The day was beautiful and Orvieto looked even more beautiful than it did in the evening.  It truly is an unspoiled medieval city and I would recommend it to anybody for a weekend break.  I wouldn’t recommend cycling there though.  Our route took us from the really charming Hotel Duomo Orvieto down some very steep cobbled streets in a rather hairy descent.  Sadly we had to climb again and from 8km onwards there was a long hard climb out of the valley around Orvieto.  I kept thinking that if they could just build a huge suspension bridge from the top of Orvieto to the top of the valley, we could have just cycled along the flat rather than doing a hairy descent and a horrible climb.

Once again we split into the Elite Group, the…”pacing ourselves” Group and…me.  The countryside was still beautiful and there were lots of little hilltop towns to curse on the way up to them and then marvel at their unspoiled beauty.  There were some nice descents through the woods and all in all it was a stunning but hard route.

The rolling hills (which I’m sure I have mentioned before) are energy sapping.  There’s just no point where you can get into a rhythm and get on with eating up the kilometres.  I stopped for a coffee on my own and filled my water bottle with water.  This was a big mistake as we shall see later.  Around about 50km into the day the huge climb kicked in.  Trish’s knee had blown up and so Janneke and Trish picked me up just before the coffee stop at 48km.  Everybody had left for the big climb.  This was the biggest of the trip and although I rode up it in the car it looked terrifying.  Everybody made it (apart from me because I was knackered and Trish because her knee was finished).  Those of you who aren’t cyclists probably can’t conceive of how long and difficult this was in the heat.  I am in awe of the people who made it.  The Elite group must have sped up it because even at the top we didn’t see them.

I was feeling a lot better after having had a nice gentle sit in the car and so got back on my bike at the top.  There was an incredibly fun descent for about 10km which made me feel great and for a little while I wasn’t last (I know, I know, in the car is cheating).  Then there was the final hill of the day.  Not very long but quite steep in places.  Unsurprisingly, the bulk of the pacing themselves group passed me half way up but everybody was working hard and although it was tough, we all made it to the top.

Sadly, when I got to the top and was just chuntering along getting my breath back I suffered some sort of heat stroke.  My heart rate went from 140 to 60 in about 20 seconds and I fell off the bike into some grass.  When I came round, my phone had no signal and I thought “ok, this is it, I’m dead”.  After a fair amount of time I managed to stand up and Rupert arrived with the van and rushed me down to the lunch stop on the shores of a lovely lake. 

When I got to the lunch stop Janneke and Ivo who are both doctors sort of saved my life (or at least if felt like that to me).  I was coloured purple and shaking and my arms didn’t work and couldn’t talk.  My favourite exchange (relayed to me later)

Lee: He looks like a Smurf

Trish: A dying Smurf.

A couple of litres of electrolyte laden water, some of Lee’s salted crisps and a fantastic cheese and tomato sandwich made by Wendy and I was able to stand again.  Unsurprisingly, for me the trip was over.

The rest of the team started into Rome.  Trish joined them for the final push since there were no hills and the knee might survive.  Janneke and I joined Fulvio at the hotel in Rome after a pretty exciting drive round Rome.  When rupert turned up we taxied down to the Pantheon to meet the team for the final photograph.  A number of spouses and significant others have come to Rome to celebrate the finish and they were there in the Pantheon too.  The group had stopped in St Peter’s square for some photographs and then met us in the Pantheon. It was an emotional scene for everyone but especially for Catherine. 

Then it was back to the hotel, break down the bikes and pack them again, a quick shower and everybody got dressed up in their finery for the final meal.  The food was great, a huge amount of wine was drunk and we got back to the hotel bar for more wine and a final debrief from Catherine.  Everybody got a mention for their skill at cycling (the “Marmalottes” in particular) or their skill at being “domestiques” for the women.

There were two toasts at the end:  One toast to Catherine whose determination and drive not only got her to the finish of the trip but also made the whole trip happen.  And the other toast was to John who was involved at the start and who would have loved to have been there at the end.  He was with us every kilometre of the way in spirit.  “To John”.

The stats were 142km and approximately 1700m of climbing.  The route is here

Here is the photograph album for the day and I will collate everybody’s pictures and videos over the next few days and upload one big giantic photograph album.

Pisa Rome Day Three VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

But before that joy we had a lovely breakfast with the sun rising over the rolling Tuscan hills.  A bit of buggering about with the bikes and the bags and then we were off.  It didn’t take long for the character of the day to make itself obvious.  Endless hills.  Just endless.  That “rolling countryside” is an absolute bugger when it comes to cycling..  After a hill that is just way too long to power your way up, you get a small respite on the other side and then there’s just another one of them.  On and on.

That being said, the Tuscan countryside did it’s thing again.  The adabatic mists rising off the freshly ploughed fields, the dramatic ochre/orange houses perched on the tops of hills, the olive groves.  If it wasn’t for the road itself, you could imagine yourself in the 19th century. 

We split into a fast group (who are really really fast), a slower group and…err…me.  Eventually I just ground to a halt after doing the first 30km in 2.5 hours.  Whilst I might have a sore back to contend with, it is very depressing and dispiriting to call for the sweep wagon. 

I rode in the car past everybody doing the hard work and a very tough hill before lunch.  The wonderful Janneke had gone and bought food and water so we stopped in a turn off and everybody ate bread and cheese and drank insanely huge amounts of water.  It was very hot.  Tim was in a bad way so I gave up my place in the car to Tim.

The fast group had left early and given the speed they cycle at they were probably in Rome by the time the rest of us left.  A nice downhill section was followed by just an endless hill.  Tim had recovered and joined the slow group (now including me) near the top of the final hill.  The descent was hairy and a lot of fun.  It was interupted throughout by brutal short steep climbs up to little villages sitting on the top of a hill.

I had a “geo-social” epiphany during this section.  If you’re going to do a big multi day cycle then it’s best to choose a country which hasn’t been riven with internal strife for four centuries.  Unlike France or the UK, it made sense in Italy to build your towns and villages on the tops of hills for defensive reasons.  Very picturesque but it makes cycling through the country challenging.

Finally, on the last downhill section, we caught sight of Orvieto.  A stunning city set atop yet another high outcrop of rock.  It was so steep on the way up that we (the slow group) all just got off the bike and walked.  Even walking up the hill was a huge challenge.

Our hotel is right next to the stunning Duomo.  The hotel is the Hotel Duomo and I can thoroughly recommend it.  The restaurant arranged by Stephanie is the Tipica Trattoria Etrusca and it is fabulous. The food is great,   the wine is excellent and arrives in great quantities.  Yet another hungover morning I suspect.

Stats today.  2191m of climbing and 136km of cycling but it felt a lot lot lot longer.  The route is here.

Last day tomorrow.  Two huge climbs and then a long run into Rome for the terminal photograph at the Colliseum.

The obligatory photo album:

Pisa Rome Day Two VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Getting out of Pisa was a pain with the rush hour traffic but it soon thinned and we headed up the Arno valley which was flat and fast.  Unfortunately, I had put my back out before I left and very quickly had a real problem with breathing and back pain and so I did much of the day myself.  Everybody else whizzed on ahead.  As soon as the hills started after about 50km, it started to get a bit more serious.  We were supposed to stop in San Gimignano (another beautiful hill top town) for lunch but unfortunately it was incredibly difficult to find somewhere to eat but luckily Fulvio found a nice little place just down the road where we could have pasta and cold meat and a bit too much beer.  It wasn’t too tough up to lunch and most people (myself excepted) were feeling quite perky.  After lunch we hit a few hills on the way to Sienna.

The scenery here is just outstanding.  Tuscany is maybe the most beautiful place in the entire world.  Those rolling hills currently coloured brown and ochre, green trees, olive groves, fabulous houses perched on the tops of hills.  The views are amazing.  This is helped by the routes which JJ has done for us.  I can’t imagine there are better routes between Pisa to Sienna.   The photographs don’t really do it justice.  It is one of the great advantages of these cycling trips: one travels on roads that one would never travel on in a car if you were on holiday.  You see the best of the countryside.  Of course it would be a better tourist experience if you weren’t sweating and about to be sick… 

Coming into Sienna was fabulous.  We circled the south of the city though little back roads and ended up at the hotel.  There was a useful sign to tell us where to put the bikes!

On this holiday the hotels are a lot better than us boys are used to on our cycling holidays.  The women are rooming together and are therefore enjoying a snore free night and us blokes are having to put up with each other’s nocturnal noises.  Luckily we are all so tired that it sort of doesn’t make much of a difference. 

The hotel in Sienna was wonderful.  Very friendly and pleasant.  We went out to a restaurant very close and ate some very nice food with effectively unlimited wine.  The service was very slow so there was a lot of wine being drunk: there are going to be a lot of sore heads tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow is going to be very very hard.  Slightly scared.

The stats for the day are the following:  3 punctures, a small number of mechanical and bio-mechanical problems, 148km and 1400m of climbing.  This isn’t extreme cycling but it is certainly challenging for a fair number of our group.  It felt like more.

The route is here

Here is the traditional photo album.  Guy is the tour photographer and I’ve tried to choose the best of his pictures and include everybody in them.  If I haven’t…blame Guy.

Pisa Rome Day One VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This trip has been a long time in the planning and there’s a great deal of logistics that needs to be sorted out.  Catherine and Trish and JJ McNeil did all of the planning for this trip ably assisted by Stephanie Baudino who is our resident bi lingual English Italian.

Apart from Lee (who came from New York, the Dutch contingent and a couple of guys who had to fly from Gatwick, we all met at Stansted for the obligatory low cost Ryan Air flight to Pisa.  As one might imagine, getting 14 bikes on a Ryanair flight is an incredible pain in the ass. 

Much beer was drunk in Stansted, Catherine never stopped talking either in the bar or indeed on the flight.  Those of you reading this who know Catherine will understand just how constant the talk is.  We laughed a lot on the plane.

Arriving at Pisa was a bit interesting.  Trying to get all the bikes in the van and then negotiating the medieval streets wasn’t fun.  Then we had the pain of making the bikes back up in the car park of the hotel.  Slightly disorganised and lots of people mumbling things like “where’s the track pump” and “can you give me an allen key” and “where the hell are my skewers”.  Eventually all the rest of the guests of the hotel complained about the noise in the car park.

The hotel had kept the bar open so we met for a late drink in the bar.  Catherine did a speech reminding us (if we had forgotten) that we were doing this in memory of John and also that he would have loved to have been here.  It was a moving moment.

And on that note, there is a just giving website where you can sponsor us and donate money.  Prostate cancer is a big killer of men like us.  It is a cause that deserves support.

The complete list of participants is very long.  The UK Male Team is Richard Belcher, Guy Boyce Cam, Greg Glass, Richard Hall, James Heath, Christopher Howe, Steve Ives, Ewan Kirk, John Lane, Iain Law, Matthew Moore and Tim Tindall.  The UK Female Team is Catherine Stewart and Trish Turner joined from Italy by Wendy Turner.  All the way from Switzerland, we have Edward Currie.  From Holland we have the super fit Dutch team of Jan Willem Van Crevel and Ivo Van Shaik and the lone US team member of Lee Vance.

JJ McNeil (who did a huge amount of organisation) and Peter McNeil and Lucy Farrer very unfortunately couldn’t make it due to family issues.  They are sorely missed.

These sorts of trips are totally dependent on great support.  We are very lucky to have three vehicles doing support this year.  Fulvio Baudino is driving the big van and scouting restaurants etc.  Janneke Van Shaik is driving the Dutch support Volvo and Rupert Jennings has a land rover which will be doing support too.

Off to bed now.  A lot of nerves about.

If anybody has more I’ll add them to this album and feel free to share the pictures with anybody you want.

		Paris Geneva Bike Photos VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We split into two groups.  A friend of John Lane’s who lives in Geneva had come over to take one group on a very scenic ride through the (hilly) vineyards above Morges and Nyon.  A second group decided to take the even more scenic (and almost flat) route from Lausanne to Geneva along side the lake. 

Unsurprisingly, I was in the scenic (flat) group and we had a lovely ride along the lake.  It was slightly strange for me because all the towns like Lausanne, Morges, Nyon and Geneva all have people that I’ve seen professionally.  It turns out that the towns are lovely.  All the Swiss out in their finery in the sun, boating, promenading, just having a nice Sunday morning.

The ride was pretty flat and we took it pretty easy and finally rolled into Geneva and all met up at the Jet d’Eau.

That day was 62km and 349m of ascent (more than I expected).  Stats here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/92081564

So we were done.  A few beers and then we all packed up our bikes and got changed on the promenade in front of the lake.  I think the Genevoise were somewhat non plussed by a bunch of hairy men in lycra stripping off in the middle of the pavement and packing away the bikes.  JJ and I drove the van back to Cambridge (getting to Cambridge at 2:30am) and everybody else flew back.

So…

Another boys cycle trip is over.  The total distance covered in 3.5 days was 551km (342.5 miles) total climbing 5898m (19,351ft) and average speed of 21.1km/h (13.1mph)  (for me: much faster for others).  19,000 calories although the Garmin’s calorie algorithm sucks.

Like every other year it was a a true joy at times.  The cycling was tough and probably tougher than many of us expected but the joy came from the camaraderie, the running jokes, the witty, funny or plain interesting conversations that one has on these trips.  I for one am willing to put up with a lot of pain on the cycling because the company is just so good.

As always thanks to John Lane for doing the routing.  Literally days and days of work goes into arranging the routes and despite my comment at the top of one of the 22% hills (“I didn’t f*cking sign up for this!”) John judged it almost perfectly.  Right at the limit of what the whole group could manage although maybe a little less challenging for the elite cyclists.  It was a huge amount of work for him and we were all grateful. 

Mick drove the van again this year and we quite literally couldn’t have done it without him so the entire group is always grateful to Mick.

And John McNeil probably should get the biggest thanks for corralling 20 rather opinionated middle aged men into a coherent group, arranging hotels, flights, meals, coffee stops etc etc.  Every year it is a logistical tour de force and we’re all happy that it’s not us that has to do it. 

Will there be another year?  Who knows.  I think after the first two days there were a lot of people who didn’t think we’d ever do it again but, the exhilaration, joy and sheer pride in having cycled 550km in three days might maybe encourage another trip.  The WAGs reading this should be extremely proud of their “worse halves”.  This was a serious physical challenge and every one of us made it.

Photos coming soon.

After the sheer pain of Day 2, day three was never going to start well.  This was the day with “the show”, “the money shot”, the thing we’d cycled all the way from Paris to do:  the big climb into Switzerland and there was a lot of nervousness at the start.  I pretty much cycled the whole day on my own but everybody’s experiences were pretty similar.  Coming out of the rather inappropriately named “Comfort Hotel” in Lons-le-Saunier there was a truly horrible hill for 10km.  Every single part of my body ached and I was close to bailing out and going back the the van.  The elite group passed me about half way up and that was the last I saw of them until lunch.

The countryside gradually opened up and the second climb started.  From 500m up to about 800m through some beautiful villages which were starting to have somewhat scary “Alpine” characteristics.  This one was tough.  When one is grinding up the hills you really get a chance to look around.  Strangely the cows seemed fascinated by me going past.  They’re all white (my farming consultant tells me they are Charolais and they look very strange staring at you from the green fields.

Finally the second climb finished around Foncine le Bas and a few people met up for a coffee before heading up the third climb to Mouthe.  Christopher just killed the climb on the way up and I, once again, just ground it up.  On the way up there were signs for ski lifts!  There was an olympic sized ski jump near Mouthe.  This really is high mountain country.  Horrible climbs but unlike day 2, they were all doable.  Just slowly.

I met everybody in Mouthe and we had a quick sandwich before “the show”.  There was a pretty horrible moment involving John Lane’s foot but like many things on this “holiday” it is probably best elided over.  Once again, I headed off on my own to face the demons alone.  As you are puffing your way up these hills in the forests, it is actually easy to see why forests and mountains play such a central role in human fokelore.  They are strange scary places  places.  Not half as scary as the professional looking cyclists who passed me doing 25km/h on a hill where I was struggling to do 10.

It was an hour.  A tough hour, 10km of climbing up to 1274m.  The peak of the ride and the top of the Jura.  And the Swiss French border too.  It’s silly but there is something really quite special about cycling all the way down one whole country into another country! 

I should have felt exhilarated (and should have waited for everybody else at the top) but I was too knackered and so screamed down the hill playing my favourite descent music in my iPod.  It really was an incredibly thrilling ride down into Pont which is on the Lac de Joux.  I thought I was done but no…there was the final sting in the tail.  200m of very very steep climbing out of Pont to reach the edge of the Jura.  I stopped at the top and waited for the others and thought that we were done.

One slightly surprising feature of crossing the border into Switzerland was just how absolutely appalling Swiss drivers are.  They are stereotypically 30-35 year old men in pimped up Subarus and Renaults with specially modified exhausts to make them louder and more annoying.  They scream up and down the mountain road all Saturday presumably since it’s so boring in Switzerland that there is bugger all else to do.  When you’re cycling up a hill, the last thing you need is some Swiss twat going past you at 90km/h round a corner that his stupid car can barely hang on to.  It is really really scary.  Oh and the bikers are like that too.  In France people are pretty respectful of cyclists and how exposed you are on the road.  In Switzerland, they’re just bastards.  Everybody in the group noticed it and as they roared off into the distance there were many shouts of “Twat!” and “what’s the rush?  Sale at the effing cuckoo clock shop?”.

At the top we all got together, ate a banana and started the big descent.  This is partly why one does the hills.  The descents are brilliant.  50, 60km/h high speed descents are just great.  There was a little bit of racing going on and JJ very nearly got himself killed by a “Swiss Twat” driver.

One is on the brakes a lot during the descent and without care, your wheels can get quite hot.  John Lane found that out the hard way by having a heat induced blow out near the bottom.  Luckily it was as we were going round a hairpin bend pretty slowly.  At speed…it would have been a very different story.

I sort of thought we were done but didn’t realise that there was another 25km into Lausanne.  After 100km and 2000m of climbing, that doesn’t really make one feel terribly energised.  It wasn’t easy but we got it done.  Of course after a pretty incident free trip, we had our first serious accident coming into Lausanne.  Tony got his wheel stuck in a tram track, came off and Layton went over him and fell on his head.  Tony had grazes but Layton was pretty concussed.  Paramedics, our resident physician (Tony, bleeding gently through his lycra) were all pretty concerned.  Layton is ok but it does show you that you should always wear a helmet.

We walked a bit and got to the Hotel de la Paix about 6:30.  Quick change, a bunch of beers and then out to a restaurant called Cafe Romand which was all about cheese.  The whole place stank of cheese.  So we ate fondue, congratulated ourselves, drank buckets of wine.  Not cheap but nice.  Then we thought we’d go on to a few bars and clubs but it turns out that Lausanne on a Saturday night resembles nothing more than Newcastle on a Saturday night.  They say the UK has a binge drinking problem for 18-30s but Lausanne has a pretty bad problem too.  Huge gangs of hepped up guys eying each other for a fight and girls wearing practically nothing were roaming the streets.  Not really our scene so after a couple of beers we retired for a much much much needed sleep.

Here’s the stats:

Total km: 124km height 1970m

Pre lunch:http://connect.garmin.com/activity/91619389 

Post lunch: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/91619299

We started out in two groups.  A “fast group” and “the rest”.  I was in “the rest” so can’t really comment much about the fast group.

It started badly with a big climb up some cobbles and just got worse.  We probably could have taken an easier route but we ended up going up *two* hills which at one point were 22% gradient.  Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of getting off the bike and walking (oh the shame!).  You know when things are bad when you’re walking up a hill and your heart rate is 140bpm.  It was just unpleasant and horrible.  After two of those hills and the “off road” cyclo-cross sections afterwards, the “slow group” had a bit of a mutiny and bailed out of the John Lane route which involved another hill of the same calibre.  We bought all the croissants and pain chocolats at a tiny bakery, stuffed out faces and then headed down a much easier route.  And then we ran out of water.  And food.  And motivation.

Around 140km, I lost the will to live.  There were knees popping all over the place, Achilles Tendons grumbling, sore bottoms, feet…the litany of woe just couldn’t get worse.  At least the last 50km was fairly flat and so at least it wasn’t too bad but after the brutality of the first half of the day, it just went on and on.  We stopped occasionally for

By the time we reached Lons (our stopping point), Christopher and I just bailed out because we couldn’t find the hotel.  We decided to have a beer at a local bar but sadly were accosted by the village idiot who made what should have been a quiet beer extremely unpleasant. 

So, finally made it to the hotel.  No energy to write any more.  I’m told that John, Godric and Ed managed to do all the hills without getting off (which is a huge achievement) but very few people are looking forward to another day of this. 

The stats: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/91408885

175km, 1724m of lift, average speed, 21.0km/h.  The average speed includes at least half an hour of walking!

After 190km yesterday, this was probably too hard a day (at least for the slow group).  Oh and we have the Alps to look forward to tomorrow when we go to Lausanne.  What joy.

No photos again.  No time to stop.  I’ll collate everybody’s photographs tomorrow and post a nice photo album.