Le Tour

The closest I've ever come to riding anything remotely resembling the Tour de France (and bear in mind that "remotely" is the operative word here; "remotely" as in "not even close") was a three-week, 1,000-mile tour I did in 1988. We rode from West Yellowstone to Jasper, Alberta, averaging more than 80 miles a day, riding over Logan Pass in Glacier National Park and up through the Canadian Rockies. Plenty of climbing, plenty of altitude. Throw in the couple of times I rode the Tour of the California Alps (aka the Death Ride) for high mountains under time constraints, and there you have it.

I'm not a fast climber, not even a particularly fast rider. Despite that, and despite my paltry riding experience compared to Tour riders, when I watch the peloton snake through the countryside, or the riders in the breakaway attack on a mountain, I experience it not just visually but viscerally. No matter the discrepancy in age, strength, training, experience between me and Team Astana, my body has a cellular memory of what it felt like to push the pedals over and over and over, grinding over a hill when it's hot, staying in the saddle and on the bike when I've been tired and dehydrated and wishing it were over, but staying the course.

Tomorrow, Mont Ventoux. Bonne route to all!