Cent Col day one: Poor colin.

So here we are, 9 months of training covering 7,000km including 4 big big weekends in Wales and Yorkshire, 9 months of finishing almost all my Audax rides in the top few riders and it’s apparent within 5 minutes of arriving that I’m way out of my league. There’s one guy who recently came home 7^th in the Etape (amateur stage of the tour de france) out of 5,000 riders. And he’s not the strongest… All the talk is of brake compounds, heart-rate-zone-cum-power-level-cum-anaerobic training etc etc. Phil the organiser must have climbed well over 1,000 cols in the last few years, more no doubt than anyone else in the world, and he's being routinely dropped on the climbs by half a dozen of the guys here - there really are some strong strong guys in this group of 19 riders.

We roll out of Rivesaltes behind Phil, the organiser, he was going to lead us gently to the first feed station at 50km to give everyone a chance to chat together and get to know each other a bit. We are in the season of grape picking and the grape juice sloshes out of the back of the tractor trailers and onto the road, leaving a greasy slimy trail and smash, 7km in and one poor guy, Colin, goes down on a roundabout, smashing his face and wrist, giving himself mild concussion and cracking his handlebars. Poor poor soul, a year of training and he lasts 7km, going down on an innocuous roundabout because of some grape slime. We all feel really horrible for him knowing it could have happened to any of us.

First feed stop over, Phil let’s us go at our own pace and that’s pretty much the last I see of anyone all day – as the day hots up and up and up into the mid 30’s I fade away and away and away. I just can’t ride hard in the heat, it saps me hugely. If it’s going to be like this all week then I’m going to really suffer.

Chipping away at my own pace over the cols, the highest of which is Col de Port De Pailheres, a 13km climb at 8% rising up to 2,001m altitude I suffer in the heat all afternoon long, finally finishing at 7.15pm after 12 hours in the saddle covering 14 cols and a big big 4,500m of climb. Each of these days on this challenge is simply huge, bigger than any tour de france day, as big as largest ever ride in my life – and we’ve got 10 of them back to back. This is going to be “interesting”.

Brief stats: Distance: 204km; Height gained: 4,500m; Cols claimed: 14; Max speed 64km / hr; Max temp: 36 degrees. Details herewith.

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