France Cycling Tour Experience

Bike n Bean customer Simone Giuliani was lucky enough to take a trip to France this year to cycle some of the spectacular climbs of the French Alps and Pyrenees as well as watch a couple of stages of the Tour de France. Here she tells us a little about the trip.

Traversing Tour de France territory

The sweat had been dripping off me for hours, I was beyond talking and couldn't contemplate looking up to the top of the climb for fear that my legs would seize up if I thought beyond the next pedal stroke. Had this been anywhere else I would have stopped for a rest long ago but this was the Tourmalet in the French Pyrenees. If it wasn't hard, really hard, I would be disappointed. If it wasn't hard it wouldn't be one of the climbs that regularly sees breathtaking battles among the Tour de France's top contenders and if it wasn't hard it wouldn't be worth traveling halfway around the world to ride.

The 2115 metre Tourmalet was the final big climbing test of a trip with the affable crew at Topbike Tours, which took us to mountains steeped in Tour de France history. For ten days we gorged ourselves on the beautiful food, scenery and most importantly the breathtaking but challenging rides. There was the Alpe d'Huez with its 21 hairpin bends, the Col de Serenne with its unspoiled alpine views and the bare lunar like landscape of Mount Ventoux. Still for me making it up the Tourmalet’s east side was the toughest climb of all and, because of this, probably the most memorable.

The ascent started with a ride out of the  village of Arreau and over the 1490 metre high Col d'Aspin, where we dodged the far from road wary cows and took in the intimidating view of the Tourmalet off in the distance. The refreshing down hill run from the Col d’Aspin to the base of the Tourmalet meant I took on the early slopes of this climb with plenty of enthusiasm. I decided to test my legs and lungs by switching my climbing pace from its usual very slow, to just slow.

After nearly two hours of riding up this monstrous mountain pass in the baking sun my enthusiasm was well dampened, just like my sweat soaked jersey. I had long ago stopped chatting to the patient Topbike guide who was sitting at the back of the group to make sure everyone was okay and when my faster and fitter husband popped down from the top to ask if I was all right all I could reply with was an exhausted nod. Still I was determined that my resolve to make it to the top without stopping would hold firm, even as the gradient kept flicking up to around ten percent. When it all seemed too much some writing on the road cheering on the Schleck's or Contador would remind me that I was riding up one of the legendary battlegrounds of the Tour de France, where just giving up is never an option. There was also nothing like looking out to the incredible top of the world view of the jagged snow capped Pyrenees peaks against a dazzling blue sky to provide a little extra inspiration.

Eventually, many kilometers after I had hopefully started looking for the top, the giant silver colored statue of a cyclist hunched over and grimacing with pain that marked the end of the climb was in sight. I accelerated slightly and made it to the highest point with heaving lungs and legs that started to give way when they touched the ground. I felt terrible, but just for a moment, and I couldn't have been happier. It may have taken me a long two hours to climb a measly 17 kilometres, but I had gained around 1300 meters of altitude as quickly as I possibly could and had also gained perhaps just a little more understanding of what type of torture professional riders inflict on themselves to race over climb after climb like this, day after day.

This experience during a pre Tour de France riding trip through the Alps and Pyrenees encouraged me to yell with much more gusto when, a few days later, we stood on the side of the road in the French countryside during the first week of the tour and watched the peleton fly past. Back home, it was also with much more appreciation that I watched the television coverage of the mountain stages as now I knew how long and steep what they were riding really was. Most of all it was with much more admiration that I watched BMCs Cadel Evans hold his rivals at bay on those tough climbs.

With an Australian cyclist I had long admired riding into Paris in yellow it was one heck of a year to wallow in the Tour de France by taking the dream trip to see the race and ride some of the mountains that make it great. Then again, with the delicious food, the relentlessly picturesque scenery, the incredible riding and the world's most famous bike race to watch, I can't imagine that there could be a bad year to go.