9 July 2008: Stage Five: How to Eat a Chocolate Eclair While Riding the Tour de France
Epic day. 300+ km, clicked over 1000 total during the connection from Chateauroux to Aigurande. Again, barely managed to finish the stage.
Gendarmerie tried to wave me off the road at 35 km, 20 km, and 17 km to go. Fortunately french cops aren't stupid or macho enough to actually step in front of a bike going 35 kph. They finally got me going up a hill, with about 10 km to go. I followed George's advice, got off and walked around the corner, then hopped back on. Made to about 2 km from the finish, which seems to about as close as I can usually get.
With the usual morning get-lost detour, 236 total at an avg of 26.5
kph. Then a beautiful easy 65 km ride to the hilltop farming town of
Aigurande, with, of course, three grocery stops along the way.
I am now camped out in some farmer's field, just off tomorrow's route,
without phone service, so I don't know when this will arrive. Speaking
of tomorrow, the first thing I did when I got to town was to ask for the
grocery store. The guy recognized me from yesterday's paper. The first
thing he said (with a wry smile) was, "Super-Besse demain--sera dur,
non?"
The french are proud of their mountains. I will find out why in the
morning -- two cat 2 climbs and a net elevation gain of over 800 meters.
This should be the hardest stage yet.
And finally, Jesse's Cycling Tip of the Day: How to Eat a Chocolate
Eclair While Riding the TDF:
1) Run into to patisserie, preferably out of breath,
2) point at chocolate eclair (and chausson au pommes, and croissant des
fruits),
3) eat latter in street, tuck former in jersey pocket wrapped in paper,
4) 40 km later, remove from pocket, do not remove from wrapper (this
risks an ugly stain that resembles the name of a town i rode through
today--"Pou Pou"),
5) bite, chew, spit out wrapper at gendarmerie or caravan, whichever
comes first,
6) repeat step 5 until eclair is gone,
7) put the hammer down for another 40 km.
Getting dark, have to sleep, wish I could talk to everyone!
Jesse Czelusta seeing off Tom, who kindly provided assistance and photography for the first four stages. Below, Tom carries baguettes in his biking jersey, showing us how they manage to eat so much while cycling so much.
Photos courtesy of Thomas T. Lee (aka Tom).
