New challenge - Etape du Tour 2008

After watching the Tour de France this year both on the TV and when they came past us in stage 17 in the Dordogne, Ive officially caught the cycling bug. Anyway over a few beers at the pub with some mates i somehow convinced myself that i could give it a go and do a stage myself! (in case you couldnt guess this is Gav writing here rather than Em!)

The Etape du Tour is a stage of the Tour De France (typically done a week before the real riders take it on) and is open to the general public. Each year around 8500 people from all over the world take part. The Etape du Tour features roads closed to traffic, and free food and water stops and is organised by the Tour de France organisers.

Last yrs stage was one of the toughest of the whole tour de France. Covering around 2o0km and including five huge Pyrenean cols (mountain climbs) all in 35 degree heat. The tallest summit was over 1700m, while overall you had to climb 4000m of hills and the average rider took around 10 hrs to finish!

Anyway this yrs stage is being announced on thursday but as a result of excess demand you have to commit yourself before the stage is announced. So as of today I am officially locked in!

Good news is that a few friends (including Caius) have also fired up so there should be a few other people to share the pain with. Anyway in preperation im going to have to loose some serious KGs and put in a lot of kms on the bike to get ready so plan is to keep a bit of a running summary of how the training is going so i can look back on it after hopefuly completing the race in July next year. So stay tuned.... only 8.5 mths to go!

In the meantime if your into cycling, check out this guys blog of his experiences and lead up to doing the etape du tour this year...

http://etape2007.blogspot.com/