Etape du Tour 2011 Acte 2 ride report - Issoire to St Flour

The weekend before last I did the Etape Du Tour Acet 2 from Issoire To St Flour. It was a 40th birthday pressie from my wife. She actually had a got a place in Acte 1 (the 109 km stage taking in the Galiber and Alpe d'Huez). Even though it didn't have any of the classic climbs in it I went for acte 2 as I didn't see the point in spending lots of money and four days travelling to do a 60 mile bike ride, no matter how hilly and doing both was not an option on the table ;o). So Acte 2 it was. For those that don't know Issoire to St Flour was the one were Vino came off and broke his femur, Hoogerland crashed, and Voeckler took yellow. So before I had even left home it was a classic stage already!

My wife booked most of it up, but the costs were not too bad. Entry was about 75 Euro, and she booked up with CycleMundo for the transfer, hotel and general looking after package, think this worked out at around 400 Euro (this included breakfast and a very good dinner). I flew from International to Gatwick and from Gatwick to Lyon, with Easyjet and took my own bike. I think this worked out around another 300 quid. Cyclemundo were pretty good, albeit a bit disorganised. In a Fawlty Towers kind of way.

We stayed in a hotel in St Flour which is a beatiful little town split in two. One bit at the bottom of the hill and the other bit at the top. The big plus here was that is was only a 10 minute (downhill) ride from the finish. The drive from Lyon to St Flour took 3.5 hours and the country side was fantastic. As we got into the Massif Central it was clear that this was very hilly area. Not Alpine or Pyrennean hilly, but very hilly none the less. Incidentally I had tried in vain to find out just how hilly Stage 9 was before going out and couldn't find any thing definitive other than is had more climbing than Act 1. Our group was a pretty good bunch with some serious bike porn on display, that would make Paddies bike look like something brendan would show up on ;o)

The day before the ride we went to Issoire to register (about an hours drives, again part of the package). The expo was your typical large cycle event expo, lots of really (Really) nice kit, food, and the Tour on a big screen. Weather was great, all seemed well. That was until I picked up my number and found that I was going to be last pen (number 11) off. Anyway I knew it would be a long day in the saddle so didn't really mind..However, the word from the everyone and the organisers was that it was due to rain during the race.. FFS after weeks of sunshine! Anyway I had my trusty armwarmers and pocket rocket cape, so was ready for (nearly) anything...

So the next day, up at 4.00 am, an hours drive to Issoire in the pouring rain. Arrived at the rain had stopped, hoorah! Cycled to our starting pen, the first one we reached so didn't take long. Needed a number 2 so went to use the portaloo, no bog roll, booo!!! FFS I mean what is the point in have a portaloo without any bog roll at the start of a bike event ? So off I went in search of newspaper, and lucky found some. During all of this the rain started again, of course...

Our pen finally got under way 40 minutes after the first riders went off at 7.40 am. The pace at the start was fairly swift (which I was expecting from the Novi Coli last year) at 25mph. We got into a bunch and this speed continued pretty much for the first 25 miles. The rain was still coming down, but it wasn't cold. There were a couple of minor accidents, one notable one at a rail way crossing caused by wet lines.

We hit the first hill and the group broke up. In retrospect I went up the first climb a bit too hard, but WTF it was fun and up onto the 'plateau'. I use this word in its loosest possible definition, as it wasn't flat, just less hilly than the climb. But was it was was exposed, and very cold, with a driving head wind. It was at this point I started seeing riders going the other way (Wtf I thought!?). Anyway I ploughed on doing about 15mph with my HR in the 160s (thats a fair effort BTW!).

It was absolutely lashing and really cold now. I passed lots of little towns ,shops, houses, garages, farms etc. and could see riders huddling in the dry trying to get warm. Most of them were in short sleeve tops! Anyway, down the short descent into a town, and there were hundreds of riders all over the place at the food stop and next to some coaches (it wasn't until later I would find out that they were bailing !). I didn't fancy stopping as I didn't need any drink or food (I had my trusty bag of jelly babies), so continued on to the next climb. I think this one was the Col de Peyrol and it topped out at 1589 metres. This really was a fair effort to get up, and was so so cold at the top. The descent was a complete nightmare as well because the road was so wet. I crawled down it on the drops because at this point I coulnd't feel my fingers at all an it was the only way I could get enough pressure on the brakes. I passed I sign on the road saying 'Vino off' and big arrow pointed towards a low rail and a big drop off. What a nightmare it was have been going over that...

After this descent the (about 2.5 hours in a I think) the weather cleared up, and then rest of the ride basically comprised of either going up or down. The roads were very tough 'dead' type ones. The scenery was good but the craic not so as I tried to engage by crappy French to determine;

a) how many more fck'in hills were left
b) were did Hoogerland crash

Normally I would have mapped out the mentally course before hand so I would know exactly what hill I was on and how many were still do go. But with this one I didn't and also there were loads of little falsy hills that just threw what little sense of positioning I had completely out the window.

After about 6 and half hours, I finally reached a sign saying 50k to go, which initially I thought was great, but then realised I still have about a quarter of the fck'in thing to do, and wasn't so happy. On the plus side all the big hills were done (although the the road was still either just going up or down) and I was pretty sure I had a tail wind. Finally started seeing signs for St Flour, which was really great as I had reached that point in any long bike event like this were you start thinking along the lines of 'Why the fkc did I do this ? I'm not doing anything like this again, only short events for me from now on, where is my mummy etc..'. On the negative side of things the 2nd sign I saw for St Flour was further way then the first ! This caused me serious distress that was somewhat lost on some of the (non english speaking) riders around me, although I think they picked up on the fact I wasn't a 100% happy ;o)
I did get to see where Hoogerland went off, and again, what a nightmare. I was immediately stuck that it really was quite a deep ditch he fell into. He really was very lucky.

Eventually reached St Flour and short 2k'ish climb to the finish, and over the line in 8 hours totally 'bagged'. Didn't find out until later that just over 4,000 riders started out of 6,000 ! And then only 2,000 actually finished!! WTF?? That was even worse than the ras this year! ;o) My finishing position was 104th, which I was pleased especially given I had to start at the back.. and the total climbing was 14,000ft!!!!! Hilliest I've ever done by quite some way..

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/100128164

It was a real, very memorable, experience doing the Etape. I would definitely do another one as the organisation and atmosphere was great. Next time though I'd try to make more of a family holiday of it, as the county etc. was just glorious.. Although I think I'd like to do the Marmotte first..