The Etape was simultaneously the most awe-inspiring, educational, and toughest ride I probably never want to do again. ;-)
Let's see...where to start...well, I arrived in Pau on Friday, too bad that my bags didn't. There were so many cyclists flooding into the region that Air France couldn't handle the crush of bike boxes, so my bike finally showed up on Saturday night after being routed through god-knows-where. The hotel the tour company found was a two-star and could have been worse, but could have been a lot better too (Like, why doesn't a hotel on the southern border with Spain have AC? And why can't the French ever put up shower curtains so you don't flood the entire bathroom when you shower?) Sunday, I finally got in a brief  shakedown
ride over to the start village in Mourenx where I had to deposit my bike into what looked like the worlds largest transition area, though it was organized more like a coat check where you handed someone your bike and they gave you a claim ticket for it. After dropping my bike off, I got the pleasure of wandering around Mourenx for about an hour trying to find a way to get a cab back to Pau. Of course I don't speak French, and despite their being over 8000 cyclists in town no one thought to run any buses (buses only run during the school year) or setup a temp taxi stand. So, in the end, I got a very nice hotel receptionist to call me a cab, and then the fine French cab driver, in the great tradition of cab drivers everywhere, took me by the most absolutely circuitous route possible back to my hotel and turned what should have been a 40 euro ride into a 60 euro ride. Note to self: if I ever do the Etape again, rent a car.

As a side note, let me give an example why I think the French economy won't ever improve. There were, as I said, over 8000 cyclists in the tiny village of Mourenx for the Etape. All these cyclists were very serious riders, had top-of-the-line bikes, and clearly had money to spend if they could pay the entry fees, inflated hotel rates, etc.  So, do you think the ONE, surprisingly large bike shop in Mourenx could be bothered to be open over the weekend? No, of course not.  Shops aren't open on weekends--that's when the staff have to have their days off. *shaking head* So Sunday night I tried to go to bed early (8pm) since I had to be up at 4am to catch a ride to the start area. Unfortunately, jet lag raised its ugly head and I finally fell asleep about 12:30, so when
the alarm went off at 4am, I had a paltry 3.5 hours of sleep--not a great way to start. The hotel served breakfast early for all of us, I got a ride over to the start village with a few other guys from my tour company (Brits who just drove over), and I got there about 5:30 am. Retrieving my bike was surprisingly efficient and I got to my starting zone about 6 am. The starting zones were laid out kind of like at the Peachtree Road Race or other big races where they divided you up according to your bib number, though in this case, all but the first 100 bib numbers were totally random so all sorts of riders from semi-pros to 70 year old French guys were lumped together. My start group had about 500 riders in it, and just let me say, I have never seen so much public urination before a ride in my life (there was only one porta-potty even within sight of our start zone and you had to crawl over a fence to get to it). I gotta say, the French are not a shy people. As a side note, the Etape is mostly a French thing with a ton of Brits, a handful of Germans and Spaniards, and this year only 189 Americans.

So, finally to the race. The starting gun went off at 7am and my group (second to last) finally got to start about 7:20. It was the
biggest bike traffic jam you have ever seen, though it did keep rolling pretty well. Some guys really took off flying along the left
side ("whoa guys, we have 110 miles to go!") while others like me were trying to pace themselves a little bit. The terrain was generally either flat or seriously mountainous for the entire ride--no constantly rolling hills like I'm used to in Georgia. It's like
someone dropped huge mountains onto Florida. As a result, the riding basically was fast on the flats, crawling on the uphills, or hitting warp speed on the descents.

The first climb of the day was the cat 4 Col de Ischere (4.4 km at 6.2%). The massive string of riders went up it pretty well except for at the top where there was such a traffic jam that we had to dismount and walk a little bit. Overall, not too bad and I just steadily paced up it knowing the bigger climbs were coming. The descent was quite fast and I learned that compared to the European guys, I descend like a little a scared little girl. :-) Next up was the cat 1 Col de Marie-Blanc. Holy shit. It may be advertised as "9.3 km at 7.7%" but that doesn't tell the real story which is that it starts off moderately steep at 5% and gradually gets steeper and steeper until you're wishing for death to rescue you. The last two km are 11% and 13% respectively and totally kicked my ass despite my 50/34 compact crankset and 12/27 cassette. I was almost thankful when traffic jammed up on the last km and we all had to get off and walk. Granted, lots of riders were already walking by that point. I was barely going faster than walking anyway--doing about 5 mph barely pushing my 34/27 gear. Granted, I could still waste energy on quick accelerations if
I needed to in order to avoid people, but I knew I still had the HC ("hors category" aka, too steep to categorize!) to climb later, so I didn't want to burn any matches I didn't have to here. To make matters worse, the road was barely one lane wide and the road surface was "shake and bake", that tar-over-gravel stuff that both constantly rattles you and sucks energy with ridiculous rolling resistance. So, anyway, we all walked to the top of the mountain, and then came the descent. The descent was wicked fast, twisty, and the road was as narrow and as poorly surfaced on the descent as it was on the ascent.  Oh yeah, and there were no guardrails to keep you from flying off the mountain into oblivion. And, yes, there were a few crashes so I got to dodge the ambulances that were scraping people off the road. The Marie-Blanc wasn't even very scenic--lots of trees so all you saw was
woods and a road that went either straight up or straight down. So I made it down the descent safely and got a brief 5 mile quasi-flat breather until we arrived at the gates of hell--the hors category Col d'Abisque.

When these crazy Europeans define a climb as "beyond category", they really mean it. The Abisque is ridiculous. It's a 12 mile (20 km) climb with an average grade of 7%, though again that's misleading since the bottom sections are 5 or 6% and the top is 8 or 9%. The issue, though, is the length. This beast is just non-stop the whole damn way up. No false summits on which to get a breather. You're beyond the treeline for the top half so there's no shade from the hot sun of the Pyrenees. The road, again, is narrow, full of switchbacks, and made of shake-and-bake. You've already ridden 55 miles and a cat 1 climb. The grade is simply unrelenting and grinds you down to a whimpering pile of goo. It was all I could do to push my 34/27 gear at 5.5 mph up this beast. For those who can do math, 12 miles at a little under 6 mph means two solid hours of climbing.  Eventually, at halfway up, I had to stop to walk a quarter mile to catch my breath and have a snack as I walked in a spot that had some shade. The little rest was a huge help and I got back on the bike. The road at this point, by the way, was littered the shells of formerly strong-looking riders. Tons of people were walking. Some were just sitting trying to breathe. A few were making offerings to the mountain gods (puking). I felt lucky to still be on my bike.

At this point, it's worth noting that the Etape is technically a race for individuals (not for teams) and like many races, does have time elimination. The race organizers set time cutoff points along the race, send a time limit car along the route, have buses at strategic points to collect DQ'ed riders, etc. The top pro's are expect to do this stage of the Tour (stage 16) in under 5 hours. The winning time in my race was expected to be around 5.5 hours. The cut-off time was about 10 hours, but, like I said; there was a rolling cutoff throughout the race too.

After grinding away at the climb for a while longer, I stopped briefly again grab a breath and fish a snack out of my jersey pockets and then saw the time car slowly cruise by showing that I was technically over the limit. However, since there were so many hundreds/thousands of riders on the climb, its not like anyone was collecting numbers or anything. Obviously the car was slowly going to some pre-determined wide spot in the road where they'd have "broom wagon" buses pre-positioned and start pulling in riders. So, I hopped back on the bike, passed the time car, and kept heading up the hill. About a mile further up the road, I saw the buses. You have no idea how tempting it was to stop, wait for the time car, and have all the pain be over.  It was only sheer force of will that kept those pedals turning, and turning, and turning to the top of that damn mountain. I knew that if I made the top of the hill, the broom wagon wouldn't be able to catch me since it was predominantly downhill to the finish (well, except for
a few shorter climbs).

Finally, after over two hours of effort, I made it to the top of the Col d'Abisque. I don't know if I've ever been happier on a bike. And the view from up there was breathtaking beyond belief. The Pyrennees are just so incredible. Yes, I did take a few photos, but I don't think my photos can ever do that view any sort of justice.  Thankfully, the organizers put a "revitalsement" (rest stop) at the top with food and drink, so I refilled my bottles, grabbed some food, admired the view briefly (mindful that the broom wagon wasn't far behind) and pressed onwards.

The descent of the Abisque was fast and furious, but with some of the best scenery I've ever witnessed in my life. After descending a few miles, my speedfest was interrupted by the climb of the Col du Souldor. Luckily, this was only 2 km at 8%, and after the Abisque plus my little rest on the downhill, the uphill of the Souldor seemed to go by quickly. The dowhill run then continued and continued and continued. Yes, I went downhill for so long I was getting tired of it. ;-) Actually, what really was happening is that the crappy road surfaces were beating my arms, shoulders, and butt to hell on the descents. Plus, there were a ton of the usual switchbacks and stuff that I had to brake for constantly so I think I may need new brake pads when I get home. Oh, and other bits of fun on the descent included a semi-long, unlit tunnel on the descent where you couldn't see anyone else (yep, crazy Europeans were still doing 50 mph in total darkness), a few accidents here and there with ambulances tending the wounded, piles of slippery cow dung in the road, and wandering, unfenced livestock roaming the roads (hence the previously mentioned dung).

After a very long descent, the roads flattened out and they even put us onto main roads where we had modern, smooth road surfaces so my arms/shoulders could rest a bit. The pace picked up, the stragglers formed into pelotons, and life was rosy. Briefly rosy. Not nearly rosy long enough. About 20 km from the finish, the course turns off the nice smooth, flat road back onto shake-and-bake and we start climbing again. Welcome to the Cote de Pardies-Pietat. It was another Cat 4 climb of about 3 km, but everyone was so shelled by this point that it was a death march up that hill. Riders were walking, stopping to rest, asking the cheering population for water because the last rest stop had been at the top of the Abisque, etc. Finally we got to the top and could take off dowhill towards the finish--smiles were all around. That joy was short-lived, however, because then came another two km of rather steep climbing. Two km may not sound like much, but everyone (myself included) was so spent it seemed like we were doing the Abisque all over again. I cursed the French, all things French, the race organizers, and everything related I could think of as I climbed that last damn hill. On the descent off that last one, we got to see the "Arivee 5 km" sign and all nearly started crying with joy.

Those last 5 km were mercifully flat until the last 250 meters to the finish, which were up the steepest street in Pau. At that point, I
didn't care about saving energy so I just popped into a slightly lower gear, powered my way up the blasted thing, and rolled across the finish line. My total time, according to my GPS, was 9:15. I've never been more glad to get off my bike. Travis was waiting at the finish for me, made sure I ate and drank, and slowly walked back to the hotel with me where I proceeded to crash onto my bed for short rest, grabbed a shower, and then hit the restaurant near the hotel for a HUGE meal. The day afterwards, Travis and I left Pau for Paris. Air France once again was flooded with bikes so I didn't mine until nearly midnight when they delivered it finally. Now I'm readily for the non-cycling second half of my vacation.

So, what did I learn from this experience? First, I have a great appreciation for the Tour de France now. When I read yesterday about Armstrong attacking on a cat 1 climb, it took on a whole new meaning because I just barely made it to the top of one and yet he can attack on them. Anyone can ride a bike. I can ride one better than a lot of people. But the difference between us merely ambitious amateurs and the pros is so huge that I can barely fathom it. I also learned, despite my cursing of the French up that last hill, that this is a nation that truly loves cycling. What looked like the entire population of nearly every tiny hamlet we passed through was at the side of the road cheering as we went by, regardless of the fact that the leaders of the Etape had gone through a few hours before. Another lesson was about the benefits of the cheering crowd. The Abisque seemed more bearable for a few seconds everytime I passed some French person who looked me in the eyes and shouted "Allez! Courage!" as I went by.

Well, that's the story of my Etape du Tour. Will I do it again some other year? Perhaps. Like I said at the beginning, it was
simultaneously the most awe-inspiring, educational, and toughest ride I probably never want to do again. ;-)