Against the wind.

Riding through the pictureseque hills.
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Sometimes, it seems like your Ipod just knows what you are doing. Today we rode Stage 12 of last years tour from Montpellier to Castres. The rough direction is North West and the wind was blowing exactly from 315 degrees, ie northwest on the nose. Not 20 minutes into the ride, my Ipod started playing "Against the Wind" by Bob Seger. And that was the short story of the day. A very, very tough days riding. Its a feature of tour stage rding which is generally point to point. If that direction is into the wind, then you face riding headwinds all day without respite. When you ride from home, you know that if you face a headwind riding out, you will at least have a tailwind on the way home. Today it seemed like no matter which way we turned, it was a headwind. Even a 90 degree corner had headwinds before and after which stumped even my engineer companion. So combine riding all day into the wind with four categorised climbs and it makes for pretty tired boys by the end of it.

The route today was at least a little more interesting heading into the foothills of the Pyrenees. Rode through some nice forest and then into the valley carved out by the River Orb. Lots of other cyclists out today being a Saturday. Most are decked out in all the latest gear but, strangely, very often sans helmet.

Today it seemed like no matter which way we turned, it was a headwind.

Todays stage finished with a tough Category 2 climb to the Montee de la Jeanette, a 10.4km struggle (into the wind of course) up a 6% gradient which was a real test of the legs after 110km. Chris timed his run perfectly passing the boys as we started the hill and was a welcome sight. Even more welcome was the juice and sandwiches he prepared for our arrival which were wolfed down by the ravenous cyclists.

In total we rode 133km today in 6 hrs and 2 min for a paltry average of 22.1 kph but just finishing was a great effort today and we will bounce back tomorrow. Total distance to date is 1683km. The next four days feature some very tough hills in the Pyrenees but after that, we will have broken the back of our own personal 'Everest'.

As I pulled up to the van finally today, my Ipod started playing the Coldplay song featuring the lyric, "Im going back to the start". Not bloody likely mate!