Just enough energy for the celebrations

Well that's the final climb done. The best description of how I now feel is that I've purged the last remaining energy from my body. It feels go

A very cold but completed Col du Tourmalet

17.7km of climbing done. Slow with some tough moments but overall a great climb. It took 2 hours.

Sent from my HTC

Preparation

The packing has been done and the bike is now in the lap of the British Airway baggage handling gods. Good look Cervelo, I hope you make it through unscathed!

It looks like with the help of my friends and Nationwide colleagues I'll raise over £500 so there is no backing out now. I just need the legs and lungs to hold out.

Quite nervous.

2013 Challenge - Pyrenean Raid

So the 2013 challenge has had a number of ideas suggested and rejected. It came down to a final two. The 2013 Etape or 3 classic Italian climbs. After some consideration had decided to go for  Italy. I'd have loved to do the Etape again and I had great expectations of what the 100th anniversary of the Tour de France Etape was going to bring. However, with only one course choice, no recognisable climbs and an almost identical profile of the 2011 Etape it just didn't feel special enough.

So the Challenge for 2013 was to do the Passo Gavia, Mortirolo and the Passo dello Stelvio in two days.
Unfortunately after looking at combining the trip with a family holiday in August it just wasn't possible to find a reasonably priced holiday home in the Northern Italian Lakes. So back to the drawing board.

After a quick conflab it was decided to aim for some classic Pyrenean climbs. at present the plan is to do the Col d'Aspin, Tourmalet and the Aubisque.

The only members of the Tour de Amateurs for this years Challenge will be myself and my twin brother Neal. I think we'll see if we can raise some money and make the whole training and trip doubly worthwhile.

I'll create another post with the details of the planned ride later.