Part 3 – A rough guide to cycling the Tour de France Route

Staying motivated when training for an ultra marathon event is tough. There are peaks and troughs in your mental state which can throw you off course and sabotage your commitment to the goal. I suffered very badly from this in my own preparations.

In 2007 I rode the entire route 1 day ahead of the professionals and thought I would put together an overview of my trip and provide some pointers for others tempted to tackle a stage or the whole route. This is part 3 of a series of articles documenting my story. To read Part 1 Part 2

An epic personal Tour de France

I arrived at Clapham Common to ride the London to Brighton “sportive” late and found the place deserted. I planned to ride “there and back” which is about 135 miles and would be my first real test and roughly equal to one days Tour de France stage distance.

The barriers and signs were still up so I slowly followed them out of London. It’s a large event 30,000+ riders and closed roads, though with my late start the traffic was back flowing. I was riding quite hard, flushed with enthusiasm for “the chase” and kept expecting to see the tail enders every time I rounded a corner.

It took longer than I expected and I didn’t see a marshal or another cyclist for about 2 hours. It was my first lesson in the importance of spending time on the bike. In endurance riding speed is “relatively unimportant” the most significant factor in riding a long distance is how many hours you are prepared to sit in the saddle. Even the slowest riders of this sportive who were on worn out mountain bikes and must have weighed 20 stone had taken me 2 hours hard riding to catch.

I slowly wound my way through the field. It was a lovely atmosphere, almost carnival like and I strongly recommend it as a great cycling day for any rider. Regardless of their experience.

I began to feel under pressure for time. This is a horrible feeling on a bike or any endurance event. The bike computer is right in-front of your nose and I couldn’t help but repeatedly look at it. Sometimes 10 times in a minute. I had promised my girlfriend of the time that I would be back by 7.30pm for she was cooking a dinner party for friends of ours.

I didn’t have a route map, nor any idea of the exact distance. And again this gnawed away inside me. Would I make it in time. I was feeling tired already and I wasn’t even at Brighton yet. Should I turn round. Should I give up early. After riding for about 3.5 hours I knew I had to make a decision. Everyone on the ride had been talking about a big hill near the end and I guess I was a few miles short of there.

I was completely torn, a part of me wanted to keep riding at least up and over the hill before I turned round. Another part of me was really scared. I was really feeling the ride already. How would my body react if I tackled a really hard hill then turned round and had to ride for perhaps another 4 hours back to London.

In the end I took the easy option and turned round. The ride home was much better than I had expected. There is something psychologically easier about riding home on a route that you have already ridden than doing the same distance into unknown territory.

About 10 miles outside London I met another cyclist doing “there and back” like me and we rode together. Chatting about the ride he asked how I had found the big hill (sorry i cant remember it’s name) and I felt deeply embarrassed and LIED. I can’t believe it now looking back. I said it had been OK.

We parted company in central London and I finally reached my girlfriends house at about 7.45pm. The lie effected me deeply and undermined my fragile confidence and self worth. It was a stupid thing to have said and nearly wrecked my whole endeavour.

I had ridden 140km that day in just over 7.5 hours. My longest and hardest day to date. I should have been feeling proud. For even though I had abandoned before the finish I had still ridden further then ever before and although not quite a full stage distance it was at least progress.

Unfortunately my mind doesn’t work like that and I proceeded to beat myself up about it. I should have ridden on, I should have finished, why did I quit, if I were a proper cyclist I would have finished etc etc.

These negative thoughts wiped out another 2 days training as I struggled with motivation and spent the days feeling sorry for myself.

At this point I might very well have stopped the project. But fate intervened and my Mother rang. The first time I had spoken to her since our conversation where she had agreed to come along to drive the support vehicle. She was bright and bubbly and said she was just phoning to check that I had the funds in place to do the event before she booked her ferry crossing to come to London.

It was very lucky she phrased it like this. If she has said “was I still doing it?” I might very well have said NO! But to this question I replied that I had the money and we chatted on discussing my training and I told her I had been training hard but was now struggling. She was encouraging and just told me to get on the bike and not to worry so much. She said there was no pressure on me. If I finished part of the stages or a few of them then that would be an amazing achievement.

This was really good to hear and took loads of pressure off me. I began training again. My crisis of confidence over i threw myself back into the 3 sessions per day training program.

With just 5 days to go till the off. I decided really aught to see what riding a hill was like! I had read various accounts of the Tour de France and looking at the mountain stages and seeing some mountains had 25km accents with over 2000m vertical climbing put the fear of god into me.

The only hill I could think of in London is Haverstock hill and runs from Camden to Hampstead Heath. So that final Sunday I rode up and down in the pouring rain. People must have thought I was mad. It is about 3km from Chalk farm Tube at the bottom to the duck pond at the top. i have no idea of the gradient but in hindsight it’s not dissimilar to the Alps. So I rode up and down 13 times. it felt pretty comfortable and i finished the day, wet but pretty contented with progress. i had done about 40km of uphill riding and about 100km in total when adding in my ride to get there.

Although it was still a long way short of the mountain stage days to come I felt quietly confident. My mothers words really stuck with me. I wasn’t under any pressure. It was a journey and an experience. if I finished the stages brilliant. If not then so be it. i would do the best that I could. Of course i was fully committed. I really, really wanted to do it. To ride the whole route and prove to myself that I was tough enough. i think i saw it as a test of my mental strength far more that a physical one.

So that was my training done. I had a few days rest with light rides and waited for my Mother to arrive in London for the adventure to begin properly.

This story continues tomorrow as I ride the prologue course and then the big day. My first tour de France stage. Could I make it. Could i ride further than ever before? Part 4

To watch the Sky News interview with Luke in Paris Sky News

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