Summary

1a. The riding team:
From left to right: Bruce Thompson, John Randal, Aaron Hill, Stuart Lowe, Jason Kelly, Steven Fish, Mike Conza, Paul Arnesen

b. The support team:

First photo: New Zealand Support crew from left: Matt Jenke of Silver Eye Films, Organiser and Directeur sportif Jonathan Douglas, logistics etc Julie Dunlop, mechanics Bill Boakes and Cameron Wyness. Second photo: Van driver etc, from Kortweg Cycling, Belgium, Roger.

 
2. My bike:
EMC Equip R1.0 with 10 speed Dura Ace 53:39 front and 11:28 back (more than adequate)

3. Training from 01st January 2018 prior to the tour start:
a. 12,239km with 84,871m of vertical climbing (245 Te Mata Peak equivalents @ 346m each)

b. Longest training ride (time): 8hrs 32m

c. Longest training ride (distance): 207.2km

d. Most vertical climbing in a single ride: 5,465m (15.8 equivalent Te Mata Peak climbs including 14 actual Te Mata Peak climbs)

e. Longest virtual (indoor) ride: 13hrs 15m, 257.0km, 10,503m of vertical climbing (30.3 equivalent Te Mata Peak climbs as part of the Everest [8,848m] & beyond challenge)

f. Training temperature range: -4°C to 30°C

g. Training Camps: Two, Cambridge December 2017 (2 days) & Christchurch April 2018 (5 days)

4. Tour riding:

 

i.e. total riding of: 

a. 3,506km with 56,997m of vertical climbing (164.7 Te Mata Peak equivalents @ 346m each) taking 136hrs 46m (5 days, 16hrs 46m)

b. Longest daily ride (time): 10hrs 27m (Stage 19)

c. Longest daily ride (distance): 238.6km (Stage 7)

d. Most vertical climbing in a single day: 6,447m (Stage 19) (18.6 equivalent Te Mata Peak climbs)

e. Riding temperature range: 13°C to 36°C

f. Persistent rain: nil

g. Punctures: nil

  

5. Overall:
We travelled around France and cycled through scenery and many small villages we would never otherwise have seen.

We took on the locals ...

and won!

We saw superheroes.

And former Tour de France winner Frank Schlek.

We climbed many mountains.

Had a visit from the devil.

We were well fed on and off the road.

 

And all completed the Tour and reached Paris.

6. Fundraising

The team raised over $75,000 for the Mental Health Foundation. 

7. What's next?

 

The return home

Sunday morning in Paris saw a full breakfast at leisure with no riding planned. The hotel supplied the best breakfast of the trip with cereals, orange juice, eggs, bacon, pancakes, sausages, croissants, breads, cheeses, meats, yoghurt, pastries and coffee etc.

With the final stage of the tour proper being held, advice was that with road closures and traffic, the best way to get to the airport was by public transport using the trams and trains. After goodbyes to the team, I was driven to the Gare de Nord train station in the van as a couple of other riders were due to catch trains from there.

It was then necessary to catch the Metro to Charles de Gaulle Airport which with lifts too small for bike bags and other luggage to carry up and down the various levels at the train stations and airport was more difficult than it needed to be. The Metro was hot and relatively slow through the various stops.

Once at the airport, it was a long walk to check in which with a bike, also proved very time consuming. It took literally eight airline staff and two "self check in" machines to get the bike checked in and accepted. With such efficiency, my hopes of ever seeing it again were at best 50/50.

It took around two hours to get to the departure gate from the start of check in after boarding passes and bag stickers were obtained before going through border control. From there, it was an internal airport train ride and another walk to get to the gate and wait.

As by that time it was evening, I had a baguette for dinner from one of the airport shops.

The flights home departed and arrived near enough on schedule in contrast to my outbound journey.

A little surprisingly, the bike bag appeared in Auckland but bio-security were very slow due to staff training which meant I had to take all my luggage to the domestic terminal to ensure it caught the same flight as me. The bike again made this harder than it needed to be.

I arrived home to an overcast day with a temperature of just 11 degrees.

A longer video of the complete tour is planned and this will take a few months to be compiled and edited. There has been some suggestion that this could be shown at local theatres as a further fundraiser for the Mental Health Foundation. The team has raised over $67,000 to date with more to come. Visit https://events.mentalhealth.org.nz/fundraisers/jasonkelly to make a donation.

I will endeavour to put together a tour summary over the next few weeks and further photos will also be added to various posts in due course.

Saturday 28th July 2018 - Stage 21 - Houilles - Champs-Élysées

After the midnight arrival, breakfast was scheduled for 7am with a 7:30am departure to continue the drive to Paris. A solid breakfast of eggs, sausages, cereals, croissants, bread, milk, yoghurt and meats etc was available but obviously they did not want too much food eaten as the plates were ludicrously tiny so several were required at one time.

We left at around 7:45am and arrived at the hotel in Paris at 10:15am after driving through a long tunnel that was only 2m high. The hotel was nice but had no free wi-fi in the rooms.

One of the support staff also finally received his bike which the airline had "lost" in transit when he arrived at the start of the tour. It appeared to be undamaged and complete.

By 11:15am we were all outside the hotel on our bikes and ready to ride to the start of the final stage. This had been arranged to ride with the French women's team so as to minimise traffic issues in central Paris. A few spits of rain fell at the hotel but this quickly cleared to a fine and sunny day.

A large bunch of perhaps 300-400 riders met in a car park to start the ride. The NZ ambassador and children came to visit with cowbells and NZ flags.

After a briefing in French, partially translated by some helpful cyclists, we started the stage around 12:15pm. In the opening kilometre, one of our riders punctured and some of us stopped to help him fix it. It was then a chase through Paris to catch the bunch. This varied in size with riders joining and leaving along the way. Motorbike escorts blocked intersections as required which made safer riding.

The pace was generally sedate with a few surges and a modest amount of climbing. The route started in the city and looped out through the local countryside before returning to the centre of Paris.

There were two official stops before entering the final loop in Paris. As the Champs-Élysées came into view, as expected, this was chaotic with vehicle and pedestrian traffic. There was a large amount of glass among the cobbles and while none of our riders punctured, a few in the bunch did take some minor tumbles.

Riding in a large bunch after three weeks of riding as a team was somewhat constrictive and the stage overall felt as an anti-climax to the tour.

With a large cheering crowd on the Champs-Élysées, we completed just one lap due to traffic and safety issues and then the tour was complete. The Eiffel Tower was just visible in the distance from one angle.

 Riding for the day was 76.9km in a relaxed 3hrs 48m with 580m of climbing.

 

The traditional champagne was supplied and supped in celebration with photos and congratulations all around.

We rode back to the hotel with a special "Johnny's Tiki Tour" (being the tour organiser) who navigated us via walkways and ramps literally up, through and around various skyscrapers before getting back on the road and to the hotel.

Once at the hotel, we had some celebratory drinks and nibbles in the hotel bar before going to dinner at a local restaurant which was a 10 minute walk from the hotel. A few speeches summed up the tour and we were well fed with dishes ranging from beef tartare (raw beef) to pizza and burgers. I was back at the hotel by 11pm with others not too far behind.

A video is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KVz7tBUJcI

Friday 27th July 2018 - Stage 20 - Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle - Espelette ITT (Individual Time Trial)

Breakfast was scheduled for 8am with a 9am riding start. Croissants, yoghurt, orange juice, meat and bread were available. It was apparent that one rider was quite ill and would struggle to ride. A couple of the support staff had also succumbed and were not 100%.

The start was delayed and the sick rider cajoled from his bed to complete the short ride.

It was overcast but dry and warm as we prepared for the stage. There had been some talk earlier in the tour of racing this stage as an Individual Time Trial (ITT) but given the circumstances, the issue was not even raised on the day.

Starting from the hotel, the official start line was a few kilometres downhill away. The course itself was narrow, hilly with an official maximum gradient of 21% but some riders reporting 26% on their computers and with some technical descents. As such, it was a short, hard ride even though we stopped a number of times. All riders completed the course.

Total riding for the day was 33.5km in 1hr 33m with 591m of climbing (over 1.5 Te Mata Peak climbs.)

It was then back to the hotel for a shower before going to the train station to travel to Paris for the final stage. It was then that the dramas started for the day.

We were dropped off at the train station and support staff started the long drive to Paris in the vans. We had lunch at a vegetarian cafe at the railway station while waiting for the train.

After arriving on the platform for the scheduled departure, the TGV (high speed train) did not arrive. It transpired a fire in Paris had destroyed some of the train control systems so the rail network was in chaos. The initial advice was it would be at least a six hour delay but probably much longer. While waiting, we went to a bar across the road from the station for nibbles and drinks. The options of vans, cars or flying to Paris were assessed but all were not viable. After some time, it was decided we should take a regional train to Bordeaux where the support vans had stopped. Tickets for this were arranged by a friend of one of the support staff. This train was also delayed and after a number of stops, we made it to Bordeaux.

The next plan was then to get a TGV from there to Paris as the next one was scheduled to leave shortly. As such, again the support staff left to continue their drive to Paris. We had a light dinner from a railway station patisserie only to see the TGV cancelled with no more scheduled. The support crew were then recalled to Bordeaux and the decision made to drive to Tours that night and continue on to Paris in the morning. Luckily, accommodation was found in Tours for us all and we arrived there around midnight.

Thursday 26th July 2018 - Stage 19 - Lourdes - Laruns

As expected, it was a long day with us not getting to bed until just before midnight. To use the tour vernacular of one rider, it was an epic day.

Breakfast was set for 6am in the apartment rooms served by the support staff and was the usual affair of cereal, scrambled eggs with salmon, bread, pastries and orange juice. It was easily restaurant quality and very well done.

Departure on the bikes was set for 7am from the hotel but with one rider having a hotel flat tyre and other delays, including a random tourist wanting a photo with us, we did not set off until just after 7:30am.

The sun was still just peeking through the hills as we left Lourdes via some quite steep and narrow roads. With the steep terrain and some riders not 100%, a sensible pace was set which was quite slow. It started off a pleasant 18 degrees under a clear blue sky. As it was early, we had to use a riders GPS to navigate and still missed one turn before the course markers passed us.

Early scenery was more crops before we rode back into the mountains for the last time. Up the first major climb to the first feed stop was a steady but relatively gentle incline on a narrow road. It was busy with cyclist and motor traffic and I had to stop twice for traffic jams. At the top, a random journalist and photographer took notes of our activities and a team photo.

 

Down the other side of the col was also busy before I reached the Col du Tourmalet. This was again very busy and very warm with temperatures reaching over 30 degrees. On the way up, I passed the course marking trucks. At the top was absolute chaos with people, vehicles and bikes. I waited until the course markers had gone down before starting the descent of about 38km. Despite this, I still passed them through a village so stopped until they marked some more corners. This process was repeated a number of times until I reached a straight stretch of road and carried on to the next feed stop.

Meeting the van driver at the feed stop in some nice shade, we again waited and waited. Not a good sign. Finally another rider arrived and said there were two others in front of him who we had not seen. Consulting the official Tour de France course map the van driver had, it appeared we had a missed a turn and a 8.6km climb. With the other rider declaring he was running on fumes, we backtracked about 9km to find the course signs pointed down a narrow side alley that was barely a road. We headed off down it and came to the climb which was quite gentle but very hot - over 35 degrees in fact. I had to keep stopping for the other rider to catch up so it was a slow climb.

From the top, it was a short downhill back to where the 2nd feed stop was and then the final 16km climb of the day. The first part of this was again relatively constant and gentle and I caught up to the last riders of our group before stopping to wait for the last rider doing the bonus miles with me. Once at the top of one col, the road dipped and rolled towards the top of the final col. Every time the road steepened, I had to slow and or stop to wait for the rider behind. Cloud formed all around us but luckily the wind kept it largely off the road. We eventually made it to the top and more water supplies.

 

With the clear instruction to follow the directional arrows, I started off downhill to the finish line. The cloud was all over the road for much of the descent which made visibility from zero to poor. At one time I could hear a camper van about but could not see it or the road. The support van caught up with me near the bottom of the hill on the outskirts of town and lead me into town. The road was then closed to vehicles but not bikes so again was told to follow the directional arrows to the finish line. Great advice but after two arrows, I could see no more and ended up in the town square among a street festival and thousands of people. I retraced my steps and confirmed there were only two signs and then had to guess which of the six or so exits might be correct. Luckily, I chose the right one and found the team all waiting about 1km from the finish line. After riding to and back from the finish line, riding was finished for the day.

Due to the long riding day, my Garmin battery went flat but the approximate riding for the day was 223km in 10hrs 27m with about 5,000m (though Strava is suggesting 6,447m??) of climbing (5,000m is about 14 Te Mata Peak climbs.)

As it was then about 8:30pm, dinner was to be pizzas in the van from the nearest town before the 170km drive to the next hotel. The order was placed on line but not processed for some "technical" reason so it was a wait once we arrived at the pizza place. Once the pizzas were to hand, it was a long drive to the hotel where we arrived about 11:15pm. With no air conditioning, my room was very hot but I did get a single room. A quick shower and it was time for bed.

Another stage done and the tour effectively completed with only a 31km ITT stage 20 and the processional stage 21 into Paris left to complete.

A video is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p58JkxhpePU