Thursday, 4 July 2013

Stage 12 - Fougeres to Tours

The Long and (not) Winding Road

This year's Tour De France has many beautiful and wonderful stages meandering through fantastic scenery.  And this one. At 134 miles, it was a long stage and despite the lack of classified climbs, it undulated up and down 5,500 feet over its length - but it was the straightness of the road that was amazing - disappearing 5, 10km into the distance.  I think everybody found it a trial and was glad to arrive.
The road goes south-east

I was in a quite a large group for most of the day - the second group on the road.  It consisted of several people who should be in such a group (such as me - provided it was a flat day), plus quite a number of the fastest riders who just couldn't be bothered to ride hard today.
From Left to right (click the picture to enlarge):  Slyvain, Jamie, Elton, John, Doc Col, Gareth, Matt, Tim, Paul, Simon, Larry, Chris, Phil, Sean, me and Luke.

Incidentally I gave a brief talk to everybody last night about Chiltern Lighthouse Mentoring which seemed to be well receieved.  I think many of the guys would make great mentors, but there aren't many charities like ours around.  Food for Thought.

Strava link here