Tour de Force stage 16 - coverage of the afternoon

Things started with a bang, well more like an explosion to be precise.

Here I am, up and over the Col du Telegraph in fine style (that’s not quite true as it was something of a struggle) but anyway I’m absolutely zamming it down the far side. If you’re out there reading this Annett, you’d have loved it as it total zigzag, one high-speed bend after another.

But then the front tyre blows out big time. I control the first part fine and get my speed down, thanks perhaps to semblance of air still waiting to get out, but the second half of the slowing process is close to getting the better of me and the whole front-end gets to wobbling and I can’t seem to lose any more speed as I don’t dare to brake harder than I am doing.

But I survive and spread out the contents of my cavernous bike bag across of handy rock and get on with the job. For me, the worse part of this is finding my glasses to see what exactly it is I’m doing. But today, all goes well. Giles flies past to say that Dave is on the way with the van.

I mini-pump enough air in to make a decent fist of re-starting. Dave arrives with a track pump but it won’t work so I ride off saying that once it’s fixed he can catch me and we’ll get at my front tyre properly then.

See…I’m thinking that I’m wasting time as I need to be on Giles’ wheel by the bottom of all this as we then go into a long stretch on a valley bottom and there might be a head-wind and Matt’s not here. But Giles is. Well, nearly.

So I do a big-time number to catch him, you know like you see the pros on the tele, really bending the bike over on the corners and then immediately up on the pedals giving it something solid in a big gear to grab back some speed. This treatment might work on hard tyres but suddenly I see my bulk, the whole mass of me plus bike plus everything taking a wider circle round the bend than the rim of the front wheel.

I hear the metal of the rim touch the tarmac and oh, no, I’m coming adrift…and there’s an oncoming car. I throw everything the wrong way and hope, though I have to confess that I’m visualising my slid-line if all else fails. But it doesn’t all fail. The tyre reshapes itself and I feel very lucky. Perhaps it’s made of rubber that has previously featured in Wallace and Grummet movies.

St Michel de Maurienne brings me into the flat-lands. Infernally hot flatlands, as I’m soon to discover. The road off the Col de Telegraphe arrives at traffic lights and it’s right-turn for me to follow the valley floor for miles. The river is l’Arc and it carries round rocks, snow-melt and the rest westwards until it runs into the bigger river, l’Isere.

We’re to stay down here as far as Saint Etienne de Cuines, which is where we start up again for the Col de Glandon climb. I reckon I know what I’m doing so the plastic-clad route-planner stays packed away somewhere.

Every mile (or kilometre) on the flat is good as there’s a limit to how many miles we have to do today. I’ve just noticed Greenrock put our tally at 202km. Before, it was to be 182km. Hey, that was a sneaky move, somebody.

It might all be slightly downhill but there’s this awesome headwind to face, like part of the Mistral has torn itself off its leash and is exploring its way up the side-valley. And its so hot. There’s the peage right alongside which you might expect to take all the traffic, but every bit and bob of what we’re on is either a slip-road onto it or a slip-road off it, so there’s big lorries and clutter and so much dust. And blistering heat.

I see a white van and anticipate seeing it stop but it rattles off to the right and I never see it again.

I believe I should go through St Jean de Maurienne to reach the next climb. What I really believe here is that my subconscious is quietly telling me that our hotel tonight is in St Jean de Maurienne….i.e. I can slope off and lie down. So I turn into St Jean de Maurienne but have a twang of conscience and stop to look at the route-planner.

It’s vague. There’s no detail. Well, what I really mean to say is that I’m trying to read it without my glasses.

But hang on, there’s two lines written in bold print. Two warnings. Caution level crossing says the first. Then the same again on the next line. I’m really trying now. Ahh, I need the railway on my left but I have the railway on my right and its disappearing fast. So I turn back.

Saint Etienne takes forever to appear. I’m looking up at the valley side on the left as our little road will be going up there somewhere…but it’s a solid mass of rock. No chance. Another few miles….and still solid rock on the left. It’s like were trapped in the bottom. You could film a cowboys and indians massacre in this sort of territory.

I’ve found the valley at last. Now this will be really something. I’ve never been up here. I’ve seen the Tour de France on the tele coming down the Col de Glandon this way and it looked spectacular so here I am live in the self-same spot at long, long last. It’s live living your dreams.

What we have is a lovely backwater valley, following a small river, le Villard, which started its days close to the top of the Glandon. There’s just two little villages in the entire stretch, St Alban-des-Villards comes first and then St Colomban-des-Villards.

It’s hot and getting hotter. I use the mobile phone (dinosaur hunters take note of that…you can take me off your kill list) and ring Joe to say I’ll be out of fluid in 30-50mins. I’m still wondering where that white van went.

Dave arrives ahead of parchment and I drink a whole bottleful straight down and set off with the same again.

Higher up and I’m clean out again and the promised second van-man meet-up hasn’t happened. Someone must have appeared higher on his needs-list. At least I got the tyre done properly at the last stop, though I’m moving too slow to notice the difference right now.

My legs are shot. I don’t know if it’s the heat or the carry-over of the Col de Galibier climb or the push along the valley for two hours, but it’s like the gradient is 1-4 degrees harder than it should be me according to my mental map.

And the flies. The friggin’ flies. I don’t know if I smell like a Mongolian yak or what but I’ve got at least a hundred of them, you know the little black ones that cows flick their tails at on hot summer days as they stand on pools. But I can live with them…it’s the sodding horseflies. They’ve tracked me down and I can’t ride fast enough to escape.

If you get anything useful at all from reading this blog at all, then this is it. Take note. Horseflies hunt in pairs. If you do succeed in swatting the little bastard that’s appeared as a blip on your pain-screen and you do hit it and see it splatter onto the road and feel jubilant…then don’t because there will be its mate/a second one diving into you already.

Think location. Think equal and opposite. If that one was lower left leg, ankle-zone, its mate will be to your rear, out of sight, busily extracting yourself from yourself somewhere mid-thigh, right leg. They even come through my shorts.

What I said before about this valley, can I take it back? I’m thinking of that film Deliverance…weren’t they about to flood the whole place. Well this would be a good setting for that sort of thing. If only I’d been wearing Erroll’s black trousers, the one with those bat-box pockets……a rider with a posse of bats swirling for protection would shock the little horrors.

As the top comes into view, I’m aware that behind, by a bend or two, a rider has been slowly reeling me in. Joe is at the top with the van and he say’s its Ted and Ted says “Gotcha”. I see a grin as we overlap, both hands diving into the same box of recovery bars together.

This is the Col de Glandon and the next summit, the Col de la Croix de Fer, is only 2km away. Ted pedals away slightly faster than me now, but with a throw-away line saying that he’s planning a coffee stop when he gets there. Good. The Col de la Croix de Fer is heaven on earth. Any cyclist with taste should have his ashes spread there. The views and the ambiance are superb.

I savour the short ride to the next summit but I’m not sure if Ted has stopped as all there is outside the café is a pair of bikes in mating mode, enmeshed in a handlebar-facing embrace. Still I’m off in there anyway as I’ve earned a 15min “moment” as it’s gone 5pm and I’ve been on the bike all day.

There’s Ted and Giles inside and Ted stands me for a coffee. He’s a nice guy. Next news he’s in the corner bartering over the price of a new top. They have a whole rack on offer, some with a lovely Col de la Croix de Fer emblem on them. The one Ted has been wearing for the past month sure is humming a bit.

He puts the new one on and I think there’s no going back now, what with that body sweat on it. It can never go back on the rack. Ted’s negotiating an all-in price for three coffees and the sporting top. He’s coming in low and the lady’s not sure about it all. Ted’s offer is rather ridiculous so she laughs, slightly nervously. But then she’s happy, it was all a bit of fun and the sale is done.

So how come Giles was here? He’d not even been on my horizon. We’ll he’d stopped at the last place, some restaurant/pub thing at the last T-junction, and had a pizza. Bloody hell…time for that and him a non-cyclist. What do they make chauffeurs of these days?

Ted is hopeless at descending. He’s bellowing to that effect in my ear at 50mph as we zoom down off the top, round the string of hairpins leading to St Sorlin-d’Arves. Giles isn’t though, he loves it. So do I and we go diving off together. There’s no sight of Ted at all.

Eventually we ought to wait up, now that we’re a sort of unofficial threesome. This is early evening and we all want to get somewhere sometime. I know there’s two more judgements to take. The first is when you leave this road, which is heading straight back to St Jean de Maurienne (and the hotel…so tempting to think food and bed) and take a right-hander to climb up the Col du Mollard. You blogsplats who have been here from the beginning will already know what that is. Mule-track and all.

Giles and I get to the crucial point. It’s not crucial at all because…the quick road to the hotel is closed. Its tunnels are being widened, so its no go, even on foot and Giles is happy to wait while I set off up the Mollard. I’m anticipating the need for at least two stops to lie down and tackle this backache. So they should soon get back on….but they don’t.

The sign said the climb was 5.5km and the Tour de France bumph I read beforehand said 7km….either way it’s a surprise to be at the top first, though I do spot the pair of them riding two-bends lower at about my speed.

Just over the top and in the small attractive ski village of Albiez-le-Vieux….as opposed to Albiez-le-Jeune further down the far slope….I wait up on the village green. Well it’s actually tarmaced but you get the idea. There’s a horse-trough and some road junctions. For us, we go left.

The guys arrive and buy into the water flow and I’m bemused as to how come Ted lost so much time on the descent. So he explains…it was a phone call to the wife. Say no more.

Another flying descent, same routine as before, Giles and me letting it rip, each alternately having spells of greater daring, Ted left talking to the plants.

I’m inclined to let Giles come through knowing that a fortnight ago when the descent was used professionally, Ludovic Turpin took a tumble and broke his femur. And Dennis Menchov also came off…..say did you see him yesterday in the Tour de France? He was storming up that final climb in the Pyrenees. But that’s unfair, so I gee up again and take my fair share of the risk.

After just 5km on the right-hand flank of the river, this one is l’Arvan, and we’re back in St Jean once again. Joe appears from nowhere in his white support van and we all stop for a well-deserved breather.

For me the choice is no choice. At the T-junction just ahead of us I could go left and spend two hours climbing to Toussuire, the finish point, the ski-station with rather a lot of attitude at this time of night. While if I go right, it’s a gentle 400m freewheel down to the hotel and as it’s already 8pm and the meal is on the table and my legs are protesting muchly I declare my hand first. I’m going right.

Ted holds firm, plunges his hands into the goody bag and sets off up the hill. Giles wavers. His determination to stick by Ted might have held all the way down the valley but now I’ve declared my hand he opts to do the same and in next to no time we’re sharing a splash of red wine over a well-deserved meal.

More to follow.