In an old house in Paris ...

In an old house in Paris all covered in vines, lived 12 little girls in 2 straight lines.

OK, maybe this isn't the house that Madeline lived in (she was the smallest one) but we're having the sort of fun that Pepito could only dream of.

It's the Tour de France's rest day, so I had to find something to do for the afternoon other than sit in cafes, drink beer (carbo loading?) and watch bike racing.

So we headed to Parc Asterix.

Not as many rides were as on topic as I would have liked - where was the chariot racing? Roman bashing? wild boar roasting? Nonetheless, we had fun, stood in lines (long lines), went on rides, saw the dolphin show (no, I don't know if ancient Gauls had dolphin shows) and just hung out.

Hanging out has to be the second most popular sport here - after cycling that is, well, maybe it comes in third after smoking.

It's a hanging out country.

I'm sitting in a park, hanging out, pecking this on the BlackBerry, while I watch one of my kids play a pick up soccer game with some French kids. No language barrier when you're 9.

Did I mention it's 9:30 pm?

We've just stuffed our faces at one of my favourite places in Paris - Chez Omar. Home of cous-cous like your mother never made. Moroccan pastries to stretch you belt and North African wine that tastes like what you'd expect North African wine to taste like.

Tomorrow it's Bastile Day, and I hope to see a parade and some fireworks. In the meantime, I'm going to ease the belt a notch, listen to the band playing in the park and watch my kids play.

Vive la France!

Inspector Clouseau would be pleased .....

My bike got a little knocked around on the flight from Melbourne to Nice.

Nothing too serious, one of the gear / brake levers was broken. Easy to fix, you just need the parts.

Surely in a cycling obsessed country this is a minor problem. You wish.

Sunday was out - nearly every shop is closed, and anyway I went to Grasse to watch the TdF.

Yesterday morning after a quick google, I found a cycle shop in nearby Cannes, put the bike in the car, fired up the GPS and off we went.

Except it was a MOTORcycle shop, and the only BIcycle shop he knew of was closed on Mondays. We found another shop in his yellow pages and headed off. 45 minutes later and 5 km up the road (have I mentioned the traffic yet?) we arrived to find it was closed on Mondays.

Later in the day I tracked down an open bike shop, near Grasse, maybe 10 km away. Off I went. They were open (I'd checked first), but they only stock Shimano parts and I ride Campagnolo.

They suggested another place, 15 minutes away in Pegomas who should be able to help, but they were - wait for it - closed on Mondays (and why not, I'd like to have Mondays off).

So Monday repairs were out of the question.

We headed off first thing this morning - well, the on holidays in France version of first thing, about 9:45 - to the shop in Pegomas. He was happy to fix it, but it would take a week as he didn't have the parts and would have to get them from the distributor. He suggested a shop in Cannes that might be able to help (it was the one we'd driven past yesterday that was closed) and off we went.

Same story, happy to help, but didn't have the parts. And very kindly called a shop in Le Cannet (5 km, 25 mins away) who - wonderful - had the parts!!!

This was the shop the motorcycle shop had suggested.

We arrived, and yes they were very happy to help. It will be ready tomorrow afternoon. No chance of today? I was given the Gallic version of "sorry mate, we're flat out" along with a shrug for good measure.

So I'll pick it up tomorrow after lunch.

And I'll be adding a gear / brake lever set to my travel kit.

Yes, I think Inspector Clouseau would be pleased.

Stage 2 - roadside report from Grasse.

My bike got a little knocked around on the flight from Melbourne. It's not too bad, and I'm not too stressed about it - any bike shop should be able to fix it.



It was Sunday yesterday, and in France nearly everything is closed, but we had more important things to do than worry about fixing my bike - Stage 2 of the Tour de France went through Grasse, about 15k from where we're staying.



I checked the road closure times, put some of the kids in the car and off we went.



Grasse is a pretty hilltop town, and we wandered around the centre for an hour or so, had ice creams & cold drinks, then found the TdF route and settled in to wait.



We sat on the side of the road for about 2 hours. There is a sponsor's 'caravane' that leads the Tour - 20 or so float vehicles, throwing things to spectators (the kids got a couple of caps), and keeping people interested while they wait.



I was starting to wonder this was this a smart thing to do - one of the boys was looking a little heat effected - when Le Tour arrived. A breakaway group of 4 (who survived 'up the road' until a few Km from the finish) flashed past, followed by a fleet of team & official cars.



5 minutes later, 176 cyclists flashed past. I saw the Saxo Bank team leading the peleton; I saw Lance; I saw Cadel, then they were gone.



We packed up, headed for home and a swim in the pool & a cold beer.



What a great day!!



Tomorrow I have to get my bike repaired.

I love to travel

This is what long haul travel looks like - there is always a school group (or a sporting team) flying on the cheapest tickets possible killing 6 or 7 hours dozing in an airport halfway to wherever they're going.

I'm not going to bang on about how boring long distance travel is, or how airports have become shopping malls, or how bad the person sitting across the isle always smells - these are the givens of travel.

I'm pecking this on the BlackBerry while camped out in Dubai airport - we're nearly in Nice, which will be very nice (sorry).

It a longish connection here - 4 hours: we've looked at shops, eaten Maccas (tastes the same as at home) and wandered around. Another hour or so and back on the 'plane.

I'm planning to be roadside on Sunday for Stage 1 of the Tour de France. It's passing about 15k from where we're staying, so we're all heading for Grasse to find a spot to watch the peleton whiz past. I'm excited, even if the kids aren't.

What’s an etape ?

The correct definition is “a stage of” so an Etape du Tour is, in simple terms, a Stage of the Tour de France

The Etape du Tour has been running for almost 20 years … each year the organisers select a Stage of the Tour de France and turn it into a mass participation event. No point selecting a flat stage (anyone can ride on the flat!), so they pick something with a few ups & downs.

This year, it’s Stage 20 – 167 km from Montélimar to Mt. Ventoux.

4 climbs along the way – all enough on their own to get a Saturday Cyclist working hard (and bragging about them over a coffee at the end of his ride):

Côte de Citelle 5.2 km at an average of 3.9% gradient
Col d'Ey 6.3 km at an average of 5% gradient
Col de Fontaube 4.7 km at an average of 4.3 % gradient
Col de Notre-Dame des Abeilles 7.8 km at an average of 4% gradient

And then, about 150 km (and 4 solid climbs) after rolling out of Montélimar, the participants are given a final challenge for the day – ride Mt. Ventoux, the Giant of Provence. 21 km of climb at an average gradient of 7.6% (average means some of it isn’t quite that steep, and some is much steeper).

Cyclists love climbs – almost anyone can ride for hours on the flat, but once the road kicks up, you start to separate the real riders from the pretenders. All of a sudden having the latest team kit doesn’t do anything for you; it stops being about how much your bike cost, or where you drink you post ride coffee, and starts being all about riding the bloody thing, and getting to the top with some pace & style.

The Tour de France is usually won & lost on climbs, and as it’s the world’s biggest cycling race, it’s climbs have become some of cycling’s Holy Grails.

There’s L'Alpe d'Huez - 21 hairpin curves leading up a ski resort. Length: 13.9 km. Gradient: 7.9%

There’s Col du Tourmalet. Length 18.4 km. Gradient 7.7%

Or the Col du Galibier – maybe not so steep at an average of 4.5%, but it climbs for 42.8 km to a lung busting altitude of 2,645 m.

A suburban footballer might dream of playing on the MCG, the weekend hacker can fantasise about the Back Nine at Augusta, but cyclists can, and do, ride these hills. They’re all on public roads, and weather permitting, are open (and free) all year round.

Mt. Ventoux is one of the real classics of the Tour climbs – at 1,912 m it’s highest point in Provence. It’s big, it’s mean, and it’s famous. The Tour has finished at the summit just 7 times before.

English cyclist Tom Simpson died just shy of the summit in the 1967 Tour; In 1970, Eddy Merckx (the greatest cyclist ever, bar none) rode himself to the brink of collapse while winning the stage. He received oxygen, recovered, and went on to win the Tour.

This year, the Mt. Ventoux stage of the Tour is the second last, and most commentators are saying it will decide the overall result. I won’t be surprised if the Texan is in the first bunch across the line.

The Etape is happening almost a week earlier, perhaps so they can clean up the mess of collapsed cyclists in time for the race; and I’m going to be lining up with the other 9,499 participants on the start line on early Monday 20 July.

The organisers are expecting that 30 to 40% won't make the finish line.

So maybe Etape really means 9,500 or so lunatics trying to recapture (or create) past glories by pretending they were once Tour de France standard cyclists.

I don’t think it’s a malaise isolated to France - you can scratch the skin of most Aussies and you’ll find someone that reckons they’d be at Olympic standard in their chosen sport with 6 or 8 weeks fairly solid training, and maybe a couple of less stubbies on a Friday night.

Have I been training? Have I what!

The lazy blogger

I've realised I need to make a bit more effort with this blog.

Twitter is easy - I can happily inform whoever it is that listens to me at least half a dozen times a day that I'm catching a tram, what I'm having for lunch, that it's Sauv Blanc O'clock, or how many Km I rode that day.

This blogging thing is a little more complex. I feel I should be putting serious & worthwhile things on paper, rather than the frivolous nonsense (a tautology?) that I Tweet about.

And I seem to have lost my way a little - the intent of the blog when I started it earlier this year was to chart my preparation for the Etape du Tour in late July, and of course, the event itself. I've hardly mentioned cycling; instead I've been banging on about motorsport.

Bad luck, it's my blog, so until someone start paying me for 500 words at a time about a specific subject (as if) I get to pick what I write about.

Part of the reason for the almost silence on the cycling is that the preparation has been, for anyone other than me, a little dull. There are only so many times you can hear about my efforts up specific climbs, or how my average cadence has improved over the last few months. There are some days I don't think my cycling coach even wants to hear about it, although he's enough of a professional that he'd never show it.

So I guess I need to do one post about the entire preparation - but I don't feel like it today.

An off

Lots of fun spending the morning gardening here at Winton. Those ripple strips can be a little slippery, and the infield is surprisingly muddy.

The only damage is to my pride - it was bad enough having an off, but to do it twice in the same session takes a special type of driver.

Back on the horse shortly (next session is in 45 minutes), and I'll probably smash my lap time as well - out of frustration as much as anything else.

Motorsport!!