Stage 1

Stage one of the Tour ridden and all has gone well but it took a long time and it was very hot. Take heed anyone coming to The Netherlands cycling, the use of the cycling routes is not an option it is MANDATORY, as I was informed by the police on two occasions when I strayed onto the proper roads :-/

As you can imaging this makes it impossible to follow the route of The Tour exactly as the cycle routes are often not that close at all to the actual route which will be taken by the peloton but there is nothing that can be done about that! Anyway, the main inconvenience was to us as it made navigation a lot more difficult as well as making the ride significantly longer, but hey, I never thought this was going to be easy!

The heat was a major factor today as well as the wind off the sea which was never really helpful and was often a significant hindrance. However, on the +ve side I actually felt absolutely fine today both during the ride and at the end and was particularly pleased with the comfort offered by the SKINS C400 bibshorts which performed extremely well, probably the most important item of clothing I have with me.

As you can see above some memorable images which will stay with me for years, and all in all a memorable day. Good meal this evening and am hoping for an earlier finish tomorrow with more time to relax and recover. For now it's on with the recovery tights and hoping for another good ride on stage 2 tomorrow, much more hills to deal with but I'm hoping the wind might not be so much of an issue and also we won't have the cycle paths problem to deal with. 143 miles on cycle tracks, that's just unreal!

More tomorrow.

Photographs from Today:

Flowers in the Netherlands countryside.
Netherlands sea defences.
Here comes The Tour!
Finishing straight in Brussels.

Today's Weather:

Windy, unfortunately mostly a headwind. Very hot – between 30 and 35 degrees all day.

Ride Time: 10:46 hh:mm
Cumulative Tour Time: 11:23 hh:mm
Work Done: 5029kJ
Training Stress Score: 337
Intensity Factor: 0.576
Normalised Power: 176W
Variability Index: 1.28
Ride Distance: 142.6 miles
Cumulative Tour Distance: 149.59 miles
Elevation Gain: 4018 feet
Cumulative Tour Elevation Gain: 4309 feet
Maximum Power: 659W
Average Power: 137W
Average Heart Rate: 131bpm
Average Speed - True: 13.2mph
Acute Training Load: 76.8
Chronic Training Load: 87.3
Training Stress Balance: 36.9