Bluffer's guide to Tour de France (AKA the perils of committing to the cause)

Some readers will have followed this blog since November. The great news is that I have nearly finished (I fly out to France on 3 July) so you won't have to read much more. The bad news is that my posts from hereon are even more likely to be about boring cycling stuff.

Bluffer's guide
For anybody who unwittingly finds themselves involved in a conversation about le Tour, here are some pointers to help you sound like you know what you're talking about:

What is going on?
The Tour de France is a 21-stage (one stage per day, with two rest days) mix of normal stages, time-trials and mountain stages, covering about 2,000 miles.

How long have they been doing this?
This year's event is the 104th edition of the Tour de France. The first was held in 1903 as a PR exercise for L'Auto newspaper. It clearly worked - circulation doubled during the event.

Why is the Tour de France starting in Germany?
Every other year, the ride starts outside France. This year's event starts in Dusseldorf. The Tour always finishes on Paris’s Champs-Elysées, where the leader is traditionally allowed to coast home in the final stage.

What is a peloton?
A peloton is a group of riders cycling very close together to reduce wind resistance and save energy. Riding in a group works brilliantly, but you do have to rely on the people in front of you to point out any hazards (and similarly do the same for people behind you).

This energy efficiency makes it difficult to judge whether or not to make a breakaway from the peloton. It is much easier to ride as part of the peloton than out in a small group and this is why breakaways are usually chased down.

I know it's the Tour de France, but do we need quite so much French?
For some reason, cyclists like to demonstrate their knowledge of the sport by using unnecessary French (why do we have to refer to cobbles as pave, even in the UK?) and sometimes Italian too (such as grupetto, used to describe the bunch of riders bringing up the rear).

So it's all about the yellow jersey, right? Oh hang on, what are these other colours?

The yellow jersey is worn by leader of the general classification (the GC) - i.e. the rider with the shortest total time. This is the real prize, but there are also others.

• The green jersey is awarded to the fastest sprinter (sprint points are awarded at key points during each stage).
• The red polka dot goes to the awesomely-named King of the Mountains!
• Belgian Eddy Merckx is the only person to have won all three of the above jerseys in one tour.
• There is also a white jersey for the best young (under 25) rider.

So that's why they aren't all trying to win?
That's right. Teams tend to comprise the star riders (the likes of Chris Froome), plus specialists in mountain stages or sprints (think Mark Cavendish), but they also include a number of domestiques, who basically act as human windshields for the riders with aspirations of winning.

They're all cheats aren't they?
Cheating in the Tour de France is not a modern phenomenon. Early tactics included short cuts, getting towed and boarding trains. Apparently the first four finishers in 1904 were all disqualified!

Drugs. painkillers, stimulants and performance-enhancers have always featured routinely though:

• Early on it was wine, strychnine and ether;
• Post-war, it was cocaine and amphetamines;
• In the late 1900s and early 2000s, riders turned to steroids, hormones and EPO (in 1998, riders even staged a two-hour sit-down strike in protest against drugs testing);
• Lance Armstrong’s seven chemically-assisted wins from 1999 to 2005 have all been removed and not re-allocated.

The important one - how do they go to the toilet?
The first thing to say is that (contrary to some stories I have heard) they get off their bikes first! Bib shorts (think a cross between cycle shorts and dungarees) make it all a bit tricky, but you just have to find a way to get around all of the lycra.

Peloton etiquette dictates that when the yellow jersey stops to take a "comfort break", no one overtakes him. Cyclist Tom Dumoulin got upset during the Giro d'Italia this year when the peloton took the opportunity to get ahead while he stripped off for a number 2 - cue plenty of toilet humour from the Twitterati.

Finally, why do they shave their legs?
Four reasons are generally given:

• The least likely of these is to gain an aerodynamic benefit (some studies have suggested that leg hair actually helps with aerodynamics).
• The two more believable excuses are to aid quick healing of cuts and road rash after a tumble, and to make life easier for post-ride masseurs.
• More likely, however, is just that everybody else does it! 

Commitment to the cause
I decided some time ago that if I am doing this, then I should do it properly - with all of the awful things that might entail.

That is how I found myself on Saturday evening with an epilator in my hand.

Anybody who has seen me in shorts will be aware that my legs are naturally quite hirsute. I have generally been okay with that, although at times I have been a bit self-conscious about it. This has been a particular concern when on cycling events, so I decided that I was going to get rid of the hair before I got to France.

I decided against shaving (mainly because of the risk of ingrowing hairs), and was not sure about waxing, so decided to try my hand at epilating. 

To anybody who hasn't tried it, here is what to expect: On bony bits (e.g. shins) it was fine - just a bit prickly - while at others it hurts like a machine trying not only to rip your hair out, but also take your skin with it! Eventually you reach a point at which it just gets boring as you try (and, if you're anything like me, fail) to cover every centimetre of your legs - imagine how tedious it would be trying to colour your legs in evenly with a painful marker pen.

I won't post any pictures - partly because I forgot to take a side by side picture when I had only done one of my legs, partly because once you have seen it you won't be able to unsee it, and partly because it just looks weird.

One final word on this is that it was my own stupid fault. I decided to sign up for the charity ride and I decided to commit far more than I actually needed to. The real victim of this story is my girlfriend, who had to spend a Saturday evening teaching her boyfriend how to epilate his legs. I am not sure she would ever have imagined having to do that, even in her worst nightmares, so I am very grateful. I am also very sorry for breaking her epilator with my masses of leg hair.

Fundraising

In case tearing my own leg hair out is not enough to warrant sponsorship, in just over a week I will be riding 670km (430 miles) in four days as I tackle four stages of the Tour de France. More information is available here.

All of this hard work is to raise money for the fantastic William Wates Memorial Trust. WWMT gives funding and support to organisations and projects which help disadvantaged young people by keeping them away from a life of crime.

Please visit my fundraising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/TomHoldaway. 

I am now just £120 short of my fundraising target. It would be awesome if I can get to my target before I leave for France!

Thank you for reading!

Catching up

The end is nigh!

As I write this, I am less than three weeks away from catching my flight to France to start the Tour de Force. The panic is starting to set in.

It has been over a month since my last post and a lot has happened. Mostly, it was moving house that got in the way, but there is also some other stuff to catch up on.

Eight hours at The Galleries, Bristol
On 20 May, I spent eight hours on my bike attached to a turbo trainer at The Galleries shopping centre in Bristol. When I was arranging it, I briefly considered doing two consecutive days there - I am glad I decided against that!

To anybody who doesn't know what a turbo trainer is, it attaches to the back wheel so that you can pedal your bike without moving (much like an exercise bike). I borrowed one from somebody at work (thank you Richard!) and set it up like this:

It turns out that eight hours sat on a stationary bike underneath a skylight on a hot day, in a very public setting, is really sweaty work. I felt pretty gross for most of the day!

Most importantly, though, I managed to raise £164.20. It felt like I had to work really hard to earn that, but in a way that took on its own importance. Nobody had to donate any money, so the fact that anybody at all did felt pretty amazing. The people who donated often appeared to be those who would have had good reasons for not donating. It was also nice to hear people's good wishes and stories of their own fundraising experiences. I will definitely be more generous when I see other people in similar situations.

Thank you to everybody who came in to say hello and wish me luck. I am really grateful to those people from work who came along, but special thanks go to my family, my girlfriend and to my friend Rob for coming along to hold buckets and tell passers by what on earth I was doing.

Tour of Wessex
A few months ago, I signed up for the Tour of Wessex, which takes place each year over the spring bank holiday weekend. I signed up the whole event, which would see me ride around 320 miles over three days. Part of the appeal of this was the opportunity to go on back to back long rides and get my legs used to it a bit. It was also going to be another opportunity to ride with some of the other Tour de Force riders that I will be riding with in France next month. Unfortunately, after a hectic couple of months, I decided that I would benefit from a day off, so decided to skip the Saturday.

In fairly typical fashion, I woke up on the Saturday (my rest day) and decided to go for a ride anyway - just not such a stupidly long one! I cycled from Bristol to Bath and, once there, decided to try to find the Two Tunnels route. I eventually found it and quite enjoyed what is both a cycle route and an art installation.

Stage 2 of the Tour of Wessex took place on the Sunday. The route went from Huish Episcopi to Corfe Castle and back in a loop. Unfortunately, the battery of my Garmin isn't good enough to last the whole day - it made it as far as 174.6km (108.5 miles), plus about 5km (3 miles) that I didn't record because I forgot to unpause my Garmin at some point. I think the ride was around 189km (117 miles). It was a pretty exhausting ride, but made much easier by Gareth who spent the day "riding slowly" with me to keep me company.

Just to cement my novice status, I was booked in to get a sports massage after that ride to prepare me for the next day. I was introduced to the masseur, who asked what I would like done. "Er, I don't really know", I said. "Well, what hurts the most?" "My shoulders, I think". Good skills, Tom. To be fair, though, it did really help my shoulders!

On the bank holiday Monday, I decided I wanted to get home early as I was moving house a few days later, so I rode the shorter (102km / 64 mile) route. This was still quite challenging, with some steep hills, but it meant that I finished at lunchtime. As I sat there chatting, about 45 minutes after finishing, David Kinjah (Chris Froome's mentor and training partner in Kenya) crossed the finish line. Wow, I thought, I finished before him! Then it dawned on me that he had almost certainly just finished the 104 mile route - although he probably (hopefully) had a head start.

Fundraising
This summer I will be riding 670km (430 miles) in four days as I tackle four stages of the Tour de France. More information is available here.

All of this hard work is to raise money for the fantastic William Wates Memorial Trust. WWMT gives funding and support to organisations and projects which help disadvantaged young people by keeping them away from a life of crime.

Please visit my fundraising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/TomHoldaway. 

Alternatively, if you would like to sponsor me but do not want to do so online, let me know and I will cycle over to collect your donation in person (within reason obviously - I am not cycling too far!).

I am now just £120 short of my fundraising target. It would be awesome if I can get to my target before I leave for France!  

Shout-outs
I am really grateful to everybody who has helped or sponsored me. Special thank yous go out to Sasha, Rachel, Charlotte, the generous shoppers of the Galleries and some very, very kind anonymous donors.

Thank you also to The Galleries for letting me fundraise in their shopping centre, to Richard (again) for loaning me his turbo trainer, to Hannah and Sarah for all of your help and support with setting up the event and to everybody else who came along and helped or said hello. It really was a team effort and I am grateful to everybody for their help.

Thank you for reading!

Not much about cycling

After a really difficult couple of weeks for my family, cycling training has understandably taken a bit of a back seat.

It is only this weekend that I started to think about getting back out on the bike for anything longer than the commute to work. Unfortunately I had far too much planned for the weekend and none of that involved cycling.

Instead, my main exercise for the weekend was running the Bristol 10k. I signed my brother up for the run as a birthday present, to give him something to aim for when he started running last year, so decided to act as pacemaker to help him run it in under an hour (a pretty awesome feat that he did well to achieve).

There is something quite exciting about lining up alongside thousands of other runners, knowing that much of the route would be lined with spectators - something I have not seen on any of the cycling events I have taken part in to date. Disappointingly the bib I was sent by the event organiser showed my name as Thomas, which meant that the calls of encouragement I received were a bit formal for my liking, but it was very nice of people to try! 

Putting the "fun" into fundraising

Ok, let's not get carried away, but I have lined up a fundraising day on 20 May 2017 at the Galleries Shopping Centre in Bristol. Please come down and say hi.

I will be cycling for 8 hours attached to a turbo trainer (to offer resistance and stop the bike moving). This will be a challenge, but will give me an opportunity for some indoor training and show people how tough this summer's Tour de Force is going to be. As a real bonus, I will get to spend the day indoors at the Galleries listening to whatever dreadful music is being pumped into the centre.

I am also planning a couple of other challenges for myself during the day to mix things up.

If you are able to come along and say hi and give me a high five, I would be really grateful for the support.

Also, if anybody can spare half an hour or so between 11 - 3 to hold a bucket and say hello to passers by, that would be fantastic.

If you are not able to make it, or you just fancy sponsoring me, please visit my fundraising page: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/TomHoldaway. A donation of any size will help a lot. 

Thank you for reading!

Centurion

On Easter Monday I took part in the Cotswold Spring Classic. I am not sure I have ever made up so many swear words in my life (although I should admit that most of these were conventional swear words with the word biscuit added to the end). 

Perhaps I should start with an excerpt from the rider manual:

Additional route information – please be aware that the 163km route includes some very tough climbs, and technical descents. Some may think that there is not much climbing, but you are in the Cotswolds and when roads go up – they’re steep!! The last third of the long route includes a lot of the major climbs, therefore if you are not sure of your ability this early in the season please don’t risk it. We do run a broom wagon and if you get caught by it we will have to pull you out of the event for your own safety.

During the safety briefing the above message was reinforced quite strongly - we were told that the final 60km of the long route involved as much climbing as the first 100km (but a bit steeper) and that anybody feeling a bit jaded or not quite up for it should stick to the medium route when the routes split.

Having not slept particularly well, I decided at that point that however much I might want to ride 100 miles (160km), this was not the time to try it.

The ride involved a procession of hills, some of which had photographers at or near the top and some of which were timed hill climbs. Some of them were quite hard work.

Another difficult thing about the ride was the number of feed stops. The Tour de Bristol, that I took part in the previous weekend, had three feed stops within 100km ride. This one had one feed stop for the 100km ride and two stops for the 160km route.

Around 90km into the route, I thought about a conversation that I had with a friend the day before. He had taken part in a sprint triathlon and really enjoyed it, but (sensibly in my view) had no intention of doing a longer triathlon - unlike his sister, who completed an iron man a few years ago.

This sparked a dilemma in my head. On one hand, I really wasn't up for cycling a further 60km of hills, tiredness and pain. On the other hand, (i) I am training for a 4-day ride (the longest stage of which is 214km long) so will need to get to grips with longer rides at some point, (ii) I had told people that I was going to ride 100 miles (i.e. the long route) so there was a degree of pride at stake, (iii) I rode 135km last month - would quitting at 100km be a backwards step? (iv) I had 4 hours or so before the cut-off time - if I try the 160km and it doesn't work out I can either walk up some hills or bail out and hitch a lift back on the broom wagon.

While the above was still going through my mind, I found myself turning off to take the 160km route.

I immediately saw what they meant about the climbs. Never mind, I thought, there were so many steep hills straight after the turning off that I was surely getting the climbs out of the way.

That turned out to be a whole load of **** biscuits!

The hills continued and it was not long before I started to dread the lengthy descents as these were always going to be followed by lengthy, and often steep, climbs.

As painful as the hills were, they give the opportunity for some impressive views. I was struck by the following view as I approached Sheepscombe - and was grateful for the excuse to pause while I took a photo.

Slad Valley was particularly painful and demoralising - going down one side, crossing to climb out of the valley on the other side before immediately descending back into the valley and climbing back out again. At this point in the ride I met up with another rider, who joined me for some swearing and - eventually - a short walk uphill.

I can keep banging on about hills, but the only way to do this any justice is a picture of the elevation of the ride. The below picture is a screenshot from my phone. 

To further illustrate how difficult this was, if you google "how many calories will I burn if I run a marathon" the top result tells you that the burn rate is approximately 100 calories per mile - i.e. 2,600 calories for the entire race. According to my Garmin app I burned 3,967 calories during this ride.

Hopefully I now have your sympathy.

There was a moment, about 7-8km before the end, that I realised I was tired, hungry, alone and struggling along even flat roads. Determined to finish, however, I pushed on through to receive a much-needed round of applause as I crossed the line and collected my finisher's medal.

It says a lot about my frame of mind at the end of the ride that I wanted to take the following picture (sorry James, that is a bit of my leg).

It was, so far as I can remember, the toughest experience of my life.

Fundraising 
This summer I will be riding 670km (430 miles) in four days as I tackle four stages of the Tour de France. More information is available here.

All of this hard work is to raise money for the fantastic William Wates Memorial Trust. WWMT gives funding and support to organisations and projects which help disadvantaged young people by keeping them away from a life of crime.

Please visit my fundraising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/TomHoldaway.

Alternatively, if you would like to sponsor me but do not want to do so online, let me know and I will cycle over to collect your donation in person (within reason obviously - I am not cycling too far!). 


Thank you for reading!

Hot and hilly - Tour de Bristol 2017

In support of St Peter's Hospice, I took part in the Tour de Bristol on Saturday. Given a choice of three distances (35km, 50km or 100km) I opted for the longer, most challenging route as part of my training for this year's Tour de Force.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, not much of the event took place on the busy streets of Bristol. This, in itself, gave me a bit of a shock as I realised the sort of distance I am covering on longer rides. Anybody who has ever thought that driving to Clevedon or Cheddar from Bristol is a bit of a faff will appreciate that cycling to both is not likely to be a leisurely ride.

You can watch a video of the 50km route if you would like to get a flavour of the ride.

Having some concerns about parking, I set off for Ashton Court at 7am. As you will see from the following photographs, it was a good thing I got there early:

After fighting through the crowds, I met up with some of my colleagues and made my way to the start of the ride.

The ride itself was fun. Here are some highlights:

1. Sociable feed stops are definitely the way forward.
2. Cycling up Cleeve Hill - the first point at which I decided to abandon my colleagues and get the hill over and done with (although I did wait for them at the top)!
3. Getting sworn at by somebody in a mini as I cycled up Burrington Combe, because I was in the process of overtaking another cyclist when the driver decided to overtake me - for the record, if a driver has to cross to the other side of the road to overtake one cyclist, it really makes no difference to that driver if they have to go slightly further over to overtake two cyclists!
4. Cheddar Gorge! I had heard some scary stories about cycling up Cheddar Gorge, but I quite enjoyed it. The hill goes on for around 10km, I think, but once the steep bit at the bottom is out of the way, most of it just a case of settling into a rhythm and showing gravity who is boss.
5. The horrible steep hill shortly before the third feed stop, the location of which I didn't think to check because I was too busy trying not to have to walk up the hill.
6. The person who rode the whole route that I am moaning about here, but with a Deliveroo backpack on!
7. Waiting with my colleagues at the end to see everybody cross the line.
8. The weather was great! Better, in fact, than I had expected. Here is the outcome of that:

Just to confirm, that is sunburn - not a really nice tan.

About St Peter's Hospice

St Peter's Hospice is a fantastic charity in Bristol which cares for adults with life-limiting illnesses, aiming to improve the quality of their living and dying while extending care and support to their families and loved ones. St Peter's Hospice is a charity which is close to the heart of a number of my friends and colleagues.

It may seem ridiculous in a blog which was set up to help me meet my fundraising target for one charity for me to plug another one, but I have always taken the view that I am not going to tell anybody what to do with their hard-earned money. I took part in this event with my colleagues, without whom it would have been much more difficult and far less enjoyable. If you would like to support this effort, please do visit our fundraising page. As a firm we have already managed to raise over £9,000 for taking part in this event alone!

My own fundraising effort!
I will be riding 670km (430 miles) in four days this summer as I tackle four stages of the Tour de France. Sadly, I am going to find each stage even tougher than the Tour de Bristol - especially by the final day in the Pyrenees.

All of this hard work is to raise money for the fantastic William Wates Memorial Trust. WWMT gives funding and support to organisations and projects which help disadvantaged young people by keeping them away from a life of crime.

Please visit my fundraising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/TomHoldaway.

Alternatively, if you would like to sponsor me but do not want to do so online, let me know and I will cycle over to collect the money from you (within reason obviously - I'm not cycling too far!). 

Shout outs
A huge thank you to everybody for your continued support. A special thank you goes to both James and Rob (to whom I am so grateful I did not call him Hornblower) for your kind donations.

Thank you for reading!

Fun with maths

No, not crystal maths - this isn't Breaking Bad, you know!

Whilst I understand that the title might seem like an oxymoron, I decided to write this post after receiving donations to take me over halfway towards my fundraising total (more on that later).

In February I bought myself a GPS computer to record my training. What this has revealed so far is as follows:

• Between 10 February 2017 - 31 March 2017, I recorded over 1,116 km cycled - I have actually cycled further, as there have been plenty of journeys where I either forgot to start the GPS or it has taken a while to pick up a signal and I got fed up with waiting, but (as with the time that I recorded running 99.8km in one month when I had actually run further) if it isn't recorded, it doesn't count!
• This equates to 25,647 calories burned.
• The above period covers 50 days and gives an average of 22.32 km and 512.94 calories per day.
• During the month of March, there were just 6 days on which I did not cycle at all.

To put this into context though, when I ride four stages of the Tour de France this summer (more details here):

• Between 4 July 2017 - 7 July 2017, I will be cycling 694 km.
• This will equate to 45,000 calories burned.
• The above period covers 4 days and gives an average of 173.5 km and 11,250 calories per day.
• During the above 4 days, there will be no rest days!

I am choosing to ignore the elevation statistics for now because they are a bit scary.

Once again, I am incredibly grateful to everybody who has donated so far - it really means a lot to me. As mentioned above, I have now reached over half of my fundraising total. At the time of writing this blog post, I have raised £645 (£781.25 including Gift Aid) - leaving just £555 to reach my target. 

What this really means is that I can reach my target if the following happens:

• 555 kind people donate £1 each.
• 111 very kind people donate £5 each.
• 55½ incredibly kind people donate £10 each.
• 27¾ super kind people donate £20 each.

I am still trying to work on some fundraising events to reduce the number of super kind people that I have to rely on, but in the meantime if anybody wants to donate anything it really will make a difference.

If anybody would like to donate but is reluctant to do so via my fundraising page (I understand that it is a bit of a faff to do, that some people prefer to avoid that there internet thing and that some people might not want to allow Gift Aid and would prefer not to publically admit to doing so), do get in touch with me and I will happily cycle to you - subject to meeting within a reasonable distance of my flat or somewhere that I am already planning to be - to collect your donation.

Shout outs
Thank you again to everybody who has sponsored me so far. A big thank you goes to Gemma for your incredibly kind donation!

If anybody else would like to sponsor me, please visit my sponsorship page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/TomHoldaway. Any donation of any size would be hugely appreciated.

Thank you for reading!

TDF Spring Training Weekend

I laughed, I got fed up, I walked up a hill.

Last weekend I took part in the Tour de Force training weekend in Cheltenham. This was an organised event to get to know some of the other riders that will be there with me this summer as I ride four stages of the Tour de France (more details here) and, more importantly, an opportunity to do back to back rides over two consecutive days.

Aside from the wind, the weather across the weekend was great - I even managed to get sunburned!

Saturday consisted of two rides, both quite hilly. About a third of the way through the second ride, an optional extra 20 miles, we turned on to a side road with a 25% sign at the entrance. To help explain the sense of dread that I felt as I saw the sign, I found a blog which describes anything over 16% as "very challenging for riders of all abilities". I got about halfway up and needed a rest (to be fair it might have been my second rest). I somehow managed to get back into a rhythm, before turning a corner to find that the hill was much longer than I had hoped. In that instant, my resolve to struggle up the rest of the hill deserted me and I took the decision to walk for a bit. I managed to get back on my bike when the hill levelled off a bit, but was somewhat grumpy after that. 

After Saturday's escapades, combined with a bad night's sleep, what should have been a fairly routine ride on Sunday felt like hard work. It also seemed that whichever direction we turned we were cycling in to the wind.

All in all, the weekend was hard work, but definitely worth doing. The organisation was good and the route was well signed (I didn't get lost, which is a good start!). It was also great to meet some of the other cyclists, which addressed some of my concerns about this summer's ride. We regularly exchanged pleasantries* and got to know each other during the ride and over dinner.

Disappointingly, while reflecting over the weekend on Monday, I found myself thinking that I had actually enjoyed it.

The Charity  
All of this hard work is to raise money for the fantastic William Wates Memorial Trust. WWMT gives funding and support to organisations and projects which help disadvantaged young people by keeping them away from a life of crime. Three of the trustees of WWMT were at the training weekend and it was great to speak to them and hear how enthusiastic they are about the charity and the projects they support.

Please visit my fundraising page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/TomHoldaway.

Shout outs
A huge thank you to everybody for your support and for taking an interest. A special thank you goes out this week to my Dad and Sue, Michael and the charity team at Bond Dickinson for your very generous donations.

Thank you for reading!

* usually something along the lines of "flipping hill" or "flip off wind"!