Day 6b

Lumpy, eh (see blog Day 6a). In talking with one of the pros serving as a guide for our group, he said, "Yeah, flat for around here. But, use your big ring, put some effort on the rollers and stretch your legs out a bit." Humm, I was skeptical, but believed him. Should have put the description in proper perspective, former Tour pro.

The first "roller" was the category 3 climb the Tour did this year just prior to the Tourmalet a couple of days ago; climbing 550 feet of elevation in 2 miles; an average grade of 5.2% with several sections in the 8-9% range. The next "roller" was a 800 foot climb over 5 miles, a constant 3% grade into a headwind with a nice kick at the end; 500 feet of the 800 occurred in the last 1.5 miles.

We then went down hill, a lot. Too much for my liking, because, what goes down… You got it, another bloody climb. Yep, I am picking up some Aussie-speak. To the best of my translation ability, "bloody" is generally synonymous with the adjective formation of the F-bomb, as in another BLOODY climb. The third climb of the day offered 1100 feet of climbing in 6 miles; an average grade of 3.5%. This time, the kick came at the start; 7-9% for about the first 2 miles, then a steady grade, again into a head wind. Heaps of fun, that one (a little more Aussie speak). But hey, that's what I'm here to do.

I learned that a 33 mile ride with 3,000 feet of climbing is a recovery ride (don't try to compute the math based on this summary, I did not include all the smaller ups and downs throughout the day). Thus far, in 5 days of riding I've logged 236 miles and 20,000 feet of climbing (nearly to the top of Mount Everest). We still have 8 days of riding remaining. I expect the climbing quantity to nearly triple. Tomorrow, we have another "recovery ride;" 62 miles and only 3300 feet of climbing. The big day will be on Sunday, Mt. Ventoux.

We watched the start of today's stage. We arrived in town early enough to mill around the team area prior to the start. Tried to get loads of photos, but there were tons of people swarming the teams. Garmin and Columbia were on the other side of the area from me. You needed to cross the course to get there, so I did not make it there. I did snap photos of Fabian Cancellara , Carlos Sastre, my boy Jens Voigt, Stuart O'Grady and several others. Cadel Evans came out of the camper, in the Yellow Jersey, the Aussies went nuts (he is Australian, if you did not know). He came over to the fence, shook a few hands and the body guards whisked him away.

We rode the bus to Carcassonne. Beautiful town. Think Spanish architecture mixed with the atmosphere of the Three Musketeers. This is the area around which the Musketeers thrived. I also got a new roommate, my bike. I had to say something to the tour directors. My roommate snored something awful. At most, I was getting 3 hours of sleep a night. This morning, I made a commitment to seek a remedy. They put me in a single room, for now at least. I offered to pay for a single the rest of the trip. Imagine knocking all this out on 3 hours of sleep a night.