the lack of sleep that had accumilated during the last days of the Tour.

29th July 2011
It was time to go out and about in London. After a little bit of a walk around, I got myself an oyster card and headed to my first planned destination. The British Museum. I don’t quite know what I expected, but this blew it out of the water. The place is huge. Out of 69 exhibition rooms I only saw 17. I even moved ‘quickly’ for me at this sort of place. I got to see Ancient Assyria and some of Ancient Greece / Rome. The museum closed at 830pm and I left at 830pm having been there for many, many hours. Since about midday or 1pm I think. I really can’t describe how great this place is. It is a type of heavan for me. I bought some books and some dvds there too, which will no doubt come in handy at some point! This was the first of 4 days there and counting!

30th July 2011
This was basically the same as the day before. British Museum. I saw the rest of the Ancient Greece / Rome exhibit on the ground floor and then ‘smashed out’ the ground floor Ancient Egyptian sculpture followed by the Ancient Egypt ‘Mummies’ aka Life and Death on one of the upper floors. I really did not enjoy this as much as the other stuff I had seen, not due to the quality of the stuff there, which was really great, but due to the sheer number of people who were there, many of whom had no respect or real appreciation for what they were seeing. So many people were touching artefacts or hugging them etc. despite being told by signs everywhere not to. So frustrating.

31st July 2011
Surprise, surprise, I was back at the British Museum today. On the menu was The Ancient Levant and more Ancient Rome / Greece located on upper floors. This was a lot better than the day before, as although there were still lots of people, most of them were looking at the Egypt stuff that I’d already seen! I really enjoy the Ancient Levant as a period and place in history, so I try to be like a sponge when it comes to this stuff. I was really quite mentally fatigued after this day, but I love it. Don’t get me wrong I also love Rome … Ancient Greece not so much my thing, but it is still very interesting, especially looking at the interplay between Greece and Rome!!

1st August 2011
Can you guess where I was today? I’ll give you one guess.

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WRONG! I wasn’t at the British Museum. I felt too mentally fatigued from acting like a sponge for the 3 days previous, so I took to a more laid back day at the Tower of London after a real good sleep in. I did a short tour which was interesting in learning about some of the inhabitants of certain buildings ie Guy Fawkes amongst others. Really, my photos tell a much better story about these places than I can. I won’t say the cliche. Well, photos generally do, except where you are forbidden to take them i.e. at the Crown Jewels. Let me say, the size of some of the diamonds and rubies in those things are just insane. No wonder Colonel Blood [true story and true name!] tried to steal them back in the day! He even got a pardon from the King! Saw a whole heap of stuff including the White Tower and then some torture equipment, before doing a tour up on the walls. It was interesting to see the English version of castle fortifications as opposed to those I saw in France up close! It was another day spent in my element, so yeah, I enjoyed it!

2nd August 2011
Gave myself a ‘day off’ today! By day off, I mean that I had no clothes left and had to do a significant amount of washing…. In giving myself a day off it was a good chance to just rest up though. Other than a small shop I just chilled and watched TV and movies all day which was good. Even took a day off cooking by eating left over chicken soup that I’d whipped up the previous night – it was still delicious

3rd August 2011
Went and saw the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral today. The Houses of Parliament are really impressive in style and size. Canberra, you are a joke. That is all. But in all seriousness, take a look at my photos on FB to see for yourself! Big Ben, was also pretty big and I even got to hear him ring at 6pm! Westminster Abbey was ok, but I was underwhelmed. It had been built up by everyone and I really don’t think it was worth the £16 entry fee! Don’t get me wrong, it was cool and the audio tour was free, but there were heaps of people, random parts of it were closed and whilst it was ‘grand’ it wasn’t as ‘grand’ as I’d expected. Definitely worth seeing though if you are in London, don’t be dissuaded by me! After the Abbey, I headed on down to the Cathedral. For those that don’t know, the Abbey is Curch of England and the Cathedral is Roman Catholic. The Cathedral was free entry and it was much ‘grander’ than I expected on the inside, though it was a little more red than I expected on the outside, though not entirely shabby looking. Yeah, the inside had a whole heap of beautiful mosaics, paintings and storey boards around the place and the central altar was breath taking. Can’t wait to one day get over to the Vatican City to see the ‘real deal’! Again, check out the photos if you are interested! Other than that, my search for a bookshop continued whilst I walked around the traps, but my search was unsuccessful.

4th August 2011
After having had ‘Australian type’ weather ever since I had arrived, it finally turned miserable today. I was quite uninspired and really didn’t do anything of note today. The only good part was going for a long walk when the rain had eased off slightly. On this walk I finally found a decent bookstore and bought 3 classics for only £5! Don Quixote, The Three Muskateers and Twenty Years After. Go me!

5th August 2011
Today I finally went back to the museum. Before getting there, I found a Currys Digital and got myself a nice little netbook – it is a Samsung which has great battery life and a quite easy to use keyboard, so I am quite happy. All I will do now is probably get a RAM upgrade to make it run a bit happier under stress, but it is obviously not a gaming machine or anything so I am not too worried! I was keen to see the European rooms and I did see them all, with the exception of two that were randomly closed for that day, though I was assured they’d be open tomorrow. It was really great to see more of ‘my’ history obviously being of western European descent. Cool stuff. I also saw Ancient Iran, thus basically finishing off all the Levant stuff, as well as seeing stuff from the Americas – the art from the Aztecs and Maya was superb, out of this world, really. The North American stuff was also cool, as was the stuff about Africa, which was a mix of old and contemporary – I really would recommend that exhibition to anyone! Most of these photos are up, with the exception of the African stuff I believe. Anyway, it was a good day and I left the museum bang on 830pm when it closed. This sadly led to my first McDonalds run in ages because I simply couldn’t be bothered to cook!

6th August 2011
Actually today! And will be posted today! This is a first in ages. I spent ages on Skype to my family this morning which was good because I actually spoke to them ‘face to face’ for the first time in months! Other than that, I took my bike out of the bike bag and put it back together … only I had a problem with my rear derailleur. What?! In the big gears the top and bottom of the chain were touching each other and the derailleur itself! The wheel was hard to put in? I don’t understand! So, quoting Aragorn, I realised that, ‘this was beyong my skill to heal’ and although there was no Elvish medicine available there was a bikeshop around. I took it out for a ride anyway and just stuck it in the middle of the cog. At the bikeshop, which was also a cafe, they discovered that the rear derailleur hanger had a massive crack in it and was only just holding together. This meant any change of gears could lead to it snapping and sweeing inwards. Bad news. They ordered in the part and I had a good chat to them about the local scene and where I could find some bunch rides and racing. Cool. So will ride back down there probably midweek when the part arrives. [Yes I have watched LOTR recently, pardon me]. So, my intended decent ride this afternoon evaporated, as has my intended ride tomorrow, so I don’t know what I will do now! I filled in my afternoon typing all of these latest blog entries out and will probably hang out with Timba and his mate tonight…. Other than that, I have nothing further to add for the moment other than I will try to update more regularly from now on!

IamGHinds dot com

15th July 2011
This was basically a driving day, but we stopped half way through to visit Chateau Medieval de Mauvezin. This one was a lot different to Chambord, and was basically just the Keep, with stone walls and an outer Palisade wall. It was still amazing though. It was epic to get up onto the rampart and explore all of the different areas within the Keep, which included the food storage cellar which was about 12 metres below the surface which in itself was quite awesome as well as other things like mock bedrooms, guardrooms and an armoury. There was also a museum with various artefacts found at the site on display such as keys, arrowheads and pottery. Very interesting. Other than that, there were examples of various types of weapons including a trebuchets, catapult, ballista, scorpion, siege tower and battering ram. To see all these things up close and in full size was really cool, it was just a shame that none of them actually worked! The view from the ramparts was really nice but the view from the very top of the Keep was unmatched. I actually took a video and went all “school teacher” – I would upload all of the photos and videos, but unfortunately my computer is a piece of shit and will not recognise, nor pick up any wifi at the moment, so boo.

After that, we dropped S2 off at a train station and continued onto the Plateau du Beille. We found a campsite, which was very cheap but had no hot water in the showers. Average.

16th July 2011
We rode the final climb of the stage to Plateau du Beille. This climb was bloody hard and I really struggled to find a rhythm. Luckily, like on Luz Ardiden I found a random ally. This time it was a bloke named “Brownie” from Turramurra in Syndey, Australia! Woohoo! He was a top bloke and he was riding a bit better than me I think [maybe not], but we worked together up the mountain and had a good chat throughout and afterwards on the summit. As a group, TAC got some nice photos up there and then we descended back down to the campsite to get our stuff and have a feed. Ross, Sarah and Gwynne left first and were going to walk onto the climb and George and I decided to ride back and soft pedal part the way up the climb. As it turned out, we went all the way until 2km from the finish like packhorses – very tired. Yes, that is correct, 2 HC climbs in one day … Plateau de Beille repeats!!

As for the race, we were right in amongst the Basque fans and they went nuts every time a Euskaltel-Euskadi team car went by, so you can imagine how they were by the time the race came through, especially with their man Samu Sanchez in second place at the time. Funnily enough the bloke he beat 2 days before returned the favour this time around to take his fist Tour victory – chapeau! Before any of that happened, I managed to stop a fight from happening between some Norwegians and some Spaniards over Alberto Contador. The Norse were dressed as cockroaches and cows in reference to his doping and the Spanish were not happy about it. Luckily I convinced them to just enjoy the race and everyone got on with it! The race coming by was amazing and Cadel was in good form, even attacking on our corner, though it proved to be of no avail. As the rest of the riders came through, I caught the bottle of Jakob Fuglsang of Denmark and then being the nice guy I am, I gave the bottle to a Danish chick that asked if she could have it – he basically threw it to her, but I got there first! It is all about the thrill of getting it, but already having scored David Millar’s bottle a few days before I wasn’t too bothered at not keeping this one.

Descending down post-race was precarious amongst all the pro’s and numpties but we got down safely. The bad news was that I was burnt to a crisp on my arms having forgotten sunscreen. Lucky I had protected my neck and ears with an Etap Hotel do-rag. That night we had dinner at a local restaurant, and after having waited an age for menu’s dinner arrived quite quickly. I had an amazing pizza, which was very, very welcome. After that, it was [cold] shower and then bed time.

17th July 2011
This was a pure driving day, nothing interesting happened. We smashed out the kilometres and got near Nimes by the evening, staying at an overpriced camping site near the Pont du Gard aqueduct.

18th July 2011
We left the campsite and went to the Pont du Gard aqueduct. This place was amazing. I realise that I make that statement about everything historical I have seen over here, but this time [as with the others] it is no overstatement. I took some nice photos, which will be on facebook when my wifi situation improves. We walked across the aqueduct and went down to the river, where we frolicked in the water. The temperature was niiiiice. I really regret not taking my swimmers and a towel down there to have a proper swim! I made a friend, in a tiny frog and got a nice photo with him. I think at some point I’ll go back and have a proper swim there because the location was just so amazing for it. Other than that, I had a look at one of the man made caves, where some of the stone for the aqueduct was quarried and then had a really good walk through the museum on the site. It was so interesting, and one could really spend a great deal of time at this place just soaking in the ancient atmosphere.

After lunch at the E.Leclerc Hypermarche, we made our way to Avignon to have a look around. Basically, Avignon is an ancient / medieval walled city that was at one point theplace where the Pope resided. This was during the period of competing Popes, one in Rome and one in Avignon. Sadly we got there with only 1 hour to go until the Papal Palace closed, which meant I was unable to have a look around the interior, but the exterior was as grand as you’d expect. I managed to get was I thought were some nice photos of the city walls, Papal Palace and the adjoining church. The other interesting thing going on in the city was Festival. There were some “interesting” people all around, but it was a pretty cool atmosphere and it was something I am glad to have experienced. There were heaps of street performers, people handing out flyers etc. for plays around the traps and just people out and about soaking up the atmosphere. I would also like to come back and spend a lot of time exploring Avignon because I am sure there was a whole heap the I didn’t see – one thing I did see was Mont Ventoux from a distance. It truly is the giant of Provence. It would be sweet to go to the Vatican and then compare that to the Papal residences in Avignon too.

At the campsite, I once again couldn’t get wifi when the others could. F-ing frustrating. Some old bastard had a go a George when we were playing table tennis on the designated table, so we have vowed revenge.

To Be Continued…

19th July 2011
So……. Our ‘revenge’ mainly consisted of walking close by his tent on the way to the showers, saying good morning and waving goodbye as we left. In summary – we are pretty hardcore. As for the morning in general, the amount of rain that came down was incredible and it basically flooded the entire park. Rivers were literally formed where there should have been roads and multiple people [including our mate who stood there in disbelief] had parts of their tent structures flooded. Anyway, we drove to Alpe d’Huez and after eventually making it to the top without spotting a park on the way up we were able to get a spot in amongst hundreds, or even thousands of vans and tents that were parked in a special area at the top of the mountain. It was very cold up there and when we woke up on the …

20th July 2011
It had in fact snowed overnight on the top of the mountain. Note, whilst we were ‘at the top’ we were actually in the ski village and I mean it snowed on the actual top of the mountain. Don’t be fooled though, it did get cold enough to freeze our cooking oil! Despite the cold morning, we did a ride that included the Category 1 Deux Alpes and then the HC Alpe d’Huez [the most mythical climb in cycling]. I felt really bad on Deux Alpes and though I rode ok for most of the climb, I really suffered in the last 2-2.5km, which is demonstrated on the Strava data where you can see Sco catch and promptly drop me! So, heading towards the biggie I was a little bit worried, but fortunately I recovered nicely on the really fun and fast downhill from Deux Alpes and was able to then find a good rhythm for Alpe d’Huez…. I wasn’t setting any land speed records, but I plugged away at about 10-12km/h the whole way. Let me tell you, there is a reason this climb is the most famous in the world and that is because it is so frikken hard. I was a broken man after the Tourmalet but Alpe d’Huez was harder…. It was only due to the experience and resistance I had built up by doing the other mountains that I wasn’t too bad at the end. Also a good thing was that I passed a hell of a lot more people than passed me, or some of those that did pass me blew themselves up and I went straight back ahead!! Riding up through those hairpins was AMAZING and the views were incredible. The feeling as I rode up to the finish and crossed the same line that the pros did was beyond description – it was really great and having George cheering me on [he smashed the climb, good job dude!!] also gave me an extra kick at the end! The disappointing thing was that this big day resulted in some knee tendonitis that got worse as the night went on, so I took the decision to sit out the next days ride. We missed the end of that days stage on tv, but that was ok and we went to a really nice restaurant where I enjoyed a top notch lasagne! We met back up with Gwynne too which was also cool.

21st July 2011
It was really quite a wet day with lots of rain. As I already wasn’t riding it was not too much of an inconvenience or me, but Ross also decided not to ride in that weather, so George went for a hard rid by himself – chapeau! Got to watch the whole stage that day which Andy won on top of the Galibier – sadly Cadel lost 2 mins to him, but he rode really, really well. Great stage!

22nd July 2011
The day of the big stage that we all dream about being there to watch. Alpe d’Huez….
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Ok we’ve let that sink in, let’s get on with it. George and I positioned ourselves between 4 ad 5km from the finish on a nice stretch of road. We were in amongst a real big mix of French, Belgian, Spanish, Dutch and Brits including the ‘hilarious’ Richard, Mick and Aims! There was also a wanker from America whom we dubbed Captain America. Dickhead. The French and Belge couples were nice and we were swapping dodgy text message race information with them and had a good chat about general stuff and the race.

There was one French guy that didn’t like speaking English or having it spoken in France who was an interesting chap… Didn’t realise hat France had its day, which ended with the fall of Napoleon – poor chap. But he was ok, we bonded at the end over Rugby and the victory of Pierre Rolland. The race coming through was amazing fun. There were so many people crowding in and the atmosphere was truly without overstatement, epic. Cadel hung tough and lost no time to anyone of importance and sat 57 seconds off the overall lead going into the next days time trial, so we were VERY happy.

23rd July 2011
Early start. We left the mountain at 5am. Early start…. Anyway, we drove to Paris some 600-700km away and arrived about at the camping site about an hour before Cadel was scheduled to roll down the starting ramp. We went up to the bar to watch it and ended up bonding with some random Danes as part of the ‘anti-Schleck’ campaign. There were 2 Leopard fans there and we were giving them heaps as Cadel smashed it and turned his 57 second deficit into a 1min 30s lead over Andy. They left quickly after it finished. We did not. We celebrated and Rossco got all watery around the eyes. It was really great, very exciting to see history being made for Australia and it was a great ‘end’ to our TDF adventure.

24th July 2011
We went into the Champs Elysees to watch the final stage and Cadel’s victory. We met up with two new friends who came to visit Ross and Sarah from Germany – Cathrin and Andrea. We were the apple of the town in our Aussie get-up and so many people wanted photos with us! I got interviewed by Dutch or Belgian [or something] TV too about how many Aussies were there and how great it was that Cadel was going to win. Sadly I have as yet been unable to find the interview, so I may try to *cough* acquire some full final stage footage from those areas. There were SO many people there it was unbelievable. When the race went by, unless you were on the barrier you couldn’t see a thing … we weren’t on the barrier. Luckily some Americans who had bribed an official to get a box to stand on allowed us to have turns getting up there so we could see the race come by. Tried to take some photos, but they weren’t great with so many people sticking their arms up, but what can you do? It was really emotional when Cadel crossed the final finishing line and there was a chorus of Aussies yelling and singing with pride. Hearing our anthem on the Champs Elysees was something really special and was a real moment of pride for Australia even if Tina Arena sang it too bloody slow! After starving it out all day we eventually smashed some dinner too which was a good thing!

25th July 2011
This day we met up with Angus and intended to do the Catacombs, which were unfortunately closed due to it being a Monday! Damn random days and times shit is closed in Europe! So plan B was Ross and Sarah shopping and Angus, George and myself going and playing handball in some random train station before meeting up with Angus’ [and now our] friend Anne-Sophie! We didn’t really do a whole heap other than visiting an FNAC to buy cameras and external hard drives respectivelly before going and hanging out in a park below the Place de la Concorde. Ross and Sarah rode city bikes down and met us there before George got in trouble from some random park cop or something for trying to do a wheelie in the park… Pretty hilarious really. After that we caught the Metro to Nation on the other side of the city and grabbed some Viet for dinner before going to a nearby pub / cafe for some evening drinks. All in all an enjoyable day!

26th July 2011
This was another really fun day, if spent a little bit out of my comfort zone! Angus, Anne-So, George and I went to Park Asterix. This is an amusement park based around Asterix and Obelix and is generally considered to be a more awesome version of that piece of trash ‘Euro Disney’. I was peer pressured into doing some roller coasters i.e. a bush beastie type wooden roller coaster that I really didn’t want to do. I am glad that I did though, despite my fear of heights it was great fun! There is one hilarious video of me on that coaster floating around somewhere but I’m not sure where – too bad for all of you! We spent the whole day wearing Asterix helmets and to be honest, we were the envy of the entire crowd, I won’t lie. We did get some other cool merchandise, such as t-shirts, whilst I also invested in a bouncy ball. Never travel without a ball for amusement. We also invented a new Australian tradition on the tain / bus there, which we passed off as being quite usual in Australia on public transport. We gave away a heap of food that we bought too much of, esp. to this one fat kid that was a part of a holiday camp group – his teachers even encouraged it and found it quite funny. Except for the angry teacher that yelled at him on the subsequent bus. There was also some angry guy in front of us on the bus that had words with George as he tried to take a ‘self’ photo of all of us. Luckily the situation was resolved by George saying ‘Bonjour’ and smiling at the angry guy [The situation wasn't resolved]. After the park awesomeness, we headed back to Angus’ friends’ house where he was crashing at whilst they were away for some wine, cheese and dinner! Sco and Sarah joined up with us at the supermarket beforehand, so the whole gang was there for more good times. George was leaving us that night, so it was one last change for the gang to look back at the good times of our holiday whilst also enjoying the company of our new friends! It was a great night had and I also booked my train ticket to the UK for the 28th!

27th July 2011
I didn’t do a whole lot that day really except for packing away all of my stuff that had found its way all around the van! The bike also went back ‘safely’ into its box [more about that later]. That evening I had one last farewell dinner with Sco and Sarah before I left in the morning and they took the van south towards the Basque country! It was a pleasant dinner over near Nation and I was happy to have a very nice vegetable lasagne in great company.

28th July 2011
It was another early morning so that I could get all of my stuff from the camping site to Paris-Nord train station for my journey across the Channel. Luckily Ross helped me getting it all there, for which I am very grateful, otherwise it may not have happened! So it was one last goodbye to Sarah at the park and then again at the train station with Ross, who had to be back by midday which was checkout time. My train was at about 1230pm, so all I had to do was wait at the front of the line, go through customs and then hop onto the train. The train pulled out of the station and is was adieu Paris and an hour later adieu France!

13th July 2011
Sadly this was basically a wasted day due to the extreme amount of rain that we endured. It rained all the night before and due to this I only got about 2 hours sleep [my bunk is surrounded by roof on all sides except 1, so heavy rain = no sleep]. It was dry-ish when I woke up, so I walked a few kilometres up and down the mountain to clear my head and see the countryside. It was so beautiful, and I took some nice photos which are now on FB. Other than that, it rained all day and then finally eased off in the evening, which gave us the chance to go and paint the road! We initially were going to go for a short while, but the intended 30 minutes turned into over an hour of painting slogans [including shouts out to my mates Jonos and Chudleigh which was rad]…. By the time we got back to the campsite it was after midnight and I had to get up for an 8am ride down and then up the mountain!

14th July 2011
The aforementioned waking up for an 8am ride followed a much better sleep than the night before happily! The ride down the mountain I took fairly easily and then instead of doing a 10km warm up with the others, I turned around and got stuck into it! I found unexpected company in a French rider aged probably about 55 – he was riding a really, really nice LOOK 685 and was a decent rider. We bonded as I attempted to put my jacket in my pocket whilst riding, but I was foiled by all my pockets already having items in them – he tried to hold me up as we went so that I could do it, but it was all to no avail and I had to stop, pocket the jacket and re-arrange my spare gloves and food. He took about a minute lead as I did this, but I eventually hauled him in after about 4 or 5 kilometres and then we rode basically together to the top. It was really nice, despite him not speaking English and myself not speaking French we bonded through mutual suffering and encouragement [through pats on the back and counting down the kilometres in French i.e. “Quatre”, whilst holding out 4 fingers!]. I did emphasise that I was Australian and not English, and he immediately exclaimed – EVANS! I think that fact helped us to bond too! That really is the great thing about cycling, it brings people together and riding up as a pair was much more fun than suffering alone on the steep gradients of the middle third of the climb. As for the climb itself, it was hard, but not anywhere near as hard as the Tourmalet and I felt the views were more spectacular. It was really great. Ascending through the cloud line on a mountain also is something that will never get old – it is such a great feeling! We reached the top together and offered each other some food and using a mix of sign language and Frenglish to communicate to each other that it was a hard climb and thanks for the company… With a handshake and an “au revoir” we went our own ways to enjoy what was sure to be a great day of cycling and Bastille Day. I waited on the top of the climb and cheered George and Ross for the last couple of switch-backs of the climb, which was cool – we also got some nice photos on the top of Luz-Ardiden, which I am sure Rossco will upload onto FB.

Other than that, we watched the race until the leaders crested the Tourmalet before making our way about 500m-1km up the road to watch them come passed. Geraint Thomas led the way followed a few seconds later by Samu Sanchez (Euskaltel Euskadi] and Vanendert [Omega Pharma-Lotto]… The peloton came through a minute later and we went nuts for Cadel and then cheered for ever Perez [i.e every Euskaltel rider] that come passed after that! We went back down to the pub and stood amongst the Basque fans to see an epic finish in a great atmosphere – to cap it off their man Samu won and Cadel finished well too!

After that I cooked dinner with the assistance of George and S2 – a chicken stir fry. …. And that is it! Heading off to the Plateau du Beille tomorrow for stage 14 and I am hoping to see a chateau or two along the way!

IamGHinds dot com

Hello from Luz-Ardiden, the site of stage 12 of the Tour, which will come through here tomorrow. Here is a recap of the last 2 days including the epic 12th!
11th July 2011
In the morning we got up reasonably early and rode about 40km to an adjoining town before driving to Toulouse to get a “double dose” of Sarah. We were able to then drive into the Pyrenees where we stayed at the foot of the Col d’Aspin. The campsite was very nice as you could imagine being on the foot of the mountain – too bad I forgot to take photos!

12th July 2011
We got up early-ish again, though this time it was to do a “real” ride. This ride was an epic proposition that included the [Category 1] Col d’Aspin and the [Hors Catagorie] Col du Tourmalet. After taking a wrong turn at the start of the ride, we inadvertently added 30km to the adventure, which was probably a good thing in terms of a warm up, because the Aspin was a significantly harder proposition than we thought it would be – the Tour Climbs book my BGS boys got me for my birthday said that it was 12km at 3.9%, but it was actually 12km at 6.7%. It was quite scenic and the best part was undoubtedly in the last few kilometres where I climbed through the clouds and into the sunshine at the top of the climb – epic. After that, it was a very tricky descent as the sun had not yet hit that side of the mountain. That meant that the heavy overnight rain had not been evaporated, so as you can imagine I took it extremely slowly through the corners [~20km/h instead of over 40] to make sure that I didn’t crash pre-Tourmalet.

So, with the appetiser finished, it was time to tackle the Col du Tourmalet. To put it into context, this climb is considered one of the few truly mythic climbs of not only le Tour de France, but also cycling in general. I can truly say that this climb is a brute, a real soul crusher. The first 2-3km are quite easy sitting between 2-4% gradient, but the climb averages 7.5% with a maximum of around 14%. That means that as a rider you curse that initial flat part because it has to be made up for later on. So of the 17km, the last 14km generally sat between 9 and 11% and let me tell you that that is an extremely tough proposition. Nevertheless, I told myself that I was going to make it to the top regardless of whether I would have to kill myself to do it! I rode solitary for most of the climb, with George ahead and Ross behind, both by a few minutes. Luckily for most of it there was a British guy that I had briefly chatted to earlier ahead of me by a few hundred metres, which meant that I could judge my effort based of him and it helped in that it gave me a slightly better idea of what was ahead. My average speed for the whole climb was 10.3km/h [yes, much slower than the pros], but it generally sat between 9.5-12km/h. I started to struggle with about 6km left and then I was in absolute agony for the final 2km. For that 2km, my average speed would have been about 7km/h. I wish that my heart rate monitor and cadence meter hadn’t stopped working at the start of the climb, because it would have been really, really interesting to see my data.

In the end the ride was 84km and to conquer the Col du Tourmalet was certainly one of the most satisfying moments in my life and is something that gives me the confidence to say that I should be able to do any of the big climbs barring mishap.

Here are some photos from the last kilometre of the climb which will serve to illustrate my pain and the difficulty of the climb:

6th July 2011
Another driving day…. I really do not remember much about it to be honest other than staying at a nice campsite that was right on the Loire River. That river really is beautiful and if you have time I really recommend that you try and spend some time in the Loire Valley! At the campsite we played some nice Frisbee and kicked the ball around a bit, but other than that I have nothing!
7th July 2011
It was another driving day for my birthday as we headed down to the Massif Central. In the morning we stopped off at Chateau Chambord, which was really an amazing place. I took lots of photos. This Chateau was located in the Loire Valley, not far from the river. As I said it was really amazing and we ended up staying nearly 5 hours! My words can’t do this place justice, but to sum it up, it was built by the French Royal family and was rebuilt in part 3 times [if I remember correctly] before finally being finished. It was bought by the government in 1930 from the in exile Royal family to become open to the public. Its history is really nice and I bought 2 books about the Chateau itself and those in the region, so I will have some reading to do later on! After the Chateau we drove for a bit and I don’t recall the town in which we stayed unfortunately….. That is because it was only really memorable for the shite showers at the campsite! All in all, it was a good birthday and I was happy to speak to my folks on the phone!
8th July 2011
Rang Pete in the morning to wish him a happy birthday and then drove right into the Massif Central where Stage 8 is situated. We had lunch in Besse – the finish is in Super Besse, which basically just means that it is in the same location, but higher. Anyway, I had a fromage omelette which was delicious. That night, we rode the more traditional climb of Super Besse, which is approximately 18km long. The one they are riding in the Tour this year is the same finale, but comes from a different direction to get onto the last bit of the climb. My sensations on the climb weren’t super this time and my back was sore… I am moving around too much on the bike when I am climbing, which is causing some issues, but I felt okay once we started to descend again and at one point on the way down I hit 89km/h which is my personal record! So go me!
9th July 2011
This was the day of the Stage 8 summit finish at Super Besse – Sancy. I was really excited for this stage having ridden the finish twice myself with varying sensations. I knew the climb wasn’t overly long or particularly difficult, but there were some sections of over 10% average gradient. We got there at around 1030am, with the caravan expected at 330-4pm and the riders at 5pm. Unfortunately, like on the Mur-de-Bretagne the weather was unpleasant all day, though this time sitting in the rain wasn’t too bad as I had prepared for it and taken a nice warm waterproof jacket and poncho with me! The publicity caravan was intense, the highlight being me diving passed a guy and snatching a packet of Haribo cloud lollies basically out of his grasp [he hadn’t touched them so all was fair]. Rui Costa was the first rider up [and the winner]. The crowd went nuts as he came by and not long after it was Vino who I cheered for [love his attacking style] and the bunch from which Gilbert attacked right in front of us! Very exciting finish and well worth the wait for only a few minutes of action!! That night we drove for maybe 45 minutes or an hour and stayed at a municipal camping site in Murat. There was a nicely sized soccer field right in the middle and George and I played force’em back! It was fun, but we were pretty evenly matched so that it lasted forever… In the end he won 3-0 [damn], but sport was the real winner on the day!!
10th July 2011
Day spent in Murat, night at a camping site in Caylus. In the morning the rain was intense, so no riding and to make matters worse the awning filled up with water and one of the supports snapped – not good, but can be fixed. We then got stuck between two parts of le Tour route and were unable to travel to Toulouse as previously intended, so not a great start to the day today!. It was lucky in that our camping site from the previous night was in our little wedge, so back we went to utilise their power and sit out the rain. Had a good chat to Butzy on FB chat during that time which was good, although the wifi was a bit spotty! The sun eventually came out and we decided to go onto the Category 3 climb next to the campsite. Before heading up, had a brief chat to some Rabobank mechanics who informed us that Juan Manuel Garate had abandoned this morning and that Gesink was still suffering from his crash a few days ago and had fallen off the back of the peloton early. Interesting stuff! It was a nice little climb and I found a nice place with enough room to be off the road, but also having a good view of the riders. Cheered the breakaway which included Thomas Voeckler [of course], Sandy Casar and Juan Antonio Flecha – there were two more riders but I didn’t recognise them. After that the bunch came through a few minutes later and I cheered for Jens, Cadel and the Aussies. On the back of the bunch was David Millar who threw me his [full and ice cold] bidon – it is amazing how one thing can help change your opinion about a guy and a team !!. The guys who had fallen off the pace came through slowly over the next minutes, most notably Mark Renshaw towing Cavendish … obviously I cheered for Renshaw, not Cav! As I said, after all this excitement, we drove to Caylus which is ~100km out of Toulouse. I don’t really remember the drive because I took an anti-sick tablet as the roads were windy and mountainous!

24th June 2011;

- Utilised free wifi in the morning to check FB and chat with some people from back home!
- Travelled from Autun to Dijon via Beaune.
- Lunch at Beanue – Croque Monsieur was very nice and very cheap 4.40€
- Walked around and took some photos of a defensive wall with buttress and of some parks and also a canal type system running through and under the town
- Visited a bike shop, which seemed to be a French Orbea dealer.
- Tried to visit a winery in town but it had closed before we got there, so we visited another en route to Dijon from Beaune, which was very nice and our host was up for a chat and was very helpful. We bought 4 bottles of wine.
- Found a decent camping site in Dijon and have to hope for less bugs than on previous nights!!
- Also has wifi so this should make it onto the internet either tonight or tomorrow morning.

27th June 2011;
- Drove from Bourg Argentin to Chambon sur Lac.
- Along the way had a nice lunch in the park. It was very hot, reaching 39 degrees.
- On arrival at the camping site in Bourg Argentin we saw that there was a pool and obviously a lac aka lake.
- Played on the waterslide being silly, but we quit whilst we were ahead and 2 other people got in trouble ehehehehe. After this rode for 10km to a Casino Marche to buy dinner supplies and then we frolicked in the lake. No hotties.
- Dinner was sausages. The post dinner shower was luxurious.

28th June 2011;
- Day of 2 halves…. Yes I hate the bad RL clichés.
- In the morning did a ride which involved 3 climbs. We did the last ~40kms of stage 8 of Le Tour to Super Besse-Sancy which was cool. On one of the descents I collided with a small bird which hurt and was not at all fun. I did however stay up and we ended up with a shade over 75km and 1600 metres climbing.
- That was the first half…. And here is the second half….. It started going downhill when I took an anti car sick tablet on an empty stomach, which resulted in the effects being amplified meaning I was completely ruined on the way to Limoges.
- Following this, I was the villain at dinner. Another of my irrational fears got the better of me and as I rose to flee the fury of a wasp, I knocked the table and wine and food flew everywhere – mostly landing on Sarah. As could be expected, many people were unhappy, but after a while it was ok again.
- The other idiotic thing I did during dinner was to drink some wine, which was a very bad idea re: the anti sick tablet. Instead of being an anti sick tablet, the mix turned sour and I was very sick…..

31st June – 2nd July 2011;
- Arrived at the campsite in Fromentine, situated in the Vendee region which was the host of the Grand Depart.
- The site itself was okay, right on the beach, so sadly it was also quite sandy…. Everywhere.
- The first day we were there we had a bit of an explore and played force ‘em backs on the beach, which was fun – there was however a gale blowing off the water, so depending which side you stood on it was either stupidly easy, or impossible.
- After that, George and I invented the awesome game, Ruccer Ball [a mixture of soccer, rugy and basketball] – Sarah has a video with some highlights and the rules.
- The game was intense and I hurt my shoulder, plus got 3 large blisters on each foot from playing barefoot on the Astroturf.
- Those injuries probably contributed to my horrid next day on the bike, in which we rode for 50km, during which time my back seized up completely making it impossible to ride, which meant we missed out on a 100km ride and then I missed out on some sneaky afternoon ice cream in the town.
- The 2nd of July was le Grande Depart of Le Tour de France. It was amazing, words really can not describe how awesome it was and how much fun I had. We got a spot right next to the podium where each rider signed on for the day, which meant seeing many riders and bikes up close. Lots of photos, all on FB.
- After the sign on, we moved around onto the course to see the roll out and we yelled out some well wishes to Cadel as he rolled passed and being a gentleman of the old school he smiled and waved.
- That night, there were some fireworks on the major bridge, but it was certainly no Syndey Harbour on NYE.

3rd July 2011;
- We left Fromentine to drive to the Team Time Trial located in Les Essarts. It was a 5km walk into town from where we were forced by a roadblock to abandon the van.
- At a random petrol station, come team bus haven we saw lots of team cars, personnel and busses. At one point an Euskaltel-Euskadi convey of team cars arrived after some course reconnaissance and I yelled out to Amets to [Amets] Txurruka from about a metre away – he looked at me shocked that someone recognised him as I took a not so sneaky photo of his shock.
- After that on the way to trying to find a nice viewing position, I saw and got a photo with SBS presented Dave Mckenzie [himself a former Giro Stage winner] and yes, the TAC flag was well in the photo. He even asked what Team Aero was! I said he should mention us on air…. I don’t think he will.
- Not 30 seconds later, Saur rode passed and nearly collected Dave and myself and right after them Cadel and the BMC team rolled buy on their recon ride and we cheered to Cadel and he again waved to us!
- At our nice viewing point for the TTT I had a decent chat to a Gendarme who was like the friendly giant, he also asked about TAC and I told him it was an up and coming Australian Team… He loved it. Sadly he had to move on and was replaced by angry Gendarmes.
- It was once again an awesome display of cycling all around – too bad Garmin one!

4rd July 2011;
- Drove to Mur-de-Bretagne and then rode the last 20km of stage 4 … hard run in to the finish and the last climb was a tough one. Sadly Farrar got a win and I saw it on TV…. Dislike the guy but chapeau.
5th July 2011;
- Spent the day on the Mur-de-Bretagne just after the absolute steepest part of the climb. We thought it was going to be hot, but instead it rained all day.
- Eventually the advertising caravan arrived and the spirits of the crowd were lifted by the lure of free stuff and it was a free for all in the mud and ditches… It was well worth getting dirty and was fun!
- Around 45 minutes later the Tour arrived and we were situated about 100m after the point where Contador attacked! It was amazing to experience it. Cadel won the stage and we went nuts and all of the French people were congratulating us on Cadel.
- Went and watched the finish on youtube back here and even saw ourselves on the video at about the 1.2km to go mark next to an LCL sign that stood up, right next to the LCL barriers! Search on youtube for the Stage 4 finish 2011 Tour and see if you can see us!
- I then cooked us dinner and it was not too bad I thought. No one couldn’t eat it, so go me

That is all really… Hopefully I will be more prompt in my updates! See you all later and take care.

I am GHinds dot com

It is late now, so I will blog properly tomorrow afternoon.

A big hello from Bourg-Argental! We had a nice day today though a lot of it was driving! There was a nice lunch on the Rhône River and were treated to a nice display of the girl who called wolf, who then fell on her face and got in trouble by her father – all with English commentary…. Quite amusing really! After that we drove to Chatanay and began the ride! It was a touch under 70km and did just over 1500 metres climbing including the Col d’Oeillon Croix de Montvieux. After that we descended and have retired for the night in the nice little town of Bourg-Argental! Really don’t have much else to add!

Take care,

IamGHinds dot com