Your Own Personal Tour de France

There is something about being a cyclist that says if it doesn't hurt, it can't be too hard. Of course, it is true that when the cycling is hard, it usually hurts. It hurts to breath, the lactic acid builds up and muscles ache, and with time everything else can start to ache. Look at the RAAM riders later this week - everything will hurt so bad, they won't even feel pain anymore. (OF course, I wouldn't know since I haven't done anything remotely extreme as RAAM). Before I go on, I have to say that in accordance with previous posts, I don't view "fabios" as the ideal cyclists. I firmly believe in Freds; they are the much nicer of the two. And let me add, that the cycling world is made up of many types of cyclists - ALL GOOD! Anybody on a bike has got the right idea - so I would never knock it!

Now, having been PC, and reinforced my advocacy of cycling; lets talk about our new tour "Your own Personal Tour de France". As you might guess from the opening line above, this isn't for anyone. I can already picture the clients - middle age men and women like me looking to chalk up some more "victories" - aka - personal achievements. Our Tour de France tours and as well our French Alpes, Mont Ventoux, and Pyrenees cycling tours are popular because of what the rider can say when its over! Anyone who rides on these routes is going to suffer; but apparently the suffering is a worthwhile pursuit. That is a bit extreme. There are worse examples of course - like trying to climb Everest when you have more money than brains. At least doing this, its much more difficult to get killed.

We have organize this new tour to ride Alpe d'Huez, Galibier, Mont Ventoux, Tourmalet, Luz Ardiden, and Hautacam, among some other less know cols in France - all in one week on one tour. Now, as going on a tour to the Tour de France has become quite popular, it is still not possible in most cases to ride all these in the same tour. Why? Because the TOUR de France takes more time to cross the mountains with a few days in between and most companies give the choice of ranges, not usually both. If you are still unitiated in the TOUR de France, then let me say that they ride 200+ km per day in these ranges including massive peaks such as these and they are hammering each other all the way. We will ride these routes, but at our slower, older pace, and at a much lower mileage.

Now, if you made it this far into this entry, then you must be fascinated by the idea this tour offers. You can read about the tour at the link but, let me describe how it might go at the weekend club ride:

"I'm off to France to ride the big mountains of the Tour de France."
"Wow, cool, which one are going to ride?"
"All of them."
"Uh, what do you mean, all of them?"
"Uh, I mean, I'm going to ride Alpe d'Huez, Galibier, Ventoux, Tourmalet, Luz Ardiden, Hautacam next week. I'll bring you a photo from each."
"duh....."