The second rest day of this year’s Tour de France took place Monday and it was a lot busier early on than our previous one had been. We have been sharing the hotel with Sky, the team of the race leader Chris Froome, and there was a lot of bustle as a result.
We woke up this morning and trying to get to breakfast was a problem with so many journalists running around. Sky was holding a press conference at around 10am, making it pretty crazy in the hotel.
Being the rest day, we had a change of breakfast to try to give us a mental break as well. Normally on race day I always eat the same thing . . . I have porridge and then an omelette with some bread or something, and a probiotic fruit smoothie which the team chef makes.
This time, we enjoyed some ham, hash browns and some bread, with a croissant or two. It helps break the routine, and helps us to switch off a bit. The rest days are some of the few where we get to eat a proper lunch, sitting down rather than racing along in the bunch and eating bits and pieces such as energy bars and gels. Instead, we had some spicy Mexican food . . . it went down very, very well, and helped us to just forget about the race.
As I said before in this diary, you can’t switch off completely on the rest days. It is important to keep the body moving – because we have been racing so hard; if you just take a total break the body stiffens right up and it is hard to get going again when the race restarts.
In order to avoid that, we went for a little ride on the bikes. We did an hour and 10 minutes or so, stopping along the way for coffee in a typical Provençal town. The atmosphere was really good . . . we were laughing and joking about the stuff that happened on Sunday’s stage.
In addition to the time on the road bike, I also did an extra 10 minutes on the new time trial bike I will use. I have got a special one made up for Wednesday's time trial, which is a lot hillier than the one we had last week. Normally I use the Cervélo P5, which is a pure time trial bike built for flat speed rather than climbing and is consequently heavier than the normal bike.
Road frame
For Wednesday, I am using the Cervélo S5 instead. It is the aerodynamic road frame, and the mechanics have dressed it up as a time trial bike. It is not quite as aerodynamic as the P5, but it is a hell of a lot lighter. It gives us the best of both worlds, and hopefully we will be competitive as a result.
Weather-wise, it was super hot here. I think we got lucky on Sunday, in hindsight, as it wasn’t as bad as this. I actually used the hotel pool to cool down, treating it like a recovery tool. Because I have been racing so hard, my body’s metabolism is going so fast at the moment as it is trying to recover.
As a result the core temperature is really, really high, and it is difficult to settle down. I used a dip in the pool to help with that – I wasn’t going up and down, just messing around a bit in the water.
Speaking of heat, I had a bit of a disaster on Sunday night with the air conditioning unit. I was so out of it before I went to bed that I forgot to check what temperature it was set to. The maids had set it to 30 degrees beforehand and I never realised it.
In the middle of the night I was wondering why it was so hot in there . . . saying ‘damn the air conditioning, it is not working’. I was lying there swearing at the machine. I felt a bit daft when I woke up in the morning and saw that it was on heat rather than cool!
My agent came to the hotel and brought some of my ‘Crazy Panda’ t-shirts with him. We had them made up, using an image from Liège-Bastogne-Liège when someone in a panda suit was running behind me. I am the patron of the Cycle4Life charity and the proceeds for selling the t-shirts will be used to help the Temple Street children’s hospital.
People can buy them on the DID Electrical site. My agent brought a few to the Tour, although he didn’t have enough to go around the whole team. . . I’ll have to decide how to give them out to the others.
Back to the race – next up is a lumpy stage to Gap. I haven’t actually checked it out in the race book yet. I’ll have a proper look on the bus on the way to the start. I know there is a descent at the finish and it is quite up and down. I think it will likely be a day where a break could get clear and hang on until the finish.
There will be many riders trying to get into a move as it’s probably the last day for a break to survive until the finish line. There might be a chance for myself or Andrew Talansky, my team-mate, to slip into the move and to try to hold on. It could be a very interesting day.
