Bonjour Tour de Cure

As any keen cyclist would agree, the place to be in July every year is France. The Tour de France is in full swing, the weather is great and the cycling is awesome.

I had the great priviledge of spending 4 weeks of holiday in Southern France and Spain this year, with my family. Of course I packed my bike and covered over 700km of Spanish coastline and French mountain passes. Naturally, I was wearing TDC kit and it was amazing how much interest it received !

Obviously the French don't understand the word 'cure' so the TDC was quickly renamed the 'Tour de guerrissance' during my stay !



My family comes from the small town of Mazamet in the Languedoc region of France and it is nestled in a valley surrounded by 'La Montagne Noir' or 'The black Mountain'. This is the home town of famous French cyclist Lauren Jalabert (JaJa) and it is pretty obvious why he was such a good climber !!! Lots of big bloody mountains.


My 'standard' ride was a 50km loop including the Pic de Nore which is at an altitude of 1100m. 25km up and 25km down !!!
I must say that riding up there in the early morning, with occasional encounters with deer is truly amazing and the view from the summit beautiful on a clear day.



Our first visit to the Tour de France was the stage finish in Foix. It was a great day and in particular because Cadel was still in yellow !! My kids had a ball but were confused why the Tour de Cure wasn't riding ....ha !!!!










Of particular note, I made a visit to the famous Mont Ventoux not far from Avignon in the Provence region of France. Dubbed the 'Giant of Provence' I set out on the 22km climb culminating at the summit some 2000metres high.
There were literally hundreds of riders from all corners of the world making their 'pilgrimage' to this truly iconic mountain.
A daunting sight was the monument to Tom Simpson who died in the 60's while climbing Mont Ventoux in the Tour de France.

After a quick stop to pay hommage to Tom, I completed the ride at the summit. To my surprise and extreme enjoyment, there is a lolly market there for all those riders needing a sugar fix. Let me tell you, you definately need it !! I had my fill and then set out on the terrifying decent ! While I clocked 83km/h this was pretty lame compared to fellow TDC ride Mike Bolt who reached 97km/h the day before !!

That night I returned to Nimes for the Tour de France stage finish and met up with TDC riders Gary Bertwistle, Mike Bolt, Denver Beven and also Simon Martin and Shane who were all doing various trips to follow the Tour. We had a great dinner together and thought about our mates in Oz freezing to death on their early morning rides......ughh.

The rest of the trip was a mix of great family time, eating, drinking and soaking up the sun. Not that it has anything to do with riding but sunflowers are part of the 'essence' of Southern France in Summer and this shot of my son Max really captures it all.

So now I'm back. The tan is wearing off, I've put on 4 kilos and it's back to work. I had my first early morning ride from Maiseys today......brrrr.

Adieu la France, a la prochaine !