We were collected from Lyons airport and bussed a couple of hours to accommodation in Albertville, a small town in the foothills of the French Alps. The first task was to transfer the pedals and seats we had brought with us to our hire bikes - Bianchis with Ultegra groupsets. There were about 24 riders in two riding groups, Extreme and Performance. This was done in the 'bike garage' - quite a spectacular site with all the bikes and gear around.
We set of on the afternoon's warm up ride of about 50 km. The first 10 km were very pleasant on a bike path alongside a river. The col was a fairly untaxing 10 km at around 4%.
I had promised myself to take it easy and just spin up, keeping the heart rate under 150 and treating it as a warm up for the more demanding rides later in the week. Unfortunately I put myself on the wheel of Daniel, Thomson's ride leader for the day, and as he gradually upped the pace, could not help but respond. The 150 heart rate came and went, as did 160, and there were only three of us left in touch now as the pace continued to increase; 164, 165, 166 and I reached the limit and dropped off his wheel about 800 metres from the top.
The support van was waiting in a light rain. We had something to eat and donned rain jackets for the descent back into town. After the ride - a beer in the bar and we all watched the last 20 km of the real Tour: Contador out with a broken leg, Nibali increasing his lead and our own Ritchie Porte up into second place!
A good dinner and early bed in anticipation of a 6am start on the following day.
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