Final preparation

So much to do, so little time. Why do these things creep up silently from behind and then BANG! – a few days to go and there is too much to organise. The checklist is getting longer by the hour and few of the items have been completed: repair the bike after crashing; final touches to training; service the car; get the spare flat tyre fixed; panic about the Mt Ventoux and do more hill training; find a hotel for the trip down; watch the Tour on TV and start panicking again; book the train; trial run of getting the bike in the bike box; get one more long ride in; trial run #2 for getting the bike in the box after unsuccessful first attempt; make a decision on nutrition....

Last minute equipment failure

I spent several hours repairing the bike after crashing: straightened two buckled wheels, mended the brakes and checked out the superficial damage to the pedals and rear derailleur. Thankfully the frame looks to be OK so that was re-assuring. With one week of training to go I panicked and started going mad, the upside is I have had a great week training and aside from a lack of long rides I am pretty happy with my prep. I did attempt a final long ride over the weekend but only managed 65Km after getting a flat and incompetently messing up the change by overinflating the spare with a CO2 cartridge. The noise as it exploded when I righted the bike was impressive, however that left me with no spare tubes and an inability to find the puncture. Thus a second long ride in a row ended up in a car being driven home. At least I now know what not to do with the CO2 cartridge – better to learn that now than on Monday. The other positive is that I was never really confident in the tyre being puncture resistant so I have made the decision to buy a new one and fit it before leaving, this gives me more confidence.

Training

Training has gone well this week with the plan being to do a lot of strength work and hill work to build up confidence for attacking the Mt Ventoux. I am pretty happy that I can sit on the saddle and get into a rhythm for the climb now after trying several reps on hills of a similar gradient. I am not sure how well prepared one can actually be for a 22Km 8% climb but I am close enough. I watched the professionals going up a similar gradient last week and they all looked to be struggling – I guess they would be travelling at double the speed I plan to so their pain is to be expected. I am confident of averaging over 11km on the Ventoux now (subject to being not too fatigued after the previous 150Km) and that will give me a 2 hour climb time which is a good target to have. I now have a chilled week planned which is just as well as my legs were very tired after last week. I took a quick snap from the top of one of the hills I climbed on Sunday: the view from Hannington in Hampshire.



Nutrition

Following several trials I have made a decision on nutrition. I have a goal of taking on board over 100g of carbs per hour which I hope will be achieved through one Mule bar and one gel per hour with High5 4:1 energy drink mix and my emergency pack of Jelly Babies. The only issue left is working out how to carry 8 clif bars, 8 gels, a pack of jelly babies and 4 packets of High5. That equates to around 140g per hour so I can afford to miss a few if I have to. I am not sure they will fit in my pockets; I do have a “bento box” on the cross bar which will carry 4 bars so that should do the trick. The final nutritional questions is about “carbo loading”. The most recent published study on carbo loading comes from the University of Western Australia (those damned Aussie are so good at sport you cannot ignore anything they say!) which prescribes a plan which involves a very short intense ride the day before l’etape followed by a big intake of carbohydrate. I shall try that and see how it works.