Rest Day?

Time to bring you up to speed on what’s been a VERY good Tour in terms of my riding. Not sure why, but I think it’s my ‘commitment to fatigue’- in terms of not caring how much SLEEP I am getting, as well as my mantra of ‘I shouldn’t miss an opportunity to ride’.

So, I know it’s backtracking, but I have to tell you about the “REST DAY” ride. Bob and I were lucky enough to stay atop Morzine-Avoriaz after Stage 8. We bunked with Robbie Ventura and Frankie Andreu, and the intention was to ride early in the AM. Robbie and I barely slept four hours that night, mainly due to the Spanish celebrations after their World Cup win (way too many vuvuzelas in town), but also because we were so excited to get to do a ‘big ride’.

After fueling up on ‘pain du chocolat’ and making sure we had enough fuel to last w number of hours, we set off DOWN the Avoriaz climb (knowing that we’d have to ASCEND the beast as the last kicker of our workout. We retraced the course the peloton had done the day before, which meant we did the ‘reverse’ of the Cat 3 “Les Gets” climb, the reverse of the “Col de la Ramaz” climb (absolutely KILLER- for over 20 mins it averaged 12-14%!!- and that was just PART of it!), then we descended the front side of the Col de la Ramaz and turned around and went up it again.

Not much of a big deal, YET. Now we are climbing the RAMAZ the way the peloton did, and in fact, returning to Morzine-Avoriaz on the race route just like the day before. By the end, our ‘totals’ for the day were- 4hrs15min, 3 CAT 1’s, 2 CAT 3’s, 57 miles, almost 9,000ft elevation gain.

Since then, I’ve been able to get early morning rides in at our stops in Gap, and then this morning in Valence. Very happy with the chance to experience these roads and watch the sun rise in so many different parts of this great country. Speaking of 'sun'- had a chance to snap pics at the 'top' (sans sun) and then sun-flowers at the bottom...