Stage 5 Summary

OK, for all those of you who were having TdB withdrawals yesterday, an extended version for today - lot's of pictures and info.

Stage 5 of the Tour de Bob. Briancon to Gap, over the Col d' Izoard, and down into Gap. Pronounced Izuwaaaa. With Gusto!!! IZUWAAA! We all loved this climb. Mostly.

First, before we go any further, I will admit that I have the unwanted and dubious honor of being the first rider of the TdB on the ground. I'm OK, and we'll get to that later.

We woke up to bright sunshine, again, and thanked God and whoever for giving us such great weather for this trip. It was pretty cool due to the altitude, so arm warmers were needed, but we knew we'd be quickly climbing so we kept it light. Short moment of panic this morning as the wallet was missing. Put it in a different pocket after the rush of jersey buying yesterday. Whew....

Our view of Briancon as we climbed out of town. Our warmup was all of a 1/4 mile, so the hill climb started with cold legs.

We have to digress here for a bit without a picture. Put 10 guys together doing anything, and it will become a competition. Really. Biking is no different. Right off the bat, Bill, our senior rider, took off like a bat out of you know where. Of course, Mark, Dana, and Shawn had to go after him, but he had a headstart. Here's where it gets interesting.

On these climbs, there are many sharp corners, and you can quickly lose sight of those ahead of you. You keep going, knowing they are up there. For Dana, Mark, and Shawn, the prize was catching Bill who doesn't like to be caught. LITTLE did they know, that Bill is also a nefarious type, not immune to pulling a prank. So, once out of sight, he dropped into a driveway. Watching the three go by like their tails were on fire I'm sure he was laughing.

Cut to a few miles up the road where Dana, who has dropped Mark and Shawn in his quest for Bill's hide, runs into Michele and the van who told him to go on after Bill. Completely full of BS. Gotta love the French. When Dana finds Michele again farther up the road, and Shawn catches him, he realizes he's been had. We all had a great laugh over this one - at lunch, at dinner, and probably for the next couple days. Thanks Bill!

The boys on their hill climb up the Izoard - Bill and Todd. This is like the last time I will see these guys for hours.

It's hard to admit when you're the back of the pack, but somebody has to be there, and it's usually me. Put the ego in the pocket and keep on pedaling.

The view going up the Col d'izoard. IZUWAAAA!

A beautiful climb - after 5 days, the climbs are getting easier. We don't even blink at a 12 mile climb of 5000'. Before lunch.

A neat example of some local artwork on a house right on our route.

I blame my slow pace on my picture taking excursions - my blog, my excuses.

A village high up in the hills. Don't have a clue what the people here do, but it's very peaceful on a Wednesday morning.

A little more architecture. The rock walls always amaze me - they look like they've been standing there forever, and maybe they have.

OK, this was a tough one. I actually turned around and came back for this picture. Dano, Eric, Dale, Posey? We could have spent 12 hours here.

I smelled something like a Corned-Beef Hash as I rode by. I almost stopped. I did stop. I almost went in. But, I figured I was last on the hill, and the others would be waiting at the top, and a plate of hash would NOT make me any faster.

Pretty little chalet in the sunshine. Could have stayed there all day. Maybe should have as you will soon understand...

A neat rock spire off the side of the road. About now I was mentally calculating how many pedal revolutions I had done this trip. When you have a climb that takes 2+ hours, at about 6-10 mph, you have a lot of time to think.

I worked on yesterdays ride, and here was my process. My average cadence (pedal revolutions per minute) is about 80. My fancy GPS watch can track that for me. I pedal about 75% of the time, so an average of 60 over the ride seemed fair. We rode for about 7 hrs, with about 4 hrs of actual riding time. So, 4 * 60 (minutes) * 60 (rpm) = 14,400 pedal revolutions. No wonder my legs hurt. And that's just one day. Never leave an engineer un-supervised.....

So. Not long after my mental calculations, and as the road got steeper, and the altitude got higher, I experienced a minor equipment malfunction. My chain dropped off the small front chainring. It happens. Pulled over, put it back on, and kept going. By now I'm close to the back of our pack, with no hope of catching the front-runners, and not really trying. I round the next hairpin, and am spinning along at 70ish rpm, when the chain drops off again. This time I'm on a steeper section, my rpm's shoot to probably 120+ with no resistance, and my speed drops from 6mph to 0mph. In about 5 feet. With my feet spinning that fast, I can't unclip them from the pedals. With the bike not moving, and my feet clipped in, only one thing can happen. Gravity takes over and you meet the ground.

Now, virtually every serious cyclist has fallen. Sometimes it's at a stoplight, sometimes it's in the woods, but none of us like it. I knew two things for certain. 1. I'm going to fall. 2. If I put my hand down to stop it, I will break my wrist. So, you suck it up, and take the hit. I fell on my right side, and took the ground to my right knee, hip, elbow, and shoulder. Saving the head and the head-cam of Marks I hoped. The pain that went from my elbow to my shoulder was sharp and searing. So now I'm laying in the middle of the narrow road, still clipped into my pedals, in pain, and I can hear the next set of cars or motorcycles coming. I may have uttered a couple questionable words or two, but hopefully Kevin will not confirm that. I literally crawled to the side of the road. A couple Land Rovers pulled over, and Kevin pulled up and we assessed the damage. Luckily, I didn't break anything, or tear my new jersey, or even break out any blood. The low speed and my low height helped that! Off we went up the road after a suitable break and some attempts to fix my bike.

After another couple near misses with chain drops, Kevin headed up the pass solo to send Michele down to try and fix my bike - it was not safely ridable. Pretty soon Todd caught up and after a few tries was able to adjust things so the bike rode well enough to continue. I made it to the top, but slowly as the hip pain started to manifest....

The view from the top of the d'Izoard. IZUWAAAA! Don't ask me why I do that.....

Another view from the top. Pretty sparse up on the slopes...

Cobalt blue skies and decent temps. Couldn't have scripted it any better.

We had another great descent. Miles of coasting or light pedaling doing 30+ on the straights, and down to SLOW around the hairpins. Light traffic and good road so we were able to really enjoy it.

We can see where we're headed down below, but have a ways to go to get there.

I had to stop on the descent a couple times to just look and take a picture. I live near the Cascade mountains, but these just seem bigger and more grandiose. Of course, I don't have to pay thousands of dollars to go see the Cascades.....

We hit the bottom of the pass and regrouped. Michele worked a little more on my bike and found a bent chain link. Fixed it right up on the side of the road. We headed off into a long steady downhill run thru a canyon.

Still hard to keep the eyes on the road.

There's not much like a good pace line. We were cooking down the road at 25+ with 10 guys operating well together, but with a good headwind. We started snaking thru this narrow canyon, with a few 'bat-cave' type of rough tunnels, and severe drop-offs to the side. One-lane sections, and speedy French drivers kept us on our toes.

We couldn't always tell how steep the drop-offs were until after you went by them. The cars are barely visible in the center on the roadway, and that rock 'guard-rail' is about 2' high. Wouldn't even slow us down.

One for the wife - feeling like a pretty studly biker after climbing mountains and cruising with this crowd. Still your dork.....

A view at our lunch stop in Chateauroux Les Alpe. I very pretty little town that we all wanted to stay awhile in.

Ou lunch stop in the town square. The local formula-1 drivers barely slowed down going around us to get down the hill.

Sandwiches, rice, fruit, Coke, Madelaines, and rice pudding for lunch.

Michele doing a quick chain replacement on my bike - the quick fix on the pass didn't work well enough.

Love the old buildings and architecture.

Kevin proving he is stronger than the bike!

Gary proving he is smarter than the bike!

One of the great things about this trip is that we basically get three kinds of riding. The climbs, the descents, and the cruises.

On the climb, you're on your own - you can't ride someone elses pace, at least not for very long. That's why we end up breaking up. You find what you can do for a long time, and you stick with it. Feeling good, go faster. Not so good, slow down. We all meet at the top so it's not a problem.

On the descents, you just hang on. The wind resistance at 30+ mph is strong enough to slow you right down, so you try and tuck in behind someone, but not too close that you don't have options when you come to the hairpins. You don't have to pedal much, and you're not using much energy. It's just an E-ticket ride to the bottom.

The cruises are something else altogether. While we sometimes take it easy, that usually doesn't last very long. 10 strong bikers are a good thing, and when they work together they are a force. A group working together well is called a pace-line, and can easily do speeds into the high 20's to low 30's with good conditions. We had a headwind, so we were working a little extra hard.

The scenery started to change after lunch. More typical of the 'South of France' sunny landscapes I've been looking for.

That's corn. Reminds of 1 month ago in Iowa.

The view from the pace-line. I'm about 4 or 5 back from the front, just cruising until it's my turn up front.

The cool thing about a pace-line is that you're all working together - very tightly. To work well, everyone has to ride at the same speed, and very close. 6" when things are going well, up to a couple feet when it's dicier. So, you're doing 20+ mph on a bike, less than 12" from the guy in front of you, in the middle of a crowd of 10 riders. Any mistake can be painful for many.

But, when it works, it's magic. The guy in the front is working hard, especially in a headwind, but the rest of the riders are getting a 'tow' - taking advantage of the reduced wind resistance. You can cut 30% or more of your pedaling effort by being in the slipstream of the rider ahead of you. When you take turns in a group this size, you're only on the front working hard 10% of the time. Or less when the big guns are taking long pulls at the front. They don't like me much up front - I'm too short and small to give much of a tow. We cruised this way for over 20 miles and got to town in a short time. The guy in front pulls for awhile, then pulls off to the side and coasts to the back of the line, and then pulls in to the slipstream for a rest. The time on the front can be as little as 30 seconds, or 10 minutes - depends on the conditions and the energy level. This is a great group that works together well....

Our hotel in Gap is called the Gapotel. It has a pool which made my day. Here's Kevin and I, and Todd in the background, enjoying a cold beer while we soak our legs in the ice-bath. It was quite cold. I had to do the 'go-in-fast' method or I would never have got in. Felt really good.

We had dinner in the hotel, a really tasty salad, salmon, and apple pie combination. Not to mention some great wine picked out by Dana, our under-paid but over-appreciated sommelier.

Great conversation with Bill, Shawn, Mark, and Kevin about bikes, bike stuff, bike equipment, and bike books and movies. Found out Bill is an old-time surfer and from Hawaii. He's constantly suprising us!

Just one of the techie twits on this trip. Shawn, my roomie, working on his laptop. Great wifi at this hotel, not like last night.

Yes, that's my bed on the right. The one with all the stuff on it. My wife will recognize it right off. I'm more of the Oscar Madison style than the Felix Unger if you know what I mean. Feel sorry for Nancy.

We've got the window wide open, and it's almost 11:00. Time for sleep, as we're getting up a little early and hitting the road by 8:30 to beat the headwinds and heat.

Thursday we ride from Gap to Bedoin, about 80+ miles with no major climbs. I'm sure the big guys will be ramping up the speed. Enjoy the blog, tomorrow is another day.

Click here for Dana's pictures.

Click here for Bob's pictures.

Click here for a video of the descent of Col d'Izoard.

Click here for another video from Mark's helmet-cam.

Click here for our route profile/info from my GPS.

I posted pictures from Stage 4 as a separate post from the stage 4 summary - check it out....