iClimb...the website for the seriously inclined

I’m on the phone to France. It’s not a hurried call and I’m not counting my pennies which is strange for me. See, I’ve switched from BT and am now pouring my funds into the hands of Charles Dunstone, or is it Charles Blogstone, he at TalkTalk.

He says it’s all free….well it’s £21 a month the way I see it. His blurb said broadband is all free and continental calls are all free, so I switched. The first bills contained start-up hiccups, so we’ll see.

But I’m a’chatting away about the Alpe d’Huez venture, the plans for 2007…there’s a bit more shape now. I’m wagging on with Guy over at his King of the Mountains chalet in the thin air and we did some blue sky thinking.

Hey, it was good. OK, blue sky is over the top so let’s call it light-blue sky thinking. Anyway, here’s an outline shape.

We have to tackle the big question –where’s the finish exactly? How do you find it? Alpe d’Huez is a big, sprawling ski resort after all with a labyrinth of streets.

But my answer is simple…just think what they do in any big hospital…. they lead you to where you want to be by threading/painting a coloured line on the floor for you. Away it goes, twisting and turning down the various corridors.

So do the same at Alpe d’Huez. What colour then? Orange. That’s my vote….and for not other reason than because I think orange is good. It’s distinctive, it’s a fun colour.

The orange line could start somewhere near the top on a clear bit of road, perhaps as you ride towards the final turn, Virage 1, and it might kick off with a sign/emblem to the side pronouncing “1km to finish line”.

I like that idea….a marker post, tickled up with the King of the Mountains own logo. It’s a pretty nifty little set of green polka-spots. Have you seen it?

Then a straight line of vivid paint all along the tarmac with some sort of blip/reminder device to count you down. Push, pedal, push. The little circle says 900m…then 800m…then 700m…and so on. That way you’d finish on your knees but in the right place, like where the Tour de France finishes.

If not orange, perhaps a blue paint. Depends what the tourist board thinks.

Guy thinks to create an add-on extra zone on the King of the Mountains website. But it would still need its own title.

Like what? The home page for the seriously inclined…corny, yes, but I like it

iClimb….well it’s a cool thought and we are in the iPod era….or so I’m told.

Then a tad of blurb like….Call yourself a mountain goat?

Something that’s challenging and interesting, a little magnet. Or else…

Why not put your name on the cycling world’s most famous ladder to the sky? Here’s how.

But I’m a journalist not a marketing person so I need to “run it by” someone. Colette perhaps or Surrey League Cycling’s hoary old chestnut Roger Morgan.

Page 1 for individuals. Page 2 for teams of three…same club and no cheating.

We need some sort of feature article to gee up interest for next year. Come in VC Etoile….you might be the guinea pigs. Has no-one told you yet?

So….to move on.

I’m planning to put my own body at risk with some testing.

It’s all the result of reading this book The Adventures of Tintin and then us having Tintin no less here at work, an author here in the office. We sit back-to-back and he talks and types….and sometimes sings early Beetles numbers and brews up Earl Grey.

Tintin is how I see him but in a parallel - and perhaps real - world that you people are in, Tintin appears as Paul Howard. He’s got thin legs and they both have hair. You could clean the inside of ketchup bottles with them. Despite the edging frills, he rode the Tour de France and wrote a book called Riding High.

Buy it. Or read it. Good for Etape aspirants and other unsaintly people.

Paul rode the Tour largely on myrtle jam. He smeared the stuff on everything, thought he doesn’t mention if this included his legs. I will ask.

He’s also a world expert on malt loaf. I’m not. It seems that not all malt loaves are the same.

The ones I buy are cracking. You get a mouthful on board and then it’s like living with a golf ball inside you for ten minutes as your teeth can’t penetrate the elasticated stuff and your jaw muscles slowly and inexorably move towards exhaustion.

Paul says come to Burgess Hill and we’ll ride up and down Ditchling Beacon to destruction, me on Brand A malt loaf and him on Brand B and the first one who is helpless in the ditch knows they got the short straw. Paul sniggers as he’s already got inside knowledge. This is going to be like me starring in Belleville Rendezvous, I can see it coming.

But I’m going to get my own back….with my own second consumer test. He he he.

Mythology has it that once upon a time, professionals with saddle sores rode by sitting on a steak, but is it true? Do you know anyone who does that?

Well I’m going to turn up at Paul’s with a couple of steaks. You pick, Paul, rump or braising steak. We’ll see who sits the longest, up and down and up and down Ditchling Beacon.

Then what? Ahh….well into the pan for a fry-up. Waste not want not as they say.

I guess the danger is that you suddenly find that you’re eating what was the other person’s former cushion…you know one pan with two steaks and someone spins it round by the handle.

No, I can’t do this to Paul. He’s a friend. He’s from Doncaster. So probably best to sucker some neutral soul down for the day with a promise of a barbecue…..someone famous…..

…..Charles Dunstone comes to mind. He could blog us, make us famous. Paul and I could chew on a sausage while the innocent soul chews on a verdict. Would I do that?

The christening went well, by the way, thanks in large to the non-appearance of the horde of gravy mongers from the north.

A non-cycling day so we had a walk through Reigate down a lovely pedestrianised narrow street and there was this pub, The Nutley Arms, with a strange sign, like guys hewing away in a salt mine, well near but not quite….

….see, the pub sits on the finest-grained sand in the whole country and if you’ve got an egg-timer then there’ll be some of these grains in it. In old times when it was quiet, see, the guys in the pub used to dive off underground and get on with some digging, tunnelling, whatever.

So if you meander into the Nutley Arms on a sunny day, with the doors wide open but no-one in sight to do any serving, then look for the open trap-door, lean over and holler.

There, you learn such a lot by reading this stuff.

Byeeeeee.