“It takes all day to train all day” Gordo Byrn circa 2004
While it wasn’t exactly what Gordo was referring to in the quote above, today was definitely an epic day on many fronts. With the last several days temperatures running in the mid to high 30s C, it was a bit of a shock to the system to awake to rain and 11C. Heading out of Andorra when I failed to warm up after a 10km climb I added winter gloves and a heavy rain jacket.
I was frozen by the time we started the 16.5km climb to the high point of our camp route d’Envalira. It was pouring rain and 8C at the top according to my bike computer.
With my “bad weather gear” in my bike bag which, along with my bike, is still MIA after 8 days (thank you Air France!) I only had true winter riding gear. In retrospect this actually turned out to be lucky as O bundled up with a winter jersey, winter jacket and a thick rain jacket on top and lobster claw winter gloves. Despite all the gear I still froze and couldn’t feel my brake levers on the long descent from d’Envalira into France. There were multiple shorter climbs varying from 4-8km which got some blood flowing and eventually I warmed up as the rain slowed. We were give the option of following the original 180km over several more climbs or taking the valley road to Ptades which would shorter things to 140. George, Phil, John and myself chose to follow the planned route.
The climbs were awesome small untracked roads but to combination of lots of climbing and very technical descents slowed the average pace considerably. I was hoping to add 30km of riding once in Prades to get the 2 bonus pints for going over 200km and also the additional pint for going over 210km. I was wondering if this was going to be possible considering how slow the progress was today.
Then my Garmin Edge 830 started to be very sluggish to respond and it was taking 30-60s to switch between screens. This meant I was having to pause at intersections to figure out which direction to turn, slowing progress even further.
Then I noticed that my rear derailleur was also behaving very sluggish and it wa taking 2-3 shifts of the lever to change one gear up or down, not a good sign. On a long descent about 130km into the ride the derailleur stopped shifting all together and I was stuck in the smallest cog on my cassette. A million things were going through my head…could I fix this…I wasn’t going to make it to Prades before the 8:30pm cut off time…I wasn’t going to be able to run to achieve “camp completion today”…I was going to have to run with the bike just to get over the last few climbs as there was no way I could push a 34-11T gear up a 9% climb!!!
Then I saw Oli Jenner in the support car up ahead. We tried to fix the shifting but it didn’t seem to be a loose or stretched cable. Fortuitously Thierry Bessede’s “spare bike” happened to be in car and we were able to swap over my pedals and adjust the saddle down enough to make the bike rideable. It is a very nice bike, just about two sizes too big for me so I was in a very stretched out position.
The only other issue was the lack of a mount for Garmin bike computer, which I was relying heavily on to navigate the correct route. I was having to pull the Garmin out of my jersey pocket at every intersection, not the best way to keep a rhythm going and not the smartest thing to be descending down tiny twisty roads with a Garmin in one hand. With the Garmin in my jersey pocket somehow it locked up completely and permanently stuck on the elevation screen.
Now I was having to navigate with the paper map and turn by turn directions. The problem was without the Garmin to display distance I was having to guess which turn I was on as they were all based on distance ridden. I got completely turned around and luckily met up with Phil Paterson and with Oli driving in the support car I got back on the correct route. I felt good on the last climb and picked up the pace a bit, but then was on my own again to navigate to the hotel. Then I realized that somehow with all the back and forth of phone and Garmin into and out of my jersey pocket I had lost the ziplock bag with my map, credit card, and fifty euros cash. What else was going to go wrong today??
I found the hotel on my phone and as the skies opened up again and started pouring I arrived at the hotel. It was 5:40pm which meant I had just under 2 hours to obtain extra points by riding further, as there are 2 points bonus for riding 200km I decided to add another 20km. The D35 ended up being a “relatively flattish” tertiary road so I rode until it really started kicking up. I was guessing it was ~5km when I turned so I did that out-and-back twice. When I arrived back at the hotel and hit the stop button my Garmin read 202km. I was about to put my running gear on when a voice in my head said “8 km gains you another point”. Luckily David Lock offered to grab me an Em’s bar and some water and off I went down D35 one more time.
Back at the hotel, I changed and headed off for a 10km run. I was focusing on form, and what it was going to be like to run 42.2km off the bike at Ironman Mt. Tremblant in 3 weeks time. The thought never even crossed my mind to do the run mainset of 7x1km at threshold pace, which is what the wiley veterans Phil Paterson and John Newsom were doing for an additional 2points. Good on ya boys!!
It was 8pm by the time arrived back at the hotel.
Totals for the day:
210.7km riding
10km running
1 broken derailleur, 1 dysfunctional Garmin, lost credit card/map/ 50 euros.
Thanks go out to Oli for being at the right place at the right time with a spare bike to allow me to keep riding today. Thanks to Thierry Bessede for brining his spare bike and allowing me to ride it. A big tip of the hat to Phil Paterson who was alert enough to see my zip-lock bag on the road and he was able to retrieve my credit card, map and 50euros.
Training time: 9hrs57min
A truly EPIC DAY!!
Epic Camp France 2019 