The Prologue

So I am finally on my way! Riding the prologue route of the Tour de France route is not as easy as it sounds and I knew this would be the case, even knowing exactly the route and the start and finish points. Of course the roads are not closed and the real fun thing is that the route for the most part will be ridden by the pro peloton on the "wrong" side of the road, clearly this cannot be done with roads open to traffic :-)

The thing to do was to use the excellent cycle lanes and follow the route which as it happened had been kindly marked out on the tarmac by the organisers. We just took a very easy potter along the route, the Erasmusbrug in particular is an amazing feat of engineering and will make a wonderful setting for the start of the Tour de France on Saturday.

For the time being at least I am ahead of the pros, long may that continue! The plan now is to just catch up with a bit of housekeeping and plan for the days ahead. Great to meet up with Ben from SKINS today which we managed without too much difficulty. Today was not really a true test of the SKINS clothing I'm using for The Tour but certainly for this very short ride they couldn't be faulted at all, very nice gear, will report on performance tomorrow.

The plan for tomorrow is to be on the road by about 08:30 so an early night tonight before the very long stage down to Bruxelles tomorrow, I wonder if we will have a tailwind all the way or just most of it? ;-) I wish! Have today identified (by riding to it from the city centre) a suitable starting point on the route which will allow us to miss the city centre traffic in the morning rush period. This arrangement will work well and will allow us to get off to a much better start and we have already ridden the few kilometres involved.

On we go! Let's hear it for the Silver Cyclists!

Photographs from Today:

Ready for lift off on the SKINS Tour de Velo.
Road marker at the prologue finish line.
Prologue completed.

Today's Weather:

Quite windy, sunny, and unexpectedly warm.

Ride Time: 00:36 hh:mm
Cumulative Tour Time: 00:36 hh:mm
Work Done: 211kJ
Training Stress Score: 13.3
Intensity Factor: 0.466
Normalised Power: 142W
Variability Index: 1.48
Ride Distance: 6.99 miles
Cumulative Tour Distance: 6.99 miles
Elevation Gain: 291 feet
Cumulative Tour Elevation Gain: 291 feet
Maximum Power: 714W
Average Power: 96W
Average Heart Rate: 107bpm
Average Speed - True: 11.5mph
Acute Training Load: 44.2
Chronic Training Load: 81.2
Training Stress Balance: 34.7