Damian's Blog - Day 2

Ouch. A fairly bleary start to the day, not feeling the sharpest. Breakfast is limited to croissants, strong coffee and feeling like a naughty school boy as everyone else looks bright and breezy ahead of the first official riding day. Just like being back on tour with the England Team in the mid '90's, and trying not to get too close to the management in case they detect the waft of alcohol..

Just to add insult to my sore head, our cycle shirts are bright pink and very lairy, so no chance of us slipping into the background this week. We look like a drag queen race troupe. Quel horreur. We set off for a 20 km ride round Biarritz, which is looking even more stunning this morning just to make sure the bikes are intact, and a leisurely hour later we return to the hotel for final bits of tinkering and, given we'll be burning an average of 5000 - 8000 calories per day on the trip, a hearty lunch before setting off for an 85 km ride out to St Jean Pied de Port, our overnight stop.

We receive a rousing send off with French International Imanol Harinorduquay turning up to see off his old international foe Mr Dallaglio, whilst Biarritz's latest English recruit Magnus Lund also comes down and waxes lyrical about the joys of playing rugby, surfing and enjoying life in the Basque country - all a far cry from Edgeley Road and the Trafford Centre..

French Fred shares a few words of wisdom with the Peloton before departure

The first couple of hours on the road pass without incident - cheered on by the locals and the traffic show tremendous respect to our Peleton - all a far cry from Putney Bridge on an summer's evening when the hand signals from the drivers are slightly more animated than the ones from the French drivers.. The first chink in the armour comes when our tour professional Bruno takes us down the wrong turning 3 times on the bounce, including an impromptu visit through Customs to Spain. Two of the detours mean that we have to go back up a couple lengthy climbs - our 933 km ride has just gone up to 950 km. Zut alors.

There is a worrying whiff of testerone in the air as the group gets within 20 km of St Jean, a few of the group of go eyeball out, and foolishly I try and keep up before realising I'm about to blow a gasket, so ease off with an eye on the next seven days, and the fact that this is by far the easiest day of the trip. We eventually get into town 4.5 hours after leaving Biarritz, and are grateful to have got through the day intact. I'm sharing a room with my good mate and British free skiing champion Warren Smith who lives and teaches at his Academy in Verbier, and we are hobbling round like Waldorf and Stadler from the Muppets. Not too promising after day one.

Dinner is a very quiet affair apart from the Basque male voice choir who add a rich local flavour to the meal. Harvey and Gondola's world class fixer extraordinaire Jo Gowing have put so much thought and effort into the organisation of this trip, and the choir are first class. Conversation inevitably turns to tomorrow's route. We climbed a grand total of 200 m today, so tomorrow's climb up to 1300 m will be a very tall order. It's fair to say there are a lot of exhausted limbs tonight, so early to bed in an attempt to get the batteries recharged for the 7 hour ride tomorrow. 115 km's in the bank, only 835 km's to go.

Bon nuit et bon chance mes amies .
Damian