I haven't looked at thestage you mentioned but if your taking a car you may find the road closed 6 or 7 hours before the race goes through,and sometimes earlier than that! Whenever I've watched it I've used a bike and you can stay on the road until about half an ohur before the caravan goes through.
I had a good time but duffer's was on something I think.I was at the entry to the third coner as it were,and he stood there on the inside at one point trying to outstare the riders it seems! A top day out though,and unlike the tour you saw the riders more than once!
cant remember who the bloke who went past me was,all I know is that i beat him to the top which is all that counted! I was using a low gear of 39front with a 24 on the back which is quite low,but I make it up with a high pedal cadence.Don't know what to do about next year now,I've done the etape du tour twice now as well as this,so any ideas would be appreciated.Also one that is 'non-cycling wife' friendly,as it were,becasue I'll probablt have to drag her along this time to give my ears a rest!
I didn't do too bad,better than i hoped in fact as i was 194th up the mountain out of about 950 who finished it.The weather was atrocious all the way round and it didn't stop raining once,I'm getting used to it now though,rain in the etape last year,snow the year before.The stage was neutralised down the mounatin to start with but once we hit the bottom the fun began.It was meant to be neutralised all the way round until we hit the bottom of the mountain,but the pro riders,including cadel evans and eddy merkx as well as michele bartoli,decided they wanted and early day and just took off never to be seen again! I just pottered round as i knew there was no point in chasing them,and i wanted to save my legs for later! The timing started at the bottom of the mountain with 8km to go but it wasn't until I got to 5 k to go that it started to go up.I got into a rhythm pretty quickly as it wasn't a steep climb and managed to pass a lot of riders with only one going past me all the way up.It flattened out again with about 1 k to go and then it was all over. Don't know if I'd do it again though,it was a short race,only 102k,and I've trained on a local hill that was longer than the climb at the end.Also you couldnt get anywhere near the pro riders as they just took off,and they didnt hang around at the finish either.The only one I saw after the start was Eddy Merkx as i was climbing a hill about half way round,when I overtook him,not that hard as he was about twice the size of me,thats my claim to fame though,I beat the man as he eventually abandoned!
from what i can gather from their website,the average speed is about 18mph which is controlled by the pro riders,the race only starts when the road goes uphill for the last 8km.I'll find out for real soon enough though,although i dont know what pro riders are in it.prize money is quite good though,about £8000 for first i think,don't think i'm up for any of it though!
mike henstridge
