Tuesday morning

Day 4 - Alpe d'Huez to Briancon - probably around 50ish miles, and only one climb.

We have a spectacular day today. We woke up to crystal clear skies, cold, but no wind. We pushed breakfast to 8:00 and won't leave until about 9:30. We're all feeling the cumulative effect of hard riding, altitude, and all the little factors.

A few things I forgot last night - Dana was first to the top of Alpe d'Huez, with a time of about 1 hr - VERY impressive! Mark was second to the top, a few minutes behind Dana. After that it becomes jumbled, except for the end. Kevin and I rolled in last but we made it, with Bill providing great motivational support. He's an inspiration since he's a bit older than most of us, and can still cycle us into the ground.

We were commenting last night about how well the group is functioning together. The riding and coordinating is just going smooth. We took 10 guys who have only two things in common - biking and Bob and threw them together in a foreign country with high demands on our bodies. I'd go with this group just about anywhere.

Michele gave us some options last night, and we're probably going to modify our route a little bit. Les Deux Alps was a climb we were going to do this morning, but it's 9k up and 9k back down the same route, and we're told it's a very unimpressive climb and view. We will probably take an easy cruise to Briancon over the Col de Lauterat and have an easy afternoon. Our bodies deserve it.

Click here for a quick video of our descent of the Galibier yesterday. That's me in the yellow and black right in front of Mark.

The hurt of yesterday is already fading. The body feels a little better this morning, although I didn't sleep very well. And Shawn kept his distance during the night! Breakfast this morning was good - a nice spread, but no cooked food. I've been getting grief for my 'cat food' that I brought along - a little Underwood Deviled-Chicken spread. It just fills my stomach better than the European breakfast.

I feel like I need to eat more. We talked about how our bodies are eating themselves up with all this effort - I can feel it when I'm taking a shower - there is less of me. Not necessarily a bad thing, but interesting to experience.

We're off! Mostly packed, time to put away the laptop and put on the bike gear. Hope everyone has a great day, we'll be back later tonite!