The route for next years Tour De France has been out for a few weeks now. Interesting for those that follow this sort of thing, compelling if you are planning to ride the entire route next year. It didn’t really matter what the route was, having signed up to ride the whole thing I was going to have to get around whatever they put in my way. For Robyn it was decision time.
The wonderful folk at the Tour De Force go to great lengths to ensure that you can ride the exact route as the professionals. As well as offering “The Lifer” a chance to do all 21 stages, they also offer different packages to suit all tastes. Robyn had to decide what “Tour Taster” she was going to commit to.
We knew that it would be good to ride into Paris together, the question was how many stages would Robyn do before this? Traditionally the last week of the tour involves some mountains so whatever was on offer was going to be a challenge.
Robyn’s decision making process is different to mine. I like to plan (some may say I need to control) and generally I like to go into things having analysed it to death.
Robyn’s takes a more straight forward approach, so when I asked her what she thought she would like to do we had this brief exchange,
“Well If I’m going to travel all the way over to Europe I may as well make the most of it.”
“Yes”, I agreed.
“If I ride my bike lots beforehand, I’m confident that I’ll get around whatever is put in front of me.”
“Well yes, but you need to think about…”
“Don’t start that analysing stuff, do you think I can do half of it?”
” Yes, you can, if…”
“Don’t care about the ‘ifs’, sign me up.”
And with that she has signed up to ride “Tour Taster 8 – (Semi Lifer Second Half)”.
10 Stages and a total of 1,553Km across 10 days. This is what it looks like:
- Stage 12: Thurs 6th Pau to Peyragudes. 214km.
- Stage 13: Fri 7th Saint Girons to Foix. 100km.
- Stage 14: Sat 8th Blagnac to Rodez. 181km.
- Stage 15: Sun 9th Laissac to Puy en Velay. 189km.
- REST DAY: Mon 10th
- Stage 16:Tues 11th Puy en Velay to Romans sur Isere. 165km.
- Stage 17: Weds 12th La Mure to Serre Chevalier. 183km.
- Stage 18: Thurs 13th Briancon to Izoard. 178km.
- Stage 19: Fri 14th Embrun to Salon de Provence. 220km.
- Stage 20: Sat 15th Marseille loop. 23km. & TGV to Montgeron.
- Stage 21: Sun 16th Montgeron to Paris. 100km ish.
Inspired by Robyn’s approach and how easy it makes everything, I have decided to just play what is in front of me. I am resisting the very strong urge to plan my way through each stage, instead I am going to focus on the one day where we may actually have to think for ourselves – the rest day
The TDF organisers are so good, they have even provided the following insights to what the rest day has in store, “Le Puy en Velay known for its lace, lentils and a local spirit made with lemon verbena. It’s a really lovely little town with plenty of laundrettes and cafes”.
Seems a trip to a French laundrette is on the cards for the morning and then all we need to do is find somewhere nice for lunch.
With this sorted and knowing the good folk at the TDF take care of everything else, all we have to ride our bikes “lots” before next July, and raise some money for a great cause. This is where you can help out by clicking below: