Thought of the moment: should a Type 1 diabetic even be attempting this insane race?I am a type 1 diabetic, running out of food and blowing up is something I have to avoid. For me it can be pretty dangerous, low blood sugar can mean lapsing into a coma, so I always take twice the food I need – but today I have gone through everything I have and I've only done 100km!
I’m from a rugby-playing nation, which comes in handy as I join the scrum for the food. I stuff gels and sportsbars into my pockets and I am away again - stopping in a ‘race’ I find mentally challenging.
It is still really steep, the 34x27 is the gear of choice, it also happens to be the lowest I have! In truth I can’t believe I am using it.
Up here the Tourmalet is the same as the Aubisque, invisible cows, cow poo smells, cowbells and the mist so thick it is surreal.
No doubt this is a brute of a climb, easily one of the hardest I have ridden, 1875m that is way higher than any road in New Zealand.
Finally the top 2115m, there is the famous summit café, there are guys stopped everywhere putting on warm clothing, or putting newspapers up their fronts. I am wearing my warm clothing so I weave my way through and drop down the other side.It is sub zero degrees C, the roads are soaked but the mist lifts enough to see what the road looks like at 100kmph. I pass so many riders it isn’t funny, but things aren’t good, my neck and shoulders are killing me. It gets so bad I have to stop and stretch. I get back on it but by now I am getting really cold, not normal cold but so cold I begin to shake uncontrollably, which makes the bike weave alarmingly at 80kmph.
Still the descent goes on and on, my hands are sore from braking and my neck has seized up I’m hating it now and wishing for it to end but I know full well that I am still only one third of the way down. My teeth begin to chatter and I can’t stop them, it is almost funny in a cartoon like way, there is nothing to do but to keep going.
The descent levels out for a minute through Bareges, I try my legs they won’t work, and then the road plunges into a gorge.
Finally I am on a flattish bit of road, flat enough that pedaling is required and the hope of getting warm is a reality. I struggle to follow a hairy-legged guy up a small rise! I start to thaw out, I am not the only one in this state, some guys around me look pale and ghostly. Fortunately the road is still going gently downhill this gives me the time to get my legs working.
The Hautacam is at the end of this valley, there are 10 kms before we hit the first ramps of the climb, I strangely feel really good but take it easy and save it for the climb. I am still going through food at an alarming rate. The sun breaks through the cloud for 5 minutes, then the rain returns.
We ride through the Ayros-Arbouix village at the base of the Hautacam, there are spectators lining the road, it almost feels like the Tour and bang and we are straight onto the climb, my bunch just explodes on the 12% gradient!
I’ve done 156km, Hautacam is 13km long and 1520m – 3x the height of the Rimutakas!
Hautacam has the same kilometre/gradient % markings as the Aubisque, the only difference is the Hautacam has a variable gradient. I quickly realise the truth, the gradient marking says 8% for the next kilometre and I’m riding on a flat section – oh, oh that means if I am on the flat then the rest of this kilometre will be 12% or more!Things go well for the first 2–3km of the climb then I begin to feel the dreaded symptoms, strength ebbing away, light headed, shit I’m hitting the wall! I eat almost all the food I have left, which isn’t much, I work out later I have consumed 7000–8000 calories during the day, the majority of those calories were consumed just to keep warm.
With some degree of alarm I realise I still have 12kms to climb to the finish, I am blown to pieces and there is nothing I can do but get into the 34x27 and just grind it out – slowly, really slowly.
The mist closes in again and it gets much colder.
There are some seriously steep sections on this climb, it is mixed with flat parts and even some slightly downhill sections. EPO must be amazing shit, how Barnie Riis rode up this thing in the big ring to win a stage of the tour is amazing, I fantasize what a big dose of EPO would do for me right now!
10kms of fiercely steep uphill riding blown to hell is like nothing I have ever done before, I want to stop, I want it to stop and the only way I know that will happen is when I cross the finish line. I have only one energy gel left and that is for absolute emergencies. This shapes up to be the hardest 10kms I have ever done on a bike!
Loads of guys pass me I am well past caring and besides there is nothing I can do about it anyway. I ride in a trancelike state, the only thing I take notice of are the kilometre signs.
Finally the top is close, I am well past the tree line, it’s 14% – bloody sleep! There is the famous cattle grid and the familiar cow poo smell and cow bells, I wonder what the cows look like? – strange how your mind can be so lucid about odd things when you are physically buggered.
Finally the flame rouge, the last kilometre goes on forever, it is 7% so it feels flat!! I crawl across the finish line. I feel no happiness or joy just relief that the suffering has finished.
I have a good case of hypothermia and I am more than a little out of it, I get handed a freezing cold coke, shaking like a leaf I drink it, my blood sugar creeps back into the normal range – just. I queue up with a bunch of other guys to get down the mountain, we are sharing the road with the guys coming up, they let us down in small groups escorted by motorcycle gendarmes, I freeze all over again!Down I go not really with it at all, all I have to do now is find Andrew and our ride back to Pau, which is 60km away. I stop at the bottom and pull out the phone to text him but I am shaking that badly I can’t hit the buttons, a French spectator takes pity on me and helps with the button pushing. It doesn’t occur to me later that I did the entire conversation in French.
Andrew and the car is only 50m away. I flop into the back seat shivering and soaking wet, all I feel like doing is sleeping. Andrew looks good but cold, we don’t talk much I’m too out of it. We get going at once.
No comments:
Post a Comment