Stats: 124.16km, 5:48:29,
Average speed 21.37, Max speed 53.01
For stage 2 we were going to be organized! We only had 123km to make up (which is doable in a morning when riding around Melbourne) so we were looking forward to an early night and getting things under control.
We’d planned to have breakfast with David, also from TXCell, who’s completing a mountain climb of Mount Le Blanc to raise money for Crohn’s Disease. We swapped stories on planning projects like this and organized to meet up in Nice when we’ve finished our ride. It was great chatting with him and we would have loved to have stayed longer.
Back to the Hotel at 9.45 and we were a little behind schedule. Plenty of time to put the car signage up though, or so we thought.
By 12.30 we were on our way, time to complete the second half of the second stage. 123k’s. I think it was around the 6k mark where we became lost. Dale stopped to fix his speedo, Damian and I powered on (and when I say powered I mean go slow with a heart rate that goes high). When we turned around Dale and the support car were missing so we sat by a roundabout and waited for them to catch up. Half an hour later we called them to find out where they where. They were wondering where we where. Apparently we’d missed the turn off. And this pretty much set the scene for the rest of the day.
By 3.30pm we’d ridden 60k’s and decided it was time for lunch. 45 minutes later we set off again.
This so called flat stage took us over some fair climbs, which I moaned about the whole way up, but it made up for it in some gradual sweeping descents which were fantastic to ride down. Not too steep for beginners like me, but no pedaling required, that’s my kind of riding.
Then the last part of the day it finally finally became a flat stage, with roads that were lined with green fields and forests behind them and we were able to pick up some pace.
Just when I was becoming comfortable with finishing the stage soon we hit the hills again at 110km. By now I was ready to get off my bike and poor Dale kept checking to see if he had Darth Vader behind him, but it was only me trying to use the force to get up the hill.
The speedo finally hit the 120km point, then 121, then 122, then 123 and about five hours later 124. I was knackered, and it was 8:30pm. We put the bikes on the car and headed to our hotel…of course…getting lost along the way. I was unaware of most of this though as I’d passed out in the back seat. After driving around Marseille for about 45 minutes we located the hotel.
Damian’s friend Carole was support crew that night and she did an awesome job of looking after us, tea was ready when we got in. We inhaled it, showered and headed off to bed at 1.00am.
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