Stage 3 – Fayence – Valberg 122km

We were able to sleep in until 11am and so after 5 hours sleep we all stumbled down to breakfast and tried to be positive about today’s stage.  Fortunately all the riders were sleep deprived so I was hoping that today’s stage would be raced at a more sedate pace.

A policeman gave us bad directions to the race start and as we did our second U turn for the day, I was on the phone to Pierre Boue, the French Director explaining to him that we were lost.  He promised to wait for us and we screeched to a holt in front of the start line at 1.50pm for a 2pm start.

Rumour has it that all teams, except one, protested in relation to the difficult transfer last night and wanted to make today a rest day.  As a compromise, the race was shortened by 25km.

So we rode 4km out of Fayence at a neutral pace, then stopped, loaded up the bikes, got into the team cars and drove for 25km.  With no warm up we jumped on our bikes to race the remaining 90km.  As usual, the race started at a blistering pace.  It was 43C but there were storm clouds gathering in the alps and it looked like we were going to get wet.

A group of 8 attacked up the first category 4 climb and opened up a gap.  My legs were stinging and I ended up a few hundred metres off the main group as they crested the top, but a group of chased on the descent and got back to the peloton just as the first drops of rain started.

Trine had also been dropped and as she chased back on she wiped out on a slippery corner, taking off a fair amount of skin.  She jumped up quickly though and after chasing hard, eventually rejoined the peloton.

It hadn’t rained for many weeks and the roads were so slippery.  Christine got caught in a crash that I narrowly avoided.  My wheels slipped out a few times and I really backed off the speed to make sure I kept things upright.  We were asked to sit up and help get Christine back on so I was nearly 1km behind the peloton.  I radioed to Meredith who had also dropped back, and told her I would get back to the peloton to support Katrina.

I chased for about 10km in the pouring rain and eventually caught the race caravan.  This section of road followed the contour of the mountain and had at least 10 single lane tunnels to negotiate.  Riders are allowed to draft behind the team cars discretely to help get back to the peloton.  The rider should not spend too much time behind a single car and must progress forward to the next car.  Most team cars will slow down and then pace the rider towards the car in front.  I lept from car to car but had to be really careful of the tunnels.  On two occasions I was right behind a car when the car decided to pull over and allow me to go through the tunnel in front.  They gave me no warning they were stopping and forced me to swerve violently in the wet.

Almost immediately after catching the peloton, Katrina dropped back for a wheel change so I dropped back to help her get back on and was in amongst the cars again when Chris told me to stay in the peloton.  He must have realised how knackered I was after just getting back to the peloton.  I continued to yo yo in and out of the caravan for the next 20km as I battled to hang with the main group.  There were a couple of riders driving it hard on the front of this group and I was amazed at how hard they were riding.  They brought the break back to 15 seconds by the base of the final 15km climb .  I got dropped again on this ascent and climbed with a Kookai rider from Spain to the finish.  I finished about 45^th and was grateful for the 13-29 cassette I had decided to use today.