"La douche?"
"Oui! Oui! La douche! La douche! J'aime la douche!"
A "douche" is, literally, a shower. The man on the side of the road with the round glasses and the faded I Love New York tee shirt was offering to pour water over my head to cool me off as I rode by on my bike.
I was about a quarter of the way up the col du Tourmalet which meant that I had already covered 166km that day and gone over two mountain passes. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the temperature was 34 degrees. If it wasn't for the tradition of La douche, I don't think I would have made it.
I was riding the Etape du Tour Mondovelo, a fiendish exercise in pain and disillusionment in which normal human cyclists get the chance to see if they are as good as the Gods of cycling by riding a stage of the Tour de France. The stage chosen is typically the most difficult one in any given tour. This year was no exception. It was the stage the Pros and the Press kept talking about as the deciding stage for this year's Tour. They refer to the Tourmalet as the Queen of climbs in the Tour de France. It's 19km long with an average gradient of 7.4%. The summit is 2115m above sea level and is usually shrouded in fog, windy, and bitterly cold even in the height of summer. Today it was not. The skies were clear and the Tourmalet was glorious in both the wondrously-beautiful and all-powerful-soul-destroying meanings of the word.
I had been advised by someone who had ridden these mountains many times before that no matter what the weather report, it was going to be wet and cold and foggy on the Tourmalet come the day of the race. This man was wrong. Very very wrong, and I hated him now. It was 34 degrees. I hadn't seen a cloud since the start line and I was desperate for every douche that was offered.
The first half of the ride was absolutely gorgeous. I was loving the cloudless skies. The scenery was magnificent and the only thing that had caused me problems was my bladder. I had a fairly high start number -- 7793. This meant that it took me 20 minutes just to get over the start line. I knew from reccy videos I'd seen that the road over the col du Marie Blanc was narrow and there were likely to be bottlenecks. I wanted to get as many of the 7792 people already ahead of me behind me by the time I got there and so I set myself a pretty good pace at the beginning.
One nice thing about having a high start number is that you when you find yourself amongst some of the lower start numbers, you feel pretty good about yourself. When I went over the first little climb about 20km in, I was down among the 6000s and seeing the odd bib number starting with a five. But I'd also developed a furious need to pee. Finally, I just couldn't take the pressure any more. I pulled off to the side, leapt the ditch and let my bladder drain into the French wheat fields. I peed for what felt like about half an hour, and the whole time I could hear hundreds of cyclists whizzing by me.
Sure enough, when I got back on the bike, I was back amongst bib numbers in the seven and eight thousands. I'd clawed my way back up the rankings a bit by the time I got to the foot of the Marie Blanc, but it still meant I got stuck in the traffic jam near the summit. It was very frustrating.
Another piece of advice that my experienced old Tourmalet hand had told me was that the Marie Blanc was actually the hardest of the three climbs. Once again, he was completely wrong. I felt great going up the Marie Blanc. It's 9.3km long with an average gradient of 7.6%. Bits of it max out at about 15%, but I really was having no problems at all. Which is why it was particularly frustrating to run into the traffic jam and literally have to come to a complete stop and get off the bike. We all had to walk for about 10 to 15 minutes at this point.
The descent was steep and fast and a bit technical (i.e. dangerous). When I got to one particularly sharp corner there was someone on the embankment being tended by paramedics. And, I rounded the hairpin, I could hear another very loud crash as someone else failed to treat the mountain with proper respect. It was a good little reminder to be careful myself.
The next 40km to the col du Solour were awe-inspiring, some of the most beautiful country and the most beautiful weather I'd ever cycled through. The sun was out in force now and the valleys and fields seemed to pulse with green beauty. I felt absolutely great as I approached the Solour and was optimistically thinking that if I could just push it a bit more and keep a good pace going up the Tourmalet, maybe I could finish close to the silver time. I'd done the first 110km in 4.5 hours. I only had to ride another 70km in 3.5 hours. Admittedly, there were two mountains in the way, but surely, if I really pushed, it was doable?
By the time I got to the top of the Solour, I was pretty sure of the answer; it was not doable. The Solour isn't that much bigger than the Marie Blanc and, in fact, I'd been assured by the now completely discredited Tourmalet expert that it was the easiest climb of the three. It's 11.9km long at an average gradient of 7.8%. As I neared the summit I found myself doubting for the first time since I'd decided to do this ride, that I might not make it to the end.
On the flat section between the Marie Blanc and the Solour I remember actually looking forward to this climb. I'd felt cheated by having to walk at the top of the Marie Blanc and wanted to prove I could get over a Pyrenean col in style. I made it over the Solour but it was a far bigger struggle than I'd been expecting.
I think the heat had a lot to do with it. My first two bottles of water lasted 100km. By the time I got to the feed station at Argelès Gazost on the other side of the Solour I was out of water again just 40km later. I spent a few minutes at the feed station trying to cool down and get my body to feel halfway normal again. I had a banana and a pee, stuck my head under the tap, snapped a quick photo and then got back on the bike.
From Argelès Gazost to the base of the Tourmalet I cycled with a terrible feeling of dread, riding as efficiently as possible, seeking out every possible rear wheel I could find, every patch of shade, terrified I might run out of steam before I got to the end.
What kept me going were the fans. They were another wholly unexpected part of the Etape. There were thousands of them, shouting encouragement at every intersection and in every town and along long stretches of the climbs. I became quite emotional going over the Solour. It was a combination of the beauty, the incredible tiredness, and the amazing, generous, joyful fans. It was near the summit of the Solour that I'd had my first offer of "la douche". It had refreshed me and given me strength.
Now what I wanted even more than another douche was for the damn climb up the Tourmalet to start. It was the very last part of the ride and I knew it was 19km long, about the same as my morning ride to work. Admittedly, my daily commute didn't average 7.6%, but still it was a distance my muscles could understand. The trick was I needed to get those muscles and the rest of my body to the start of that climb before they packed it in.
Finally there it was -- the sign for the start of the Tourmalet. I'd ridden more than 160km up to this point -- one hundred miles. I was dead tired and all I had to do was climb one last little mountain, just a little more than one and a half km straight up and just under 20km in distance.
I did all right until the feed station. It was brutal and I was tired but I just keep the pedals turning and sought out every postage stamp of shade and accepted every offer of "la douche".
I'd run out of water a couple of km before the last feed station, itself only 5km from the summit. It was incredibly difficult to get off the bike. When I did, I stood beside it and tears welled up in my eyes. If I'd had the energy left to shake I would have shaken. As it was, I just stood motionless with tears streaming down my cheeks. I turned slowly to look at the valley behind me and at the mountain still to come. I could see the winding silver line of the road teasing its way up the hills ahead. The views were among the most beautiful I've ever seen in my life. I just wanted to stop right here. Find a bed, or a patch of grass or maybe just die.
Apparently, I wasn't alone. All along the side of the road, from the col du Solour onwards, there had been other riders stopped for a rest or maybe just stopped for good; it was hard to tell. Here, in this huge parking lot in the middle of the Pyrenean mountains, the ground was littered with riders who looked like they'd gone as far as they were going to go. Several near me were stricken with serious cramps, one was screaming with pain.
All in all, 10,000 people registered for this year's Etape du Tour. 6,888 finished.
I took a couple of pictures, then staggered over to where volunteers were manning water hoses. I filled my bottles and was sprayed head to toe by a little girl and her mother. Then I staggered back and got on my bike, dripping wet with ice cold water. Those last 5km were, I think, the slowest I have ever cycled. In terms of perceived time, they took as long as it takes for a galaxy to be created, grow old, and die. But I made it.
My time climbing the Tourmalet was 2 hours, 33 minutes, and 13 seconds. Overall, I completed the entire stage in 10 hours, 18 minutes, 33 seconds. Four days later, the pros would ride almost the same exact stage in just over five hours.
My GPS track of the ride
Photos from the Etape (and surrounding days)
I did this ride in order to support the Multiple Sclerosis Society. If you'd like to give me a virtual pat on the back, why not make a donation to the MS Society to show your support? It would be much appreciated by them and by me.