Part 2 - A Rough Guide to Cycling the Tour de France Route

Description

Training for an ultra marathon cycling event takes time, dedication and a great deal of effort. Sadly with only 3 weeks till the start of the event my back was against the wall.

In 2007 I rode the entire route 1 day ahead of the professionals and thought I would put together an overview of my trip and provide some pointers for others tempted to tackle a stage or the whole route. This is part 2 of a series of articles documenting my story. To read Part 1

I made the initial decision to ride the route, but what I hadn’t decided was which day to ride. There are basically 3 options, each has advantages and disadvantages.

Option 1 is to Ride the stage the pro peloton is riding on the same day. The advantage of this is that the roads are generally closed to traffic, there are loads of cyclists doing the same thing and lots of road side spectators to cheer you on. The disadvantage is that you are under constant time pressure. This is because the French authorities close the roads to EVERYBODY about 2 hour before the peloton is due to come through each section. This means that it is all to easy to get stopped in your tracks and be unable to finish a stage (as happened to Paul Howard in “Riding High”).

Option 2 is to ride the stage at a different time to the actual tour such as 1 week before or after. The advantage of this is that you have as much time on a given day to finish a stage, you can also take extra rest days, spreading the tour over more days then the pro peloton. Again this takes alot of pressure off and mitigates some of the problems ...

Original URL

http://crazyjourneys.com/2009/11/part-2-a-rough-guide-to-riding-the-tour-de-france-route/

http://crazyjourneys.com/2009/11/part-2-a-rough-guide-to-riding-the-tour-de-france-route/