Friday 9 July 2010

Rest Day in Morzine

No riding for me today, this has been my scheduled rest day in Morzine before the major Alpine stage of The Tour. Major according to the official route book that is, they all look pretty major from where I'm sitting.

The option existed today to ride part of tomorrow's stage and then to complete the stage tomorrow, so essentially to ride on the rest day and then do a shorter version of tomorrow's stage tomorrow. I did not want to do this as I felt it was not in the spirit of the ride and would not truly fit in with my plan to try to ride The Tour doing each stage as the pro riders do, though much slower! Anyway, I've made my decision and I'm now committed to the full stage tomorrow, as planned, and as per the schedule.

The weather is still horribly hot so as I've had a rest day today and have eaten well and just loafed about I should be starting with half a chance tomorrow. I even managed to watch some of The Tour on TV today, well done Cavendish on a fine stage win, superbly set up by Mr Renshaw.

Anyway, I digress. As I've rested up a bit I am going to change things a bit and try to get off to an ultra early start tomorrow to try to get over the first three climbs before the heat gets utterly unbearable. Bit like the desert really, travel when it's not so hot and then rest up in the heat of the day. The plan is for a very early night and then to be on the road by around 05:30 if possible.

I've got muesli in my room so I can have something decent to eat before I set off and I've been out and bought some little cakes and things I can also have before I go. The other benefit of this, I think, is that it should be safer as the tar on the roads is currently melting in some spots so riding when it's cooler should also avoid this problem for most of the ride.

I'm hoping that this will give me enough time to be up at least most of the Col de Saisies by around 10:30 or so. From there it's a descent to the foot of the huge obstacle of the Col de Madeleine and I'll just have to try to winch myself up that as best I can.

So, that's the plan for tomorrow, who knows how it will pan out but at least I have a plan!

Photographs from Today:

Look who's coming to Morzine!
Yellow everywhere, The Tour is coming to town.
View towards where I finished at Avariaz yesterday, the tiny plateau on the central skyline :-/

Today's Weather:

Once again very hot, The Tour riders were suffering today and even changing clothes mid ride. The tourist information office says 33-35 degrees and describes it as "scorching" – which it is.

1 comment:

  1. When you get back you can compare your data to the pros (you were probably going to do this anyway).

    http://www.screencast.com/users/HunterAllen/folders/Jing/media/7af19cb3-4e6a-419d-a382-1dc6d509d8d3

    Hope your rest day worked well for what's coming up..

    hip

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