Hi everyone,

Well, I have survived my first Tour de France and what a relief it was to finally see the Eiffel Tour as we rode into Paris.  I spent a few days in Paris with Bob after the tour, drinking lots of Beaujolais and enjoying the cafes in the Latin Quarter.  I also returned to Copenhagen, packed my bits and pieces and am now heading home to Australia.

I have had many emails asking me where my tour race report is – ……well it is still coming.  I have completed some of it so I will drip feed it to you in segments.  I reckon my account of what the tour is like will either inspire you or will have you wondering why on earth we do it!!!

Happy reading

Helen.

The journey before the Tour de France Feminine – 2003

Wednesday 30 July

The SATS team left Copenhagen at 1pm and drove to Odense, north of the city, to visit our bike sponsor before heading to France.  We grabbed a few spare helmets (just in case anyone crashes during the tour), race tyres and other items and were then on our way to Germany by mid afternoon.

We stopped enroute to pick up Katrina Grove (Mobile) who was joining the SATS team as a guest rider for the Tour de France.  We stopped periodically for petrol and ate sandwiches in the cars for dinner.

We eventually arrived in Duane, somewhere in Germany at 1.30am in the morning.  Everyone was so tired and ready for some sleep.  I crawled into bed and slept like a log until 8.30am.  I could have done with much more sleep but dragged myself out of bed and headed downstairs to experience my first German breakfast.

Thursday 31 July

After a breakfast which consisted of sausages (which I passed up on), yoghurt, cereal, boiled eggs and bread, we were on the bikes by 9.30am.  We rode for 2 hours with our escort, Noel, an acrobatic friend of Chad, the mechanic.  Noel, an American native, has been living in Germany for several years and knew some great mountain roads to take us to.  He is heading to Monaco to climb poles in a circus act and is going to meet us in Grenoble on his way, to watch us race through the French Alps.

My legs felt horrible during the ride but after an hour of solid climbing they started to open up.  After our ride, the team showered in record time, packed the cars and were on our way to Marseille.  And although we were drove on the Autobarns, we didn’t reach Marseille until 2am.  I was starting to wonder if the journey to the Tour start was going to be harder than the actual racing.

Friday 1 August

We needed to be up by 7am, and after only 5hrs sleep I was contemplating skipping breakfast to get a little extra sleep.  Now that we were in France, our breakfast consisted of croissants, coffee, baguettes, cereal and yoghurt.  It only took 20 minutes and one U turn to drive from our hotel to the ferry terminal at Marseille and we rolled through the entrance gates at exactly 9am as requested by the Tour organisation.

At 9am it was already 35C and we knew we were going to experience even hotter weather once we landed on the island of Corsica.

The confusion at the ferry terminal over the next 5 hours was unbelievable.  The day was known as Black Friday, the first day of holidays for many French travellers.  The congestion caused by an inordinate number of travellers brought the ferry terminal to a halt.  In addition to this chaos, the car ramp used to drive the cars onto the ferry was broken so cars were unable to be loaded.  The Tour organisation paid for one car per team to travel by ferry to Corsica so each team had to join a huge queue to buy additional car tickets.

The band members that were hired to play at the start of each stage decided to use the wait as a chance to practice and soon the car park was filled with the sounds of trumpets, saxophones, drums and clarinets.  After sitting amongst the chaos at the ferry terminal for 5 hours, the ferry was finally loaded and headed away from the port at 2pm, only 3 hours late.  I took a few photos of the French coast and then moved inside to put the feet up.  Shortly before dinner, there was an announcement that the ferry was experiencing mechanical problems and would be arriving at Ile Rouse well after midnight.  As partial compensation, all food purchased on the ferry was reduced by 25%.

We arrived in the town of Corte and found our accommodation, simple university dormitory rooms at 1.30am.  I was so tired that I would have slept in a dog kennel by this stage.  My room was at least 35C and after opening the window in the hope of getting a breeze, taking a cold shower, I pulled on an eye mask to block out the light and collapsed until 9.30am.

Saturday 2 August

I had missed breakfast but went into the kitchen and asked for some cereal, juice and bread.  The temperature was already 40C and combined with my lack of sleep, I was feeling less then ready to start the tour.  The team trained for 1.5 hours at an easy pace but I was breathing hard and struggling.  I was so sleep deprived that my head throbbed and I just wanted to curl up on the edge of the road.  I told our director, Chris, how badly I was feeling and turned back early to lie down.

I left my bike with the mechanics, and headed to the cafeteria for lunch before planning my afternoon nap.  I was just finishing lunch when Chris arrived and as I speak French, suggested I attend the managers meeting with him to translate it for him.  After 2 hours of translating I was struggling both mentally and physically.  I was craving both rest and more food.  The meeting finally ended and I was given 5 minutes to grab a SATS jersey, before we headed to Ajaccio for the presentation of all the teams, participating in the tour.  The drive to Ajaccio took 2 hours on a narrow goat track through the mountains.  Most of us felt car sick and it was impossible to get any sleep.  We were presented on stage and within 30 minutes were back in the cars for the 2 hour return journey to Corte, arriving back at 9pm.

Meanwhile, my husband Bob had spent 2 days travelling from Melbourne to join the team as the soigneur.  We found him at a café in Corte, only 300m from our accommodation, jetlagged and tired.  We hadn’t seen each other for 3 months and it was awesome to be in the same country again. After a 10pm dinner, we headed to our dormitory rooms for some much needed sleep with day one of the tour starting tomorrow.