Tour de Cure Blog

In a small coffee shop in Cremorne in 2007, Geoff and I had a vision of raising $2 million by 2011. Our plan was to run four tours down the east coast of Australia and in doing so, raise not only many millions of dollars worth of support in PR and education, but also lend a hand with cash towards curing cancer. Not in our wildest dreams did we believe that $2 million was achievable in just 3 Tours. But it was achieved in January 2010. It was a pretty proud moment when Geoff, Sam and myself received the news from the auditors to say that the Tour de Cure has now raised in excess of $2 million in cash and many many millions of dollars worth of education and support around cancer. But the job is not finished yet.

Typically, as is the way things are done with the board and management team of the Tour de Cure, we recognised an outstanding achievement by the TDC crew and then set about readdressing our sights on the next step on the journey, being Australia’s first million dollar ride, departing the Channel 7 studios in Martin Place on May 7 and heading north to the Sunshine Coast. To those people who were there from the start, Mal, Josh, DL, Max, Alex, Robbie and Denver, our deepest thanks for your support over what has been a pretty incredible 3 years.

But thats in the past and we are aiming high with what is going to be one incredible Tour this year, with the support of Channel 7, Ooh! Media, Lexus, Westpac, CSC and Optus and a bunch of other people who are going to make this one incredible road train, that will certainly turn heads when it hits each town on the New England Highway towards the Sunshine Coast.

Geoff, GB, Sam

New to the Tour de Cure, Martin Mason has shown his true commitment by finding a bike wherever his travels took him on a recent holiday

It was time to bid farewell to the small country towns of southern France and head to the big smoke 700km away, gay Paris, to catch the final leg of the tour which ends in a furious criterium race along the cobblestoned Champs Elysees.  My new favourite form of transport (other than cycling) is TGV.  This bullet train took less than 3hrs to get most of the way across the country to Paris and we were settled in at a restaurant on the Champs Elysees well before the riders entered the city.

Taking it easy at our Champs Elysees cafe

When the riders came into town we left our comfortable restaurant and headed downstairs to join the masses.  The atmosphere was amazing but it was almost impossible to get a good vantage point and view of the cyclists.

Criterium in action

The Renshaw/Cavendish combination proved unbeatable yet again, Cavendish going on to claim probably his most decisive sprint finish victory of the Tour.  This also signalled the end of our trip.  It was back to the hotel to pack up the bikes and bags in readiness for our plane out of Paris the next day.  On the way I had to snap one last tourist photo for the collection - I believe this was officially renamed to the Tom Hanks shrine after the success of The Da Vinci Code.

The Tom Hanks shrine

All in all the challenge was exactly that - a lot of hard work, pain and fatigue.  We were pushed to our limits, some days worse than others.  But overall, without doubt, an exceptional experience and all for a good cause.

Signing off, Daren & Brendan

THIS WAS THE DAY!  The day we’d been looking forward to the entire trip, the penultimate stage of the Tour.  Riding the (in)famous Mont Ventoux only hours before the pros.  Everything was planned prior to leaving Australia - we were part of a small select group of riders who had exclusive passes to ride the whole race leg to the top of Mont Ventoux accompanied by a support vehicle.  The ASO (TdF owners and governing body) had already shortened our 167km ride by the time we reached France - down to only 100km now - but even this distance with the mountain at the end was to be a huge challenge regardless.

We were up at 3:30am that morning to drive to the drop off point so we could start riding at the crack of dawn on our 100km leg, the last 22km being the humbling and unrelenting Mont Ventoux.  Along the way it was careful pacing and plenty of fluid/nutrition intake.  There was a bit of nervousness about what lay ahead and for periods there was complete silence.  I reckon people were just thinking about the pain to come.  We were well paced along the way by our very experienced ex pro rider guide.  In the early part of the day notice came through that all was not good up at the summit.  A beautiful sunny calm day in the lowlands but 100km/hr+ winds at the top.  Great - as if it wasn’t hard enough to start with.

Mont Ventoux - 25km away

We went under the official 25km-to-go arch feeling pretty good.  We started to wind our way through the crowds, and let me tell you they were everywhere.  Spectators, cyclists, motorists, you name it - an estimated 500,000 lined the last 20 odd km’s.  Now the biggest disappointment of all…with about 20km to go we come up to a police road block.  The Gendarmerie (French cops) had decided that nobody was allowed to ride through.  Our guide (who could speak French) did his best to convince the pistol packing uniforms that we had every right to continue.  But even the flashing of our official passes could not change their minds - they were clearly quite agitated and getting crankier by the minute.

After much arguing it was time to cut our losses and turn back.  No Mont Ventoux for us.  Plan B.  We set up camp at a local winery a few km’s down the road on the race route (Cave Terra Ventoux), but before we could settle in for some local wine and watching the race on the big screen we had to burn off some serious frustration and crank out a few more miles.  We headed for the Gorges.  This turned out to be a spectacular ride winding around a steep gorge with 20km’s of gentle ascent (2-3%) all the way.  A brief stop at the top then it was a flat out time trial back down to the winery.  It was a lot of high speed fun. 

A quick photo at the summit of the Gorges before descending - that’s Mont Ventoux in the background with the barren sandy peak. 

Brendan at summit of the Gorges

Daren at summit of the Gorges

The weather was fantastic for relaxing at our winery and taking in some high quality sport. 

The winery

The peleton came through mid afternoon at a blistering pace.  It’s a wonder more people don’t get seriously injured given the narrow roads packed with people and cyclists/support vehicles flying through at high speeds.

The peleton

An enjoyable day with some good cycling but very disappointing at having missed out on riding Mont Ventoux. 

Km’s ridden:  120km (650km total)

Metres climbed: 700m (14,150m total)

Elevation: N/A

Today we did a very light ride from our Chateau on the outskirts of Grenoble around the local hills and country roads then drove to Saint Remy de Provence, our home for the next 2 nights.  A very funky art deco town that oozes culture, atmosphere and gelati.  Not surprisingly no shortage of wine either.

Our Chateau in Grenoble

On the way to Saint Remy De Provence we had to fullfil our obligations as consummate TdF groupies.  It was off to the IZOARD at the Aubenas finish line (VIP area) to watch the 3rd last stage of the tour.  It was nice to be waited on, a constant flow of beer and snacks allowed us to focus on the task at hand - analysing and critiquing the race as it unfolded. 

The IZOARD

We had an excellent elevated vantage point of the home straight;

Finish straight and the "Tour Caravane"

The big screen right in front of us allowed us to keep track of the race as it approached (picure below: Cavendish and Renshaw sitting in 2nd & 3rd positions with about 6kms to go.  Some poor bunny doing all the hard work at the front);

The TV - every home should have one

3.5km to go and guess what, the same poor bunny is still busting his hump at the front, Cavendish and Renshaw 2nd and 3rd;

The race heats up - 3.5km to go

I had some video footage of the sprinters rounding the corner at 60km/hr+ with Aussie Renshaw leading Cavendish who ended up with yet another stage victory - but unfortunately the file was too big to add to the blog.

PS: one of the highlights of the day was when we were leaving the town after the race on the bus and went past one of the pro riders on his bike, he was cruising down the street, no helmet and a stubbie of beer in his hand which he seemed to be enjoying immensely.  So much for all work and no play for these guys. 

Km’s ridden:  45km (530km total)

Metres climbed: 400m (13,450m total)

Elevation: N/A

We were meant to cycle from Chamonix to Annecy today (100km) in time to settle in and watch the Tour de France Individual Time Trial.  The ASO (TdF organisers and governing body) decided to change the timeframes on us and dictated we needed to be there a lot earlier than was previously agreed.  In summary this meant we could no longer do our cycle and effectively had an enforced “rest day”.  We were not impressed as there was no opportunity to make up these km’s later in the trip.

We were impressed with Annecy however.  A beautiful town surrounding a large lake created by a glacier a while back.  No time to waste, it was time to hunt down refreshments.  In the pursuit of this endeavour I came across this interesting chap - if you’ve watched the TdF on TV you are likely to recognise him - he generally needs no introduction.

That's me on the left

We had up close and personal access to all the team buses and warm up areas;

Cofidis warm up area

Small world but we bumped into the odd Aussie there too;

Some Aussie bloke

The start line of the TT was very impressive - these boys exploded off the starting platform every couple of minutes for several hours;

Cadel

Lance

Contador

All in all a highly enjoyable and entertaining day in Annecy.  With a few beers and wines on board it was time to get on the bus and snooze for a couple of hours until we reached our next hotel.

NOTE: no change to trip statistics

After the first 5 days of riding and generally travelling around the place there were a number of observations worth noting;

1. Lotto numbers are easier to predict than the French weather

2. French drivers are exceedingly more cyclist-friendly than those in Australia

3. There is a noticeable absence of broken glass on French roads, sharp shards of French stick maybe, but no glass

4. French coffee is ordinary

5. They don’t have QWERTY keyboards which makes typing all this stuff incredibly frustrating

6. 130km/hr freeway speed limits are a pleasant change

7. If you get car sick, don’t drive around this part of the world.  If you like rally driving, you’ll love it.

It was time to leave the country and try out another part of this years Tour so off we drove to Martigny, Switzerland, where they commenced Stage 16 of the Tour this year.  The pros had come through the day before so it was a very different experience to our highly atmospheric Col de la Colombiere one, but by no means easier.  We were to take on the Col du Grand Saint Bernard, or Big Dog Mountain as we preferred to call it.  It was a shorter ride but the first 40 odd km’s to the summit was ALL uphill - no descents and no flat sections.  Almost the whole way in the easiest gear on the bike.  About half way up it was time to replenish supplies and slam down a Coke.  I found a good photo opportunity with one of the friendly locals at the servo we stopped at;

My bike with a local resident

About 6km’s from the summit it got very steep (again!) and it started raining which was unexpected given the weather forecast predicted the opposite.  It was also freezing cold due to the elevation as once again we were well above the snowline.  We were relieved to get to the top where we hurriedly put on what little warmer clothing we had with us and made a beeline for the van before hypothermia set in…3hrs up, just over 1hr down.  Apologies, no summit photos available - they would have been blurred due to shivering anyhow.

It was back to Chamonix that afternoon where we spent a bit of time relaxing in the very picturesque town centre with an impressive backdrop of Mont Blanc - it’s huge, much more than just a pen.  This was a very lively, enjoyable place with a lot of character.

Brendan posing in Chamonix

Km’s ridden:  85km (485km total)

Metres climbed: 1,900m (13,050m total)

Elevation: 2,473m

 Today we checked out of our hotel in St Jean de Maurienne and drove the 130km to a small town just past Sallanches to where our next ride starting point would be.  The aim here was to ride 120km of Stage 17 of  the Tour de France that would come through the following day.  Before getting into any ride stories let’s touch briefly on an unplanned incident that delayed the days ride.  You always need a driving anecdote to prevent boredom slipping into the schedule.  These could range from navigation arguments to accidents, we settled on the latter.  Did I mention the van we had was wide?  It was, and the streets were narrow, and my iPhone GPS was telling me to go down a one-way street, and my wing man was not watching my wing mirror…BANG!!!  I hit a local parked delivery van (fortunately only the mirror), made an almighty noise and scared the life out of the locals.  I jumped out and approached the driver and in my best French apologised, explained I could not speak much of the local lingo and mentioned something about insurance.  In reality this probably translated to me calling him Mr Potato-head and that I’d like to sell him some Yoplait.  Regardless, he was very good about it all and we went our separate ways - no further action required much to my relief.

Today was hot, 35 degrees, and we knew it would be a tough slog out there.  It was also the first time we’d gotten close to the actual Tour.  The atmosphere riding along the route was amazing. Hoards of people were arriving and settling in on the sides of the roads the day before to get a good vantage point to see the riders come through.  I’ve never seen so many “Ned Flanders” style motor homes in my life.  These supporters would even give us a cheer as we went by.  Disappointingly we did not get chased by the infamous red devil or other avid cycling supporters - they were obviously all saving their energy for the big event.  Getting to the summit was a real grind and again the last few km’s got a lot steeper and the cruel headwind appeared on queue just to make things very painful.  There’s not much solice in saying to yourself “only 1km to go” when that 1,000 metres crawls by at 7-8 km/hr and cramps are setting in.  The physics are simple, you stop pedalling, you fall over.  At the top of Colombiere I slumped over the bike and labelled the mountain with a different name - one I should not write down.  This is the section of the mountain where Contador was playing with the Schleck brothers in a 3 man breakaway . 

Brendan reaching summit of Colombiere

Daren reaching summit of Colombiere

Col du Colombiere pub

After completing another day of solid riding it was back in the van and off to Chamonix for 2 nights, 100km down the road.

Km’s ridden:  120km (400km total)

Metres climbed: 2,300m (11,150m total)

Elevation: 1,618m

One of the key pieces of interesting trivia at the end of this day was the metres climbed - it equates to approx the same as cycling to the summit of Mt Everest, or 50+ Mt Cootha reps in local terms.

The weather was perfect this morning, here is a snap taken outside our quaint family run hotel (Hotel St Georges) in St Jean de Maurienne, a sleepy little ski village.

View of our street in St Jean de Maurienne

It was to turn out to be the biggest day of climbing with 3 big mountains, the hardest being Col du Glandon where the last 2km was into a fierce headwind at 11% gradient.  Talk about slow riding - it was like trying to ride with your brakes jammed on.

Daren crawling to summit of Col du Glandon

Col du Glandon summit

The day started off bad though with a puncture fiasco - a long story but in the end we had a 2hr delay which was far from ideal.  This meant the fast 21km descent down from the Col du Madeleine was done after 7pm, when the sun was going down.  It was worth it though.  It seems there is always a little cafe or bar at the top of each mountain climb so riders can get a drink or something to eat and relax for a few minutes - I look forward to these let me tell you.  I’ve mastered the art of sculling Coke.  I was surprised to consume 2L of fluid on my bike for the 21km, 2hr climb.  It’s easy to get dehydrated out there in the sun.

Summit of Col du Madeleine

They have signs like this at the top of each moutain, covered with stickers for some reason…maybe that is cyclists form of grafiti.

We were pretty smoked after today’s effort so it was pizza, beer and straight into bed.

Km’s ridden:  115km (280km total)

Metres climbed: 3,300m (8,850m total)

Elevation: 2,067m