Day 4 TdF - 2009

Today was the first real day of climbing. With the weight well down, arriving more fit than last year and no injuries, I was hoping for a better performance in the mountains. Well, we have a data point of at least one. On today's 20km climb to the Grand Ballon, the performance seemed much better than the first day of climbing last year. The Gr Ballon is not a hard climb, but it is steady. Toward the end, there was a fairly long section (2-3 km) of 9%+ grade. The weather conditions did not help. At the summit, it was foggy, windy and cold. Climbing toward the summit, you had either a hellacious head wind or a nice tail wind. Believe me, the tail wind sections did not last nearly long enough. The temperature was cold enough to see your breath as it hit the air and steam rising from your body.

While I was feeling good, I tried to be sensible; still many days left to climb. I set my targets at a heart rate of 160-165 beats per minute and kept the cadence around 80 rpm. This kept me motoring at a decent pace which saw many others dropping back. The descent was pretty chilly. I wore arm warmers, a vest and a rain jacket, along with long fingered gloves and I was not overheating on the way down. In fact, I was shivering a bit. On the descent, we intercepted the race course for today's stage. The French police are being more stringent than last year. Last year, we rode a good bit of the course without their interference. Today, we had to plead with them relentlessly. We only got so far (10 km), then had to abandon the hope of finishing the course today.

We rode back to the hotel with only 85km on our bikes. This did not seem like enough. I used the Garmin 705 (Ms Garmin) to find the finishing town. I believed it to be only 24 km from the hotel. So, Doug and I recruited some folks to ride with us to Colmar. Turns out, it was more like 35km, oops. The small group asked about the pace, I said we'd take it easy (giving the typical answer Capt Insaneo would give). Once out of town and on the flats to false flats, I sat on the front, dialed the pace up to 23-24 mph, rested my forearms on the bars and pedaled away. Doug took several pulls and several times indicated I should back it off a bit as our crew was not thinking this to be an easy pace. We back it down a bit, but then attacked every town sign for a sprint. After a few with Doug and me battling it out, our Aussie friends got the picture and mixed it up as well. The great thing about sprint signs is that it permits you to dial the pace up a notch or two, so we did. Fun stuff, at least for Doug and me. Our Aussie friends also thought it was a great ride, when it was over.

We arrived in Calmar around mid-day, just as the rain came. We quickly found a café, parked ourselves inside, order beers, salads and sausages - a first rate recovery meal. Dripping from sweat and a bit of rain, we quickly cooled. I dropped most of my cool weather gear at the hotel. I was FREEZING at 67 degrees. I was shivering all over. After an hour or so, the rain let up a bit. We decided to search for the finish line and our bus. We wanted to park our bikes, get a fresh, warm set of clothes and watch the race finish. TWO hours later in a relatively small town after the skies opened up again with rain, we found the bus. We rolled in like stanky, smelly wet rats. I was never more glad to see the bus than on this day.

The end of the race was dramatic, for us at least. Heinrich Haussler from team Cervelo attacked with a Frenchman early in the race. The two stayed away on the three climbs of the day. On the second climb Haussler dropped the Frenchman and stayed away the entire day, winning his first stage. His victory salute was very modest. He raised his hands, then cupped his face with his hands. When he dropped his hands to his bars, you could see he was sobbing tears of joy. All that work paid off for a great stage win on an extremely hard day in the mountains. When you saw him embrace his coach at the end, you could see his shoulders shaking he was so overwhelmed with emotion. OK, so what made it special. His SISTER is on the trip with us! Sitting at 1km to go, she had no idea other than at one point he was in a break. He finished more than 3 minutes ahead of the next rider. It had to be something special for her as well to see her brother finishing a stage, solo, with the entire cycling world watching and no one else around. We all were on the bus when she arrived. Understandably, she stayed, in the rain, to watch the awards ceremony activity. When she rejoined us on the bus, we all applauded. Pretty special to be a part of this big day for her and her brother. I was extremely impressed with the humility of his celebration and in his interview comments afterwards. Pretty touching event.

We leave the Alsace region tomorrow for the Alps, proper. If you are not familiar with the Alsace region, I'll try to help you out. It is the region in the corner of France, Germany, Switzerland and Luxemburg. It is gorgeous. It borders the Alps and begins the foothills to the Alps. The region is rich with agriculture and wine, of course. Great food, fantastic wine. The hills are full with lush forest floors nestling up to towering pine trees. A few other deciduous trees manage to make their way amongst the pines. The roads are sometimes under the full canopy of the forest trees and from time to time you can see hiking paths through the forests. Don't linger with your look too long as the roads twist and turn and you'll find yourself in the forest instead of on the road admiring the forest, particularly on the descents. Talk to you all from the Alps.