Hello November!

October sucked! There is really no other way to put it – I don’t think I’ve ever seen as cold and rainy an October as this one. I try not to be too much of a wimp when it comes to weather – wet is fine, cold is fine, wet and cold is a drag! The first 10 days of the month were mostly off the bike due to travel, and the three weeks since have been much more touch and go than I am used to or happy with. Still, I’ve managed to get in a good BugMan®-type ride each of the past three weekends, and while the first two were fun, I would have enjoyed them more had the weather been a little sunnier and the roads a little drier. 

Well, November is here, and this weekend has ushered in truly spectacular fall weather – dry, sunny, mild, and with tolerably light winds.  Best of all, it looks like it might actually stay with us for at least the next week or so.  What a glorious weekend I had for weekend 3 of my Étape du Tour 2010 training plan.  The BugMan route has gotten a little longer lately, as a bridge replacement on Hardt is forcing me to take a long detour from my house to pick up the route on Melrose, but I have taken advantage of that opportunity to incorporate a climb up Woodland Meadows (the easier westward climb – not the insanely brutal eastward climb!).  Today’s route was made even longer still by flooding from the Meramac River on Marshall Road.  I did not want to cut out the Marshall climb, so I detoured along Dougherty Ferry, added the short but sharp Highland climb up to Big Bend, then blasted down through Timberlake to pick up Marshall right at the foot of the climb (with the Meramac waters lapping just a few yards away).  I ended today’s ride at 72 miles, with 12 big climbs and 4,600 feet of ascent in just over 4 hours.  I felt good to the end, although it’s still a far cry from the 109 miles and ~14,000 feet of ascent (but only 3 climbs ) that I will have to do in the Étape next July.

To the throngs of cyclists that I saw on the roads today, I have only one question – where have all you sissies been the past few weekends?!

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2009

Can you do this on your fixie?

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2009

L’Étape du Tour Mondovélo 2010 – Official Route

It’s official – the 18th edition of l’Étape du Tour Mondovélo will take place on Sunday, July 18th, 2010.  I am so there!

The event will take place on the Tour de France Stage 17 route – starting in the city of Pau and climbing three monuments of the Pyrénées: the Col de Marie-Blanque, the Col du Soulor and the giant Col du Tourmalet, for a total distance of 174 km.

Km 57.5 – Col de Marie-Blanque – 9.5 km climb to 7.5 %
Km 118.5 – Col du Soulor par Ferrières – 22 km climb to 4.9 %
Km 174 – Col du Tourmalet par Barèges – 19 km climb to 7.4 %

I am pleased with this route – even though there are only three climbs (there were five when I last did l’Étape in 2007), climbing the Marie Blanque and the Soulor (both Category 1 climbs) before the hors categorie Tourmalet will be grueling nonetheless.  The route goes up the brutal western flank of the Tourmalet, which gets steeper near the top with long stretches above 12 percent and the last 100m or so at 15 percent.  This will ensure that finishing will itself be an accomplishment, regardless of time.  Climbing won’t start until after almost 50 km, so it could be crowded for awhile after the start.  However, a hard first climb like the Marie-Blanque should thin things out enough to make for a safe descent (unlike in 2007 – I felt like a pinball trying to descend the category 2 Col de Port amongst all the “fredtards”).  A better start number will also help, which I should get based on my previous performance (so I won’t have to start near the very back again).   A few days later the Tour itself will cover the same route, climbing the Tourmalet for the second time in as many days (it climbs the eastern flank in Stage 16) and – for only the second time in history – finishing atop the mountain (the first time was in 1974).  I’m also pleased with the date of the event – only one week before the final stage in Paris.  This will make it much easier to plan a trip starting with l’Étape and ending in Paris.  The 2007 edition was on the first Monday rest day of the Tour, which made for a long (and expensive) stay in France.

Go to the Official site, but for now what you see above is about as much detail as you will find anywhere.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2009

2009 Tour of Missouri – Stage 7

Okay, so this is really late; what can I say, life gets in the way.

I’m a lucky guy – my wife is almost as much into watching pro bike racing as I am. She loves the Tour de France, watching every minute of the live coverage of every stage along with me for the past several years now. She has also joined me in watching the local stages of the Tour of Missouri since it’s inception in 2007. Since the wife likes to watch, the kids come along too. Let’s call her “AW” for awesome wife (term shamelessly stolen from Alex Watcher)! This year, after watching the opening ToM stage in St. Louis, AW and I traveled to Kansas City with the kids in tow to watch the final stage. We arrived well in advance of the start to ensure that we had enough time to visit all the vendors (the kids love the free stuff!), and after some debate about where we wanted to watch the race we both decided that we really wanted to be as close as possible to the start/finish line. We found a spot on the barriers ~50m past the line and setup up our chairs – much to the chagrin I’d imagine of the latecomers who found us unwilling to just pack up and let them squeeze in.

I got some pretty good pictures of a few of my favorite racers, including all-around tough guy Jens Voigt (Team Saxo Bank), racing again after his horrific crash in this year’s Tour de France:

Jens Voigt - Team Saxo Bank

…green jersey wearer Thor Hushhovd (Cervelo Test Team), my favorite sprinter because of his versatility (fast sprints, uphill sprints, and even prologues) and badass name (if I ever have a son, I’m naming him Thor):

Thor Hushhovd - Cervelo Test Team

…and overall race leader David Zabriskie (Garmin-Slipstream), probably my favorite time trialist outside of Fabian Cancellara:

David Zabriskie - Garmin-Slipstream

It was fun seeing all the top names lined up in the front row at the start of the race – view the gallery below and see if you can pick out this year’s TdF best climber jersey winner Franco Pellizotti (Liquigas), 2007 TdF podium-finisher Levi Leipheimer (Astana), best climber Moises Aldape Chavez (Team Type 1), overall race leader David Zabriskie, Thor Hushhovd, Stage 6’s most aggressive rider Jeremy Hunt (Cervelo Test Team), U.S. road champion George Hincapie (Team Columbia-HTC), and the disgraced but ever-popular Floyd Landis (Ouch Presented By Maxxis):

2009 Tour of Missouri - Stage 7 start

I tried like heck to get a good photo of Hincapie, resplendant in his beautiful national champion jersey, but the best I could do was the distant images at the start (above) and this photo taken while he chatted with Levi mid-race:

Levi Leipheimer and George Hincapie chat during the race

Sprint phenom Mark Cavendish (Team Columbia-HTC) had to withdraw after winning Stages 1 and 2, but he stuck around for the duration of the race, and I was able to catch a few photos of him chatting with Paul Sherwin and Frankie Andreau in the broadcast tent:

I was happy when my man Thor got the victory in Stage 3, and I was hoping to see him close it out with a victory in the final stage as well on his way to securing the green jersey in the final classification. Martin Gilbert (Planet Energy) had other ideas, however, and took the stage, and Floyd’s teammate Andrew Pinfold (Ouch Presented By Maxxis) nipped the big Norwegian at the line for 2nd place. In retrospect, I was glad to see a domestic squad take such a high-profile win. Click on the image below to see a gallery of photos from the finish:

2009 Tour of Missouri - Stage 7 finish!

As we were walking back to the car after the stage, I embarrassed my older daughter by calling out to the different riders that I recognized as they went by on their way down from the team busses. Someday she’ll understand.

Copyright © Ted C. MacRae 2009

L’Étape du Tour 2010 – rumor update

As I mentioned in my last post, I am planning a return to France next year to ride l’Étape du Tour. I did the 2007 edition (Foix to Loudenvielle) and finished top 500 with a silver medal time – and beat Greg Lemond (true – read it!).  A silver medal time, however, is not a gold medal time – unfinished business! The 2007 edition was unrelentingly difficult due to its length (120 mi) and 5 mountain passes (totaling 14k feet of ascent) that included the Cat1 Col de Menté and Col de Peyresourde and the H.C. Col du Port de Balès – it was a crushing, grueling route… and I loved it!  It is considered by many to have been the most difficult Étape ever held.  I’m hoping the 2010 edition will another hard stage – even finishing seems like an accomplishment, and multiple climbs throughout the stage also works to thin out the crushing crowds early enough to make some elbow room for the bulk of the stage. Compare this to the feedback I heard from this past year’s Étape, which was that the route was too easy leading up to the one real climb of the day – Mont Ventoux - resulting in a clog of riders all coming in to the climb together. 

In a comment to my previous post, Jim mentioned rumors that the 2010 route will be from Luchon-du-Bagneres to the top of the Col d’Aubisque, with climbs up the Col de Peyresourde, Col d’Aspin, Col du Tourmalet, and of course Col d’Aubisque.  Following up on that comment, I found the Steephill.tv Bike Travelogue website, which is keeping track of 2010 Tour de France rumors.  In their September 15 update they reported this:

Paddy Sweeney of Velo Peloton Vacances cyclisme has in sent some new 2010 Tour de France route scoop: “Stage finish on Col d’Aubisque on 21st July after crossing Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet and Soulor. Tour crossed same mountains on 21st July 1910… That’s 4 mountain top finishes in the Pyrenees. Others still talking about Luz Ardiden and Col du Spandells and Argeles-Gazost. A lot of hotel bookings for 20, 21 , 22 in and around Pau. I would not be surprised if the stage to Col d’Aubisque is also the Etape de Tour.”

Jim appears to be right about the rumored route (maybe this is where he saw it).  Though not as long as in 2007 (~85 miles), it resembles the 2007 route in its five mountain passes – both including the Col de Pyresourde! In addition, as a “Centennary Stage”, there will be a huge sense of history to go along with the Etape experience itself if, indeed, this route is used for the Étape.

Like 2007, I’ll ride the Étape and then stay through to the end of the Tour, watching the final stage in Paris from the Grandstand (our seats were at 125m to go!).  Unlike 2007, my wife will travel with me from the start rather than meeting up with me for the final week (although I haven’t yet talked her into riding the Etape!).  The latest Steephill update shows the following dates for the last 8 stages of the Tour:

17 July: Rodez – Revel
18 July: Revel – Luchon
19 July: Rest Day
20 July: Bagnéres de Luchon – Col de Aubisque
21 July: Tourmalet ITT
22 July: Pau – Arette
23 July: Pau – Bordeaux
24 July: Bordeaux ITT
25 July: Paris

Two ITTs – one up the Tormalet, and a few days later a traditional, longer, penultimate stage ITT! How great is that?! Of course, things can change, but we will know within the next couple of weeks when the official route announcement is made.

Happy training!

Copyright Ted C. MacRae 2009