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"Whoever invented the bicycle deserves the thanks of humanity."
Lord Charles Beresford (1846-1919), British Admiral and Member of Parliament
Monday 27th August '07 - Just to prove he's not a complete Francophile, Mark represented letour2007 on the Sportive stage of the Tour of Britain yesterday under azure skies from Worcester to Wolverhampton, via lots of hills. Surely with a Grand Tour under his belt he could be up amongst the front runners ?
Uh...no. Despite 'only' 101 miles and 1776m of climbing (compared to Stage 16 of the tour which had rather proposterous 5755m) his legs fell off after 60 miles. All the benefits of those thousands of miles of the last few months seem to have evaporated already, it 's unbelievable how quickly form disappears. Legs felt worse on than they did throughout the Tour. Training is everything and I've already forgotten how hard cycling is if you don't do enough. Damn it.
Tuesday 14th August '07 - Some of the children in Guatemala benefiting from the charity have kindly sent Matt & Mark some pictures they have drawn of them on the ride.
This picture, drawn by Leonardo, is an impression of Mark in full ITT (Individual Time Trial) kit complete with aerodynamic helmet and double disc wheels.
This picture shows Matt and Mark finishing a stage in the mountains, complete with berets and WW1 flying goggles.
This one uses overhead perspective to depict Mark beating Matt to the line again (theme emerging here). Cheering crowds and the sun provide the backdrop.
Finally, this one shows Mark (once again) putting in a sprint finish to cross the line first, some flags fluttering from his bike. The sun, trees, verdant mountains and a giant England flag on the horizon completes the scene.
Sunday 5th August '07 - Mark has put together a short film using video taken during the ride, you can watch it here.
Monday 29th July '07 - If you wondered where we cycled...here's a good link.
Monday 23rd July '07 - Acknowledgements These people made letour2007 happen.
Sunday 22nd July '07 - letour2007 completed safely and no failed doping controls, missed tests or any other form of suspicion swirling around our riders. We almost certainly would have failed tests for excessive levels of fresh baguette sandwiches, pain-au-chocolate and coke, but luckily the UCI don't test for these yet.
Now back in Blighty, washing and catching up on correspondence. An epilogue will be written, stats posted, as will credits and more photos that we didn't get a chance to publish long the way. Stay tuned.
Wednesday 27th June '07 - The Prologue. All further updates on letour2007 can be found at here.
Tuesday 26th June '07 - The Le Tour Campervan is now collected (most of the Glastonbury mud washed off) and the plan is to arrive in London and ride the Prologue at about 7pm Wednesday evening. We will then head for a meal somewhere around Tooley Street (London Bridge). The prologue route and surrounding area can be seen here. It is likely we will cycle to the start from London Bridge and back.
The start on Thursday for Stage 1 from Greenwich to Canterbury will most likely be at 7am (we have 127miles to cycle and don't want to miss the ferry !)
Monday 25th June '07 - Kyle had an appointment 10.30am this morning for follow up x-rays* which is very convenient (and hospital is only 5 mins away). The other bonus is we also have access over the next few weeks to a fancy bone healing accelerante machine that Amy is using for her yet-to-fully-heal collar bone, let's see if we crank up the power a little bit. *note the tube valve in the image, still in Kyle's pocket.
The Garmin Edge cycle computer has been analysed. With the help of Motionbased you can extract remarkably detailed information. The ad-hoc board of enquiry has established that the crash occured at almost 37mph and it took less than four seconds for the bike to come to complete standstill at the side of the road, several meters from Kyle. At that sort of speed it is no wonder he's a little tender today and it could have been worse. I wonder if any of this will make the cat feel any better. Latest injury pics here.
Separate note - the first day of Wimbledon today, Mark's lawn will give you an idea of the typical UK June weather conditions. 7pm update..not typical, it's the wettest June since records began, up to a months rainfall in 24 hours. I'd better get my house on the market quick, I can now justifiably advertise it as a lakeside property.
Sunday 24th June '07 - Disaster. We had new jerseys, shorts and mitts provided by a sponsor, and Kyle has shredded one set already. And several parts of his body....
At approximately 5pm this evening, descending Cotgrave hill on a brief 'spin the legs' training ride in between rain storms, a large cat darted in front of Kyle's bike. We estimate he was somewhere between 35 and 40mph (haven't analysed the Garmin 'black-box' yet) on the descent and had simply had no chance to react. The cat went straight under the front wheel which caused him to somersault over the bars, land on his head/face and shoulder and then slide down the road.
The result is one broken collarbone, bruising to the back, a large graze on the face and several smaller road-rash grazes on legs, hands etc. The status of the cat is unknown, but Mark, riding about 10 metres behind, saw it somehow get to its feet and disappear into the undergrowth.
The initial aftermath of the crash was alarming, it involved (in order of appearance) an inert Kyle, Mark, an off-duty fireman, an off-duty nurse, a paramedic, police, an ambulance, oxygen, injections, headbrace, spinal stretcher as well as an A&E visit. Thankfully after examination and x-rays etc there are no more injuries involved other than the ones mentioned above, but it was a nasty and completely unlucky accident. The bike is relatively ok, the helmet did its job well, is cracked and has a chunk out of it.
The intial stages of the tour look to be out, but we all wish him a speedy recovery so that he can hopefully take some part. The unbelievable part to all this was that this was almost certainly the last training ride before the start on Wednesday. But the injuries could have been more serious, we consider ourselves lucky.
We had excellent treatment from the paramedic, ambulance and the Emergency Department at Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham. The UK's NHS gets its share of criticism and often we Brits take it for granted, but Kyle was very impressed with the speedy, effective and personal* treatment he received. Thank you to all involved (only blemish was they had his name as Kylie and female, including wristband with and 'F' on it, but hey-ho, details.....).
If only we had helmet-cam video of that crash.....it would have been a You-Tube classic. A couch, rest and numerous DVD's are on the agenda for the next couple of days.
* The nurses kept asking about normal resting heart rates and adjusting the monitoring machine as the alarms were going off for too slow a pulse, they said they don't often get patients as fit as Kyle !
Friday 22nd June '07 - The riders convene in Nottingham after being dispersed across the globe. Training is over, our Tour starts next week. I am pleased to report that no riders have failed, ahem...'medicals' in the run up to the tour.
Whatever happens now will be a story for recounting in the pub, good or bad, whether we make it or not. Very nervous, but excited too. Who's ridiculous idea was this again ? Various people (most of them cyclists worryingly) have estimated how many stages we'll make before packing.....shortest being three, average about six. Hopefully we can use these alarming predictions as an extra motivational incentive.
Also, a big thank you to everyone who has either left kind messages of support on this website, or we have bumped into in the past few months. Knowing that you are wishing us well and in many cases also supporting the charity will ensure that every last fatigued pedal revolution will be slightly easier to complete. Thank you.
Tuesday 15th May '07 - Amy and Mark complete the Kellogg's Tour of Ireland cycle challenge. A great event, full report here.
Friday 4th May '07 - Last day at work for Mark as he takes three months off to train for and ride the Tour de France route. The four day Tour of Ireland Sportive is next on the agenda.
The plan then includes the Nove Colli Marco Pantani in Italy and riding most major cols in the Pyrenees (France & Spain) as well as the Dolomites (Italy again) following the Giro d'Italia. Full details of the itinerary and reports from training rides will be linked from this website (blog here, summary here).
Thursday 3rd May '07 - Absolutely nothing to do with cycling, but this story is too good not to post.
Monday 30th April '07 - As more specific details of the stage routes are added to the official web-site, Matt is plotting the profile in Memory Map. So far the results make grim reading : the large number of categorised climbs on stages that aren't supposed to be hilly is a little worrying. For example, Stage 12 is not even classed as a medium mountain stage and has a climb at the end that goes from 200m to 973 ! That's bigger than the tallest road climb in the UK. Oh dear.
Sunday 29th April '07 - Another Sportive down, this time the 'White Horse Challenge' in Wiltshire. 90 miles or so, great weather as usual* and a gold finish time for Mark, silver for Matt. Report here.
*April has seen unusually fine weather in the UK. Every weekend has seen almost perfect cycling conditions, dry roads and warm, sometimes hot, sunshine. The ground is now as hard and dry as you would expect in June/July, if this is global warming it does have a side effect of producing good cycling conditions, great training weather for Le Tour.
Tuesday 24th April '07 - 'Russell in France' (as he is known on cycling forums) posts some typically great photos from an early season ride up the Romanche valley above Bourg d'Oisans. The Romanche is the home to l'Alpe d'Huez, the col du Lauteret and most significantly the col du Galibier which we'll be seeing lots of in July. Looks stunning in the sun with snow on the peaks.
Monday 23rd April '07 - More detail of the Tour route appears on the official website ! Lots of e-mails with exclamation marks in them were sent this morning as a result. Now some serious planning needs to happen to thread the route across all 2000 miles of Britain and France to spot any issues and load it into GPS. We can deviate off of trunk roads if they are likely to be too busy, but there's not much we can do about the climbs (two fourth category climbs on stage 1 !). The timings that the pros are expected to ride the parcours are also listed, think we can safely ignore that information.
Seeing the actual names of the roads we'll be riding has suddenly made this whole thing come alive a little, excitement and nerves are building.
Sunday 22nd April '07 - Matt & Mark complete The Hereward The Wake sportive. 106 miles, mostly flat, more details in the training section. I didn't recall who Hereward The Wake was precisely, but I've done some research. Apparently he roamed the Lincolnshire fens (location of this ride) as an outlaw resisting William the Conqueror. More info here.
Sunday 15th April '07 - Matt & Mark complete the knee destroying Lakeland Loop sportive, well almost. Full Report here. It doesn't get any steeper than this......I hope.
- Paris-Roubaix today, O'Grady won, but check out this amusing picture which shows what happens to your head when you race in a pack over dusty cobbles for 160 miles in upper 20's heat (in April !?).
Tuesday 10th April '07 - Amy back on a bike and riding big distances - great news.
Monday 9th April '07 - The Ronde Van Vlaanderen Sportive completed, full report here.
Wednesday 4th April '07 - Matt and Mark take on the killer cobbled classic route of the Ronde Van Vlaanderen this Saturday. A full report will follow, wish us luck in Flanders !
Sun 25th March 2007 - First event of the year completed by Matt and Mark - the Cheshire Cat Sportive. Here is a full report.
Thurs 8th March 2007 - Amy breaks collar bone in training crash. She's ok, the injuries will heal, but sadly not quick enough for the long-prepared-for Ironman. This will hurt more than just physically, but if anyone can bounce back from this, Amy can. We all wish her the best for a speedy recovery.
Mon 26th Feb 2007 - Jan Ullrich retires from pro cycling...the end of an era. Here's a tribute to 'Der Kaiser', I'm quite sad that we will never see him turning some enormo gear up a climb again.
Wed 21st Feb 2007 - Details on how to sponsor the challenge are posted on the sponsorship page - get involved !
Tues 13th Feb 2007 - Kyle back on a bike...how did he do it with a cast on his foot ? See Training.
Sat 10th Feb 2007 - Significant snowfall (but nothing compared to upstate New York) has put a rather slushy dampener on this weekends riding. Lots of people got stuck in the Birmingham area/Peak District apparently. Oh well, at least we have a top of the range Tacx trainer which is actually quite good fun (see training section).
Thurs 8th Feb 2007 - Cycling Weekly publish a detailed map of the prologue & Stage 1, nice. Just need the same for the other 1870 miles.
Fri 2nd Feb 2007 - Geoff Thomas announces he is riding the Tour route again this year, a sponsored ride with others making the most of the English stage publicity. Not sure exactly when he's doing it, but we will have some people to share preparation tips with.
Geoff will be leading a team of nine riders including three or four other cancer survivors and he's made contact with a couple of people who are up for the challenge. He is also expecting a high-profile celebrity to join them for the 21 stages of the race. Personally I suspect it may be James Cracknell*...not sure if he counts as a 'celebrity'...but you read it here first if it is him. (Ahem..since been confirmed as Ian Wright for 7 stages)
* James Cracknell rode the 2006 Tour of Britain route in 3 days ! So he's a strong cyclist and would be up for the challenge I suspect.
Wed 31st Jan 2007 - British Cycling have announced first details of the 'English Etape', a mega sportive over the 117 mile first stage of the 2007 Tour De France. Unfortunately we do the same course a few days earlier, so unless timings are changed we'll have to miss out on this event - damn.
Mon 29th Jan 2007 - I was sent this clip of cyclists in NYC today, pretty mad, not recommended training for Tour hopefuls, probably wouldn't make it to July....
Sun 28th Jan 2007 - Looks like a kit sponsor may have come up trumps. The deal isn't confirmed, but a colleague at a supplier has indicated that it may be possible - an update to come. Kit looks quite good too !
Fri 20th Jan 2007 - Amy's last day at work and a night out to celebrate/reminisce before six months of fun travelling the world leading up to Le Tour. She went to bed early to go cycling the next day. Good work (if a little keen).
Mon 15th Jan 2007 - News Flash ! - The Marmotte has been entered by Kyle, Amy (by Kyle), Mark reluctantly and I guess Matt will enter too. This is complete madness as it's one of the toughest races around and we'll be doing it in the middle of the Tour de France. But, the timings were too good to ignore (it just happened to be on the same time we were in the area) and by compressing the prologue and the first stage we can put in a sneaky rest day before the Marmotte on the 7th July.
We appreciate we are biting way more off than we can chew here, especially as we'll have to go back over the Galibier again to Briancon the next day on stage 9, but we've rolled the dice, let's see if we are lucky. We've not scheduled another rest day other than the official one in the Pyrenees...so the challenge just got that little bit harder. Ouch.
Mon 15th Jan 2007 - The precise route for the opening stages of the 2007 Tour de France in England has been announced.
The prologue on Saturday 7 July starts in Whitehall and goes down Victoria Street and Buckingham Gate before cutting through Green Park. The riders will then race a loop through Hyde Park before finishing back on The Mall. Stage one on Sunday begins in central London and heads out through the south east of the capital to Dartford.The route then goes through Gravesend, Medway, Maidstone, Tonbridge, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Tenterden and Ashford before finishing by Canterbury Cathedral. More details here.
Wed 10th Jan 2007 - Kyle Yost reports an ankle diagnosis of a torn ligament and bone marrow edema (essentially stress fracture), so will be waylaid a few months. Tough luck.
Sun 7th Jan 2007 - Matt Denman confirms that his Dad will drive the campervan for the first two weeks of the Tour - awesome !