The Tour de France trips were much harder than expected, but at the same time, not really (if that makes any sense). I expected the trips to be hard and time consuming, but it does not hit you until you are in the thick of it. This is why I have not had the time to post in a month! Our FTP went really well, but it took some time to get everything nailed down. We were still making updates until a few days before our week 2 trip!
Our week 2 trip was the Behind the Scenes trip and had a decent amount of encounters with all things Tour de France. We started in Evian, so we had some great water, and then moved down to Les Gets. That is where we were based out of for the Morzine climb/stage, and the Morzine stage start village passes. Afterwards, we moved on to Megeve and finally ended on top of Alpe d'Huez. This trip was difficult to support because we had a very wide spread of abilities, but we did our best and everyone seemed to have a great time. That was in the Alps, so we had some great rides and hard climbs. The highlight was probably our helicopter ride around Alpe d'Huez on day 6, and I have some great photos to upload on my snapfish account. We had a great group of guests and I enjoyed my first time in the Alps.
Week 3 was a lot of fun because we had a very flexible group and everyone was able to keep up with one another. This just meant that I had 2 very hard rides at the end of the trip (when they discovered their riding similarities), and they hammered for 70k both days! I was the front man because of keeping up with the group but also making sure we took the right turns and did not get lost in the mass of people at the Bordeaux finish. We started in Lourdes, which is best known for Bernadette's Virgin Mary apparition and the spring at the spot where she saw this. It is bottled and sold as holy water, and there are a lot of people in the city. Lourdes is 2nd to Paris for the most hotels per sq. km., and there are over 300 hotels. Once again, we had great climbs and fantastic viewings for the TdF. We climbed Tourmalet twice, once from each side, and explored the region. The best viewing had to be for the ITT at Chateau Pichon, and there was a lot of great wine, food and fun.
Afterwards, we trained up to Paris for the last stage and our viewing at the Autoclub de France. That was a great day, but the best was saved for last when we all had dinner and drinks on a Seine River boat cruise. The guests departed for the hotels around 10 or 10:30, and that's when all of the guides gathered on one of the boats for our party, haha. We danced until 3am and it was so much fun that we couldn't stop talking about it for days. We're all very tired and my random 1hr+ nap today is a sign of that.
I'm currently FTP'ing for a Classic Climbs of the Alps trip with JV and Greg. Today Greg and I rode up to Les 2 Alpes from La Grave, so we had a great afternoon while JV went for a run up the mountain and around the ridge. The dinner at our hotel, Hotel Edelweiss, was phenomenal. We started off with fresh gnocchi with pesto, and then had roasted pork with a prune sauce/roasted fingerling potatoes/broccoli. That tasted great after our hard ride and JV's long run, so now it's time for bed. Plus, they seemed interested in having me work for them over the winter in the kitchen, so I may not take that lightly :) What a shame to have to live in the Alps during winter, must be a drag... just kidding. Although, I just bought my new mountain bike, Gary Fisher Superfly 100, and that will be waiting for me at home along with my family; then I would probably take some time to decompress and travel with my bikes. We'll see where things go from here, but I'll keep everyone updated on the trips that I am guiding! Thanks for reading!
