bike4bike

We arose at 5am, and after a short drive set off into the darkness at 6.30am with temperatures just above freezing. As the day dawned, after 26 miles, I began the long 23 mile ascent from Briancon to the Col du Galibier. First up was the summit of the Col de Lauteret at 6700 ft continuing up the 5 mile steep climb to the top of the Galibier at 8700 ft. On my approach I was again being watched by a magnificent golden eagle soaring just above me.  The sun came up and the weather remained perfect throughout the day.  Unimaginable blue skies affording magnificent views of the surrounding mountains.  The only thing with this was that it meant the descents were very cold.

A brilliant descent off the Galibier then took me through a number of towns before summitting the Col du Telegraphe and to the foot of the Col de la Croix de Fer.  There followed a 20 mile climb to 6780 feet , the last 4 mile I rode with a frenchman who commented that I would be crazy to attempt the Alpe today.  The Croix de Fer was a very tough climb with noticeable thinner air again, taking me over two hours to climb.  The descent off the top saw a quick detour to the top of the Col du Glandon followed by a long way down and along the valley road to Bourg D’Oisans.

I took a half hour recuperative stop just outside Bourg at a 120 miles into the day, before beginning the hardest climb of my life up Alpe d’Huez.  I have ridden up this iconic mountain a number of times but never after such a long hard ride or what I had just completed in the past 16 days.  At 7.05pm I set off, the first 2 miles averaging 10% were very difficult, and I was struggling to breath properly from this point, the effects of the high altitude and the cold air during the day taking its toll.  My chest was very tight and I had problems getting enough oxygen to power my legs.  I could have stopped at any point on this climb but as ever, Jilly was there supporting me every inch of the way, on the roadside on all 21 hairpins, urging me on with words of encouragement and running alongside me in true tour style.  The last 4 miles out of the 8, I completed in a poor condition, the thought of what I was doing this for keeping me going.  Stuart came out onto the road and cycled with me for the final 2 miles to the finish.  He was talking to me but it was all a blur to me and I almost knocked him off a couple of times as I struggled to keep my bike upright and in a straight line. I finally completed the climb after 1 hour 20 minutes to 6167 ft.

I was overcome with emotion after the physically hardest day of my life, cycling over 16500 ft and 45 miles up hill.  I collapsed with the effects of exhaustion, the freezing night air and the high altitude.  I was suffering from the effects of hypothermia and was struggling to breath.  The team quickly drove me down the mountain to Bourg D’Oisan and slowly treated me to stabilise my body temperature.  After a couple of hours I started to come round and went to bed feeling terrible.  Poor Jilly had to suffer the consequences of my body temperature returning to normal overnight, a hot fever all night.  I had never experienced anything like this and it was quite frightening for all concerned, thankfully by morning my body temp was normal again. 

Tuesday 9th September

This morning a decision was made by the team to take a forced rest day at Bourg D’Oisan to enable my body to recover and my breathing to return to normal before continuing on.  As we are updating this tonight I am improving greatly and hope to return to the saddle tomorrow to continue the challenge.  I plan to incorporate the time trial stage in with Stage 19.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 6:22 pm and is filed under News from 'The Tour'. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.