Would like to hear from anyone who rode this year's Etape.
I live about 3hrs drive from the start of this year's Etape but doing the stage with very few miles in my legs because of work meant that it would be physical challenge too. In the end it wasn't my legs which packed up but my rear tyre. On the descent of the Mente I punctured at over 80kph. Unfortunatley, my valve extensions did not have a thread at te top to screw on my co2 bottles and amazingly the Mavic Service Neutral Service car did not have ANY valve extensions. After a 45 mins wait for them in the shadeless 35c sun I bailed at the final abandon zone as I watched thousands of people glide by at 20kph, ready for the penultimate horror climb....
In and around Barcelona we have a ciclo-sportive every week but here they are treated like amateur eye balls out road races. We don't have the same Cat levels (1-5) like you guys in the UK and USA have so you are either an Amateur or a "cyclo-tourist" which is the name for anyone who doesn't cut it as an amateur From cylclo-tourism we have ciclo-sport which is pre-Amater or Cat 1. Pretty frustrating. It means you gotta do the first cols at 25kph an hopefully recover for the next 3 climbs.......
The ciclosportives here are so fast that it is easy to see 60-65kph as you rol lout from the start. The first climbs sort out the men from the flamers as some of them can be up to 25kph in length. So how was your Etape? Did you see that terible accident on the descent of the Portet D'aspen? This old guy crashed heavily like poor Fabio, but missing the stone blocks with his head, unlike Casartelli. That descent is so fast and it has super long sweping left handers with stone blocks all the way down on the right Scary stuff
Have you ridden a ciclosportive in Spain??
I live about 3hrs drive from the start of this year's Etape but doing the stage with very few miles in my legs because of work meant that it would be physical challenge too. In the end it wasn't my legs which packed up but my rear tyre. On the descent of the Mente I punctured at over 80kph. Unfortunatley, my valve extensions did not have a thread at te top to screw on my co2 bottles and amazingly the Mavic Service Neutral Service car did not have ANY valve extensions. After a 45 mins wait for them in the shadeless 35c sun I bailed at the final abandon zone as I watched thousands of people glide by at 20kph, ready for the penultimate horror climb....
In and around Barcelona we have a ciclo-sportive every week but here they are treated like amateur eye balls out road races. We don't have the same Cat levels (1-5) like you guys in the UK and USA have so you are either an Amateur or a "cyclo-tourist" which is the name for anyone who doesn't cut it as an amateur From cylclo-tourism we have ciclo-sport which is pre-Amater or Cat 1. Pretty frustrating. It means you gotta do the first cols at 25kph an hopefully recover for the next 3 climbs.......
The ciclosportives here are so fast that it is easy to see 60-65kph as you rol lout from the start. The first climbs sort out the men from the flamers as some of them can be up to 25kph in length. So how was your Etape? Did you see that terible accident on the descent of the Portet D'aspen? This old guy crashed heavily like poor Fabio, but missing the stone blocks with his head, unlike Casartelli. That descent is so fast and it has super long sweping left handers with stone blocks all the way down on the right Scary stuff
Have you ridden a ciclosportive in Spain??
