King Of The Mountains (2001)

That I am now a cyclist ‘of a certain age’ should be clear when I say that my boyhood heroes of ‘The Tour de France’ were Eddy Merkcx and Jacques Anquetil and, in these far off days, the thought of an American taking part in, never mind winning the most coveted prize in cycling for the third time in 2001 was unheard of.

While holidaying in the Pyrenees in July that year, I had the privilege of seeing this ‘unheard of’ New World figure in the shape of Lance Armstrong of the U.S. Postal team dominate his rivals in this the toughest sporting event in the world. I saw him ride gracefully over the 6000’ Col du Tourmalet apparently breathing through his ears as others struggled in his wake, mouths agape like stranded fish. The German Jan Ullrich of the Deutch Telekomm team, himself a previous winner in 1997 before the onset of the ‘Armstrong era’, was the only one who managed to stay with him, sticking doggedly to his wheel over the toughest climbs in the Alps and now, on this the last of the Pyrenean mountain stages, sticking manfully to his task without being able to make any impression on the piston like climbing machine in yellow. On the final brutal climb of this 100 mile stage to the ski station of Luz Ardiden, Ullrich attacked time and again but to no avail and as they crossed the line together he offered his hand to Armstrong in acknowledgement of his place as ‘Dauphine’ to the rightful King.

What is it then that drives a relatively sane middle aged man to even contemplate riding any stage of ‘The Tour’ never mind one described in the official guide as ‘the third moral-shatteringly gruelling Pyrenean mountain leg of the 2001 Tour.’ Good question!

It was in March this year that I booked a family holiday in Bareges in the Pyrenees only to find that the village was situated on the slopes of what is in ‘Tour de France’ terms the legendary Col du Tourmalet. Further research showed that the 14th stage from Tarbes to Luz Ardiden passed through the village while we were there and that is when the seed of an idea was planted, to ride
the stage in its entirety the day after The Greats.

I had done some competitive cycling in the seventies with some success but I hadn’t ridden 100 miles at a stretch on a road bike since then, never mind a hundred miles over three of the toughest climbs in cycling, the Col d’Aspin, the Col du Tourmalet and finishing with the climb to the ski station at Luz Ardiden. Tour climbs are categorised from 1 to 4 in order of difficulty. The Aspin is a first category (hardest) and the other two are what is termed ‘Hors du Categorie’ or out of category, which means they are so hard that they don’t even fit into the system!

I started training in April with fifty mile stints from my home in Midlothian and as I grew fitter I increased the distance and more importantly the climbing content of my outings. I made special trips north to climb the biggest and longest we’ve got on the Cairn o’ Mount and the Lecht from Cockbridge to Tomintoul. My final outing in early July before we left for France was the 100mile round trip by St Mary’s Loch to Moffat returning via the climb of the Devil’s Beef Tub.
Was I ready? Well, as ready as I would ever be. The truth of the matter is however, that nothing that you can do in this country can properly prepare you either physically, and more important, mentally, for the enormity of these climbs and when, approaching your fiftieth birthday, you string three of them together with all the other bits in between well - That phrase beloved of the Irish Tourist Board just about covers it, ‘You’ll never know until you go!”

Prior to leaving, my children presented me with the ‘Malliot de pois rouge’ the distinctive red and white polka dot jersey worn by the Tour’s leading climber, ‘The King of The Mountains.’ I hoped I would live up to it.

The afternoon we arrived in Bareges I rode the Tourmalet taking about an hour and a half for the 16km climb. Interestingly on all of the climbs in the area used by the Tour there are marker boards every kilometre which give height, distance to the summit and the average gradient for the next kilometre. How one feels about these is all very much a state of mind, if you are going well, they can be helpful and encouraging, if badly they simply remind you, very slowly, of how far you’ve got to go. I was on this occasion going well and was surprised at the number of cyclists doing the climb, but I suppose, given that I was at a ‘Tour’ mecca six days before it was to pass, perhaps I shouldn’t have been. On the climb I was passed on three occasions but consoled myself with the fact that these guys were less than half my age and of course the half dozen or so that I passed were also younger, or so I told myself. I was aware here of the folly of treating what I was attempting to do as some sort of race, do that and I would undoubtedly fail. Completion was the name of the game.

On Sunday 22nd July, the Tour and it’s accompanying cavalcade of advertising vehicles and team cars passed through the village. The cavalcade precedes the riders by about an hour and a half and gives the whole thing a carnival atmosphere reminiscent of the annual Festival cavalcade on Edinburgh’s Princes Street, as free gifts and samples of the sponsors wares are distributed among the crowds. The Tourmalet is used regularly on the Tour route, sometimes the riders are climbing through the village and sometimes descending, this was a descent year and at speeds in excess of 50mph they swooped down through the village in a multi- coloured lycra torrent and were gone, on towards the 16km rigours of the climb toLuz Ardiden and the finish of their days labours.

10am the next day saw me in the car- park of the ‘Champion’ supermarket on the outskirts of the town of Tarbes. An omen perhaps? ‘Champion’ are the sponsors of the ‘King of The Mountains’ competition, their colours being the red and white of the ‘pois rouge’ which I was wearing. Bike assembled, I stuffed my pockets with bananas and energy bars. A light rain top and a puncture repair outfit completed my kit as my wife and daughter waved me off.

The first forty five miles took a pleasant route through the relatively flat countryside although two category three climbs and a category four sapped some energy which would have been useful at the end of the day. At this stage, I was grateful for the considerable cloud cover which was present, unlike the previous few days where we had experienced what the French refer to as ‘Le Grand Chaleur’ the big heat, when the sun beats down from clear blue skies from morning till night. After about an hour I started to eat and drink from the two 2 litre bottles I was carrying. It is never very pleasant forcing food down during hard exercise like this but it is essential if you are to avoid ‘bonking’ later in the day. An alien concept for British youth you might think but there is something lost in the translation ‘bonking’ is in fact cyclespeak for hypoglycaemia or what marathon runners refer to as ‘hitting the wall.’

The village of Arreau marked the end of the foothills and the 14km climb of the Col d’Aspin loomed ahead as I settled into a steady rhythm. It is a pleasant climb wooded all the way to the summit offering some shade from the sun which now burned down unremittingly. As I neared the summit a young lad overtook me going like a train and was standing arms folded and smiling smugly at the top as I passed. It was at this point that I thought that it would have been a good idea to have a sign on my back saying ‘Only doing one? I’m doing the whole f****** stage. Please pass if you can!’ Translation difficulties and the extra weight would have caused problems though.

On the extensive flat summit of the Aspin you have to thread your way through the resident herd of Charolais cattle who live there and who, being used to the tourists, can be a bit stubborn. Having safely negotiated this obstacle I began what is for me one of the great pleasures of mountain cycling, the descent. Swooping valleywards, skilfully negotiating tight hairpin bends and passing cars at speeds in excess of 40mph is a wonderful experience although one has to be very careful not to overcook things on the bends. This can happen to even the best as when millions of television viewers throughout the world saw Jan Ullrich somersault through the air detached from his bike on a big descent earlier in the race.

Safely in the valley I stopped to pull on my jacket for the short run to St Marie-de-Campane at the foot of The Tourmalet. A thick fog had gathered on the valley floor making things decidedly chilly especially after sweating in the sunshine on the climb. I had a brief stop at the village fountain in St Marie to replenish my supplies and was pleased to note that I had drunk over three litres of liquid since starting. Bottles filled and jacket off again, I got down to the serious business of climbing the Tourmalet. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and I was five hours into the stage and it did cross my mind that Armstrong & co would have finished by now but he is twenty years younger than me after all (apart from being the best in the world)!

Unlike the Aspin, on the Tourmalet your are quickly out of the trees and there was no shelter from the sun which had firmly re-established itself. I was still climbing well but when the road ahead reared up to an average 12% through the ski centre of La Mongie I was made distinctly aware of the difference of today’s venture when compared to the one off climb I had done earlier in the week. The speed dropped and I could have done with one gear lower than I had. The zig-zag hairpins below the summit seemed to go on forever and they were a mass of multi coloured paint where supporters had written the names of their favourites on the road. Unfortunately no one had written ‘Allez ORR’ on the road although my wife and daughter had tried to get paint in Arreau earlier in the day but the French were having their famous dinner hour(s) and the shops were shut. They were there to cheer me over the summit of the climb though but I was by this time having doubts as to whether or not I would make it to the finish.

This descent was fast but not enjoyable as I was nursing a stiffening neck and lower back and. as I stopped to don my jacket again, my resolve was at it’s lowest. The proximity of my wife and the car didn’t help matters but my insurance policy did. I had made a point of telling people back home what my intentions were and I didn’t fancy having to admit defeat besides which, I knew if I didn’t do it now, the way my mind works would make it unfinished business and I didn’t fancy going through it all again. So Luz Ardiden it was. I knew that descending through Bareges past the flat where we were staying and a potential hot bath might be a weak point but as it was my crises was past and I was soon through the bustling town of Luz St Saveur and onto the final climb to the finish.

It was here I started playing mind games with myself. Another of my cycling heroes Glasgow born Robert Millar past Tour stage winner and King of The Mountains came to mind. I was he, on a lone break, now only minutes ahead of the chasing peleton on the climb to stage victory at Luz Ardiden. It didn’t make me go faster but it did help to take my mind of the pain and effort as the kilometre boards crept slowly by. Now in single figures, 9km to go, my family passed in the car en-route to the summit and I was glad that they had made the decision not to stop on the way. The final bends to the summit were brutally steep but ------------------

Millar is climbing well he hasn’t lost his rythym.2km to the finish and Scotland’s Robert Millar is going to take the Polka Dot jersey of the King of The Mountains. He is out of the saddle now forcing his way into what seems like a solid wall of spectators. Horns blaring, the lead vehicles carve a path for him round the final bend. Robert Millar of Scotland is there, he’s there, he’s over the line. Robert Millar triumphs at Luz Ardiden.

The reality was a cold empty car park area with fog gathering round piles of rubbish and dismantled barriers from the real stage finish the day before. The thousands of spectators gathered up here in the sky to cheer their heroes had all gone home. I slumped over the handlebars, I was sobbing with emotion. I had ridden one of the hardest mountain stages of the Tour de France.

I started this article with a question about motivation, the answer I think is clear, for a day I was
riding in the path of giants, I was fulfilling a dream and unless you have that dream don’t do it, it’s too sore.