Damian's DCS Blog Day 2: The long and winding road

A relatively quiet night, and I am fortunate to be sharing a room with another great friend and Cycle tragic, Harvey Smyth. Harvey was the brains behind the Gondola Pyrenees Challenge in September 2008 – 950 km in 8 days from Biarritz to Perpignan with the small issue of negotiating 34 mountains on the way. Given that he is CEO of the Gondola Group, Europe’s largest restaurant group – Pizza Express, Zizzi and ASK to name but a few of the brands under his overall management, then he has to be the ideal person to immerse me into the language and culture of Italy – a ready made personal Lonely Planet guide. Given that Harv’s Italian stretches to “due birre”, then I am slightly under whelmed by this knowledge centre. The other relevant issue for having Harv as a room mate is that his snoring is a thing of legend. His long suffering wife Kate has told me the best way to stop him in full flow is some gentle spooning, but even though we’re good mates, I feel that would be taking our friendship a little too far.

Aided by a bottle or two of red, Harv doesn’t stir all night, so we rise early and well rested for the longest leg of the entire Cycle Slam. Today we will cycle 167 km from Bolsena to San Gimignano, which is the longest ride most of us have ever attempted. The Information pack tells us the huge distance will be made easier by the beauty of Tuscany and 3 of Italy’s finest vineyards; Orvieto, Montepulciano and Chianti.

The projected ride time is approximately 8 hours with a few challenging climbs thrown in for good measure, and the start of the day could not be more contrasting to the winter wonderland we encountered yesterday. The sun is shining brightly on a crisp winter’s morning as we set off under the guidance of our charismatic leader Antony (‘Bonzo’ to his friend) di Lorenzo.
This is a tough day mentally and physically, but the countryside is stunning as we take in the beauty of ‘Chianti-shire’ for the first 2 hours on the road. The weather turns on us once more as we experience freezing fog, rain and sunshine in equal measure for the next few hours.

The ride itself is good – we have an excellent assortment of evenly paced riders and we pull each other along at a healthy pace. The climbs start just after lunch- and I almost see my chicken soup for the second time with a 15 degree ascent. Star climber in our group is Mark Farrer Brown – another relatively novice cyclist, who goes up mountains at a rate of knots. Mark has been training hard for this event, and lost almost half a stone in the process. When you consider that Mark didn’t have an inch of fat on him before he left London, then that indicates just how light he is going up hill. I don’t want to steal his thunder, but Mark came into dinner last night looking positively ecstatic and announced that he had just managed to slip into a size 0 outfit for the first time this year. If he keeps this up, then you’ll see more of him at London Fashion Week from the 19 – 24th Feb.

The 8 hours in the saddle get harder with every hour, as the constant grind keeps sapping away our energy. It’s so important that we have the correct fuel intake – Gatorade, Mule Bars, Bananas etc, and we keep stuffing ourselves knowing that this ride will burn in excess of 4, 000 calories – I can think of easier ways of doing that – but the show must go on. A relatively incident free day for our group ends with a killer climb up to San Gimignano, and then a 6 km cruise into our very wonderful hotel complete with Spa. Our medical team under the watchful eye of Dr Simon Morris and the legendary Rooster are all set up to take on the growing number of aches and pains from all comers. Slowly and surely stories emerge of other groups who have not had such a straightforward day; Les Caulston has taken a wrong turning and his team have cycled 20 km in the wrong direction and climbed 1000 m vertically up to a ski station. They arrive 12 hours after they set off from Bolsena and are inevitably fined later at dinner for trying to take in a ski holiday on a charity cycling trip.

Our Chairman, Andrew Croker, or ‘CIC’ as he is known to all comers has also taken his team an hour off route, so they also arrive late and a fraction tetchy (unheard of on this trip), much to the mild amusement of the rest of the troupe.
After such an incredible effort by everyone today, the plans for tomorrow are announced and news of a rest day is greeted with joy, and several more bottles of excellent local produce. We even have time to present the first Awards of the trip for outstanding achievements to date. Most popular Award of the evening goes to Warren Phelops – lawyer to the stars – whose cycling style has attracted a number of comments over the first 2 days. The mood in the camp is excellent and bonding stretches long into the night as everyone kicks back and enjoys a well earned drink and reflects on a job well done, albeit we’re not even over the total half way mark yet.

Tomorrow brings with it some active rest and a chance to see if England can continue their winning ways after last weekend’s victory at Twickenham. In that game, it was great to see the back row of Haskell, Easter and Moody working so well as a combination. Mind you, given Lawrence’s strong form on the bike over the first 2 days, and the fact that he’s got 22 days left in the saddle, then I suspect he might consider throwing his hat in the ring for a comeback on this Summer’s England Tour to Australia.

www.justgiving.com/dhopley

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