Boots & Spurs It was such a battle but soon we saw the memorial to Tom Simpson and the most amazing scene you will ever see on a bike, the summit of Ventoux in front of you and the 8-10% section from the penultimate corner. After months of training the end was in sight, but the Geant doesn’t give up so easy, the last switchback before the finishing line is a cruel twisting 13% horror with a nasty camber and a ferocious wind on the day that threatened to blow Alex back down the mountain! All I could do was shout encouragement and follow her across the line to claim our finisher’s medals and to enjoy the celebrations of everyone on the top, including the lady who had won the GC battle. The descent back to Bedoin was going to be chilly and sketchy so after a quick photo at the signpost we set off. The wind hit us immediately. It was so bad we had to walk some of it and thankfully got a lift down with Howard from Haute Route. It turned out that we were the only finishers so we had our presentation with the mayor and a very nice 100 euro voucher for cycling stuff (I gave it to Alex of course). It was a real achievement for her as she had never done anything like this before and had faced some real challenges. You’ll have to ask Alex if she would ever want to do another, but she loved the whole experience and it has made her realise how small UK hills are. She felt it would have been extremely difficult to complete it on her own and more than anything we both appreciated sharing this fantastic experience in some stunning scenery. For me I’m (fingers crossed) looking forward to taking on the Pyrenees in August this year and some tough training ahead of it!
We used Sports Tours for our transfers and accommodation, Roy and Howard were brilliant and the feed stations were always a welcome sight, even if it was at the top of a 17% ramp on the first Stage!!
NEIL SHAND TAKES US THROUGH THE TRAINING NECESSARY TO COMPLETE PARIS BREST PARIS – THE ULTIMATE AUDAX.
L
et’s start at the beginning; it began in 2019 with Mille Cymru, a 1000km audax around Wales. This gave me my registration slot, this then just left the full Super Randonneur (SR) series of audax rides to complete before July. A SR series is a 200km, 300km, 400km and 600km audax. Due to the high demand for these rides in a PBP year, so I booked early on a local series. January was the Newport for the first 200km of the year and the first part of the SR ticked off (plus I rode out to the start and back for an extra 70km!). February I ran the Mere audax rides so I completed the test ride the week before, then did a short ride on the day (foggy and cold) between the organiser bits that needed doing, with it being a PBP qualifier all the paperwork had to be in order and the cards sent off for validation. March was going to be a local 200km audax from Winsford (Scouting Mam Tor) but as we started to head up into the peak district it started to snow, and continued to worsen, so we thought better of it and headed back. A few NCC members did the ride as a DIY a couple of weeks later in better weather!
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