Retro Ride

My mind wanders during car journeys. On a recent drive to visit family in the north of Scotland I

Old faithful

imagined what would it be like to hop back aboard the steel-framed Peugeot that was my teenage years’ pride and joy? Would the current, approaching-forty me cope without his lightweight, carbon-fibre steed; would my ageing legs cope without a compact?

There was only one way to find out, so I clambered into the dustiest corner of my mother’s garage and returned dragging a relic. It needed new tyres, a pair of pedals would be useful, but otherwise it looked perfectly serviceable.

I don’t always appreciate just how advanced my current ride is in comparison to that early-Nineties, utterly basic bike. It’s also true to say that the teenage me failed to appreciate how lucky he was to reside in such great cycling country. I grew up in Fochabers, a village near the Moray coast and on the edge of Highland Speyside. My extended backyard was packed with quiet roads, cracking climbs and the kind of scenery tourists travel thousands of miles to gaze at.

So it was at Fochabers that this nostalgic experiment would begin and end. I’d opted for one of the aces from my riding repertoire — a 60-mile loop around Malt Whisky country with almost 4000 feet of ascent.

Not Just For Christmas

PERFECT FOR ANYONE — EVEN WEIRDOES

The Breakaway would make the perfect gift for any cyclist  — especially those who can read —  and non-cyclists (weirdoes that they are) would love it too.

Well I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Yes, I would, but it happens to be true. There is a lot of cycling in The Breakaway, and a lot of cycling up mountains (roughly equivalent to three ascents of Everest). There’s also a lot of humour — laughter inspired by heatstroke, oxygen debt and the likes of The Goonies, bicycle-eating Italian goats, Marmot smuggling, Goose from Top Gun, Minxy the mutant Playmate, and more.

Life’s not all giggles and energy jells though, and neither is The Breakaway. There are some serious issues in there too, such as my struggle to overcome grief whilst attempting to overcome hors category mountain passes, and dealing with a friendship that was balanced on a rocky precipice like the bus at the end of The Italian Job.

HOW TO SEND AN E-BOOK AS A GIFT

“Okay, I’m sold”, I hear you cry, “but how to gift the cyclist/reader in my life an e-book?”

Simple. If you're in the UK the easiest way is to send a gift card by email. Make it out for the amount of the book you wish to gift (mine, at £3.99, of course), add the lucky recipient's email address and then type a suitable message in the box before you click buy – something like: “The Breakaway – Cycling The Mountains of the Tour France sounds like it's right up your allez.”

And don't forget to include a link to the book of your choice – there's one for The Breakaway here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Breakaway-Cycling-Mountains-France-ebook/dp/B00BO9LLG8

If you're in America and using Amazon.com then it’s even easier — just find the book you want to gift and click the Give as a Gift button (you Yanks don't know how easy you've got it!).

WHAT ABOUT ME?!

What if you don’t know a cyclist/person who can read? Then gift a copy to yourself, of course (and make finding some cyclist/more intelligent friends your top new year’s resolution).

You don’t even need  to own a Kindle. Download the Kindle reader app and you can Breakaway on a desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone, and maybe even a teapot (or perhaps not).

You’ve had a tough year, you’ve been a very good boy/girl/hermaphrodite — you deserve a copy of The Breakaway.

But remember, this book is not just for Christmas. If you’re a slow reader it might well last through to the end of the Ardennes Classics.

Dinner On The Pass

Cycling and food are two of passions of mine. Sometimes I wonder if the main reason for the former is to create a calorie deficit that excuses my intake of the latter.

View from the hot seat

I recently had the privilege of enjoying Dinner on the Pass in The Sheraton hotel's One Square kitchen. The cycling equivalent of this foodie experience would be to ride in a pro-team car that's driving  alongside the peloton: sitting at the pass, watching the kitchen work at full steam; the brigade of chefs in perfect synchronisation, gathered around their leader, selflessly doing his bidding, preparing the ground for a team's grand victory (and at the feed zone the musettes held more promise than energy gels and rice cakes).

The road book

In this peloton, Sheraton Executive Chef, Malcolm Webster, is patron, running his kitchen in a manner that's surprisingly calm yet clearly effective: beware fans of the swearing and sweating kitchen cliché, you might be disappointed.

In fact, my previous experience of a hotel kitchen was a stint, many moons ago, as a kitchen porter in Edinburgh’s George Hotel – an experience of grovelling, sweating, anger-filled heat that put me off catering-as-profession for good. The experience was something on the same grovelling, gruesome level as Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. Suffice to say the plungeur's life was not for me.

Prolougue

Chef Webster's kitchen is the antithesis of that, a place that employs the cooking equivalent of Team Sky's
marginal gains philosophy. There's no naked gas flame here, only inductive stoves and hobs (not to mention the Green Egg barbecue, the steamers and sous vide machines). Huge ceiling fans and ducts suck out the heat and pump in cool, calming air. Orders come through on a printer and each section gets a copy so the atmosphere is quiet, minus the barked call-and-answer routine we've all seen done to death on Masterchef — why do things they way they have always been done when there's a better, modern method? Whisper it: yes chef.

A fast stage

The queen stage

So as I sat at the shining marble-slab of a pass, feeling like a cross between Greg Wallace and Mr Creosote, Chef Webster dished up a six-course menu that was perfectly balanced, like the route of week-long stage race.


We began with a prologue of beetroot and Connage crowdie, and then sprinted towards the coast and an oceanic Partan bree. A well-judged intermediate stage of barbecued mackerel led back inland to the Queen stage of turbot with oxtail (a dish I will dream about for years to come). The leader’s jersey was challenged by a serving St Bride’s Farm duck, before the short but satisfying penultimate étape of Smoked Cuddy’s Cave cheese and quince.

The dénouement was a final flourish dessert called Pudding on the Pass, like laps of the Champs Elysees, had Salvador Dali been the original Paris city-planner (imagine using a spoon to pick your way through the remains of a sweet shop that's been dropped from a great height, and you’re only halfway to getting it).

Yellow-jersey challenger

Chef Dali adds a flourish

Chef Webster not only dished up amazing food, he didn't seem to mind my constant interruptions and enquiries. He was asked about everything from poaching eggs (they gently steam theirs in the shell before cracking them into water to maintain that perfect shape) to his opinions on Professional Masterchef, and answered with a the kind of passion and knowledge that was evident in his kitchen's end product.

By the time we stumbled out into the night, I was grinning inanely and doing my best to keep thoughts from the coming day's calorie-crunching bike ride.

High-Mountain Heroes

Erik & Rolf in hell

In 2004 I went to the cinema in Edinburgh to watch Hell on Wheels (Hollentour, in its native German). The movie is a documentary by French director Pepe Danquart's and tells the story of the 2003 Tour de France through the eyes of the T-Mobile team and two of their riders, sprinter Erik Zabel and his faithful domestique, Rolf Aldag.

I enjoyed the film, liked seeing cycling and the Tour on the big screen. I enjoyed little insights such as the fraternal relationship between team leader and domestique.

However much I enjoyed it though, I left the cinema feeling none the wiser (perhaps less the wiser). I wanted to know, to really know, what it took to ride the Tour, what was going on behind the curtain, or at the back of the bus. I liked seeing how Zabel's soigneur lathered the cream onto his rider's chamois, but what about the real secrets to the sprinter's success? What were the riders swallowing and injecting when the cameras weren't rolling. And if the riders on the screen weren't swallowing and injecting, then what did they think of their team-mates who were?

Ten years on and Zabel has finally offered a glimpse behind the curtain, given in to the inevitable pressure for truth and admitted to the use of EPO, cortisone and blood doping. Yes he suffered in the heat and on the climbs - him and all the rest - but he also re-transfused his own blood. That's the stuff I wanted to know about back in 2004, the stuff we all suspected but weren't about to be shown, especially not in Technicolour on the silver screen. (Had Pepe Danquart shown us the blood coming out and going back in then it really would have seemed like a glimpse into cycling hell.)

By the time I hit the mountains of Europe to ride The Breakaway I was already pretty disillusioned with pro-cycling. My desire to see behind the curtain had reached insatiable levels; I no longer believed in what I saw on the TV screen, what I read about in the monthly magazines. So it was away from the men who raced the bikes and to the mountains themselves that my admiration and awe were directed  (and, to a lesser degree, to myself, because I was riding climb after climb on nothing but bread and water - or, in my case, SIS Electrolyte energy drink, a whole load of dried apricots and apricot-jam-filled croissants).

I really hope the pro-peloton's current proclamations of a new era really are to be believed (this time, finally) but, to be honest, I don't care. My cycling heroes reach high into the clouds, their reputations incontrovertibly rock-solid. Names like Ventoux, Tourmalet and Izoard will never test positive, never let me down.

Remembering Marco

pic from cycling-passion.com

The late Marco Pantani was a cyclist I greatly admired, a climber whose exploits further fuelled my admiration of the cycling climber and stoked my ambition to go to Europe and try the mountains for myself. He was also the cycling inspiration of Drew, my companion during the travels that make up my book, The Breakaway - Cycling the Mountains of the Tour de France. Without Marco I might never have ridden Alpe d’Huez, the Stelvio, Mont Ventoux, et al.

Pantani was oft compared to an artist; Lance Armstrong called him the Salvador Dali of cycling. He rode with unbridled panache, making crazy decisions to attack based on gut feeling, eschewing modern training and racing aids such as the heart-rate monitor.

However, as the French Senate confirmed on Wednesday Pantani also doped, in this case with EPO, during the 1998 edition of the Tour de France, which he won. Pantani wasn’t alone in his indiscretions: second-placed rider that year, Jan Ulrich, also retroactively tested positive for EPO, as did the American, Bobby Julich, who finished third. It was just those three, and all the rest – the ’98 Tour will forever be synonymous with the Festina affair. Watchmaker Festina was the title sponsor of the team whose soigneur was caught with performance enhancing drugs prior to the race start. The arrest lifted the lid on the sport’s pharmaceutical underbelly and triggered the greatest scandal cycling would see for, well, until the next scandal.

Lightning Quick

The thunder and lightning currently blasting my neighbourhood of Edinburgh into submission is pretty scary, but none will ever be as scary (I hope!) as that which nearly welded me onto the tarmac of the Col d'Aubisque:

Whilst I clung onto Drew’s back wheel and chuckled at what I saw as an irrational fear, the lightning caught up and cracked directly overhead. That explosion of noise was the loudest thing I have ever heard, hopefully the loudest thing I will ever hear. The air turned bright blue as its water content sizzled to the boil. The hairs on our necks stood on end as if we’d stuck our fingers into a electric socket; those power lines I had so recently joked about hissed, buzzed and visibly jerked on their pylon mounts like a sack full of body-popping snakes — the danger I had dismissed suddenly all too real. I shifted up a gear and raced passed Drew, no longer as brave nor as forthcoming with suggestions as to what the lightning might do next. It was all too bloody obvious: we were about to be cooked alive!

To read more click here and pick up a copy of The Breakaway for just £3.99/$4.99.

Best of Times, Worst of Times

One of the great things about having ridden a load of Tour climbs is pretending to know how the peloton feels as the Tour cruises and crawls over the same roads. Stage 19 takes in the Col du Glandon and the Col de la Madeliene, both of which I tackled during The Breakaway. For me the Madeleine was a total and utter nightmare. I suffered like a dog (trapped inside a hot car) the whole way up. The Glandon was that day's second ascent and, surprisingly, I recovered enough to find it, dare I say, enjoyable.

Click to enlarge profile

Who knows how the pros will be feeling as they roll off one Col and on to the next (sore, I'd expect, what with two and a half weeks of racing and yesterday's Alpe D double in their legs). Hopefully more like I felt on the Glandon and not as bad as I felt on the Madeleine.

The worst of times upon the Madeleine:

Cooked atop Madeleine

I was battling with every available ounce of willpower but truly going nowhere; even butterflies were overtaking me. Drew, on the other hand, was feeling (at least relatively) great and refusing to hold anything in reserve for the Glandon. He was also refusing to wait for me, cruised off up the climb and was soon a distant blue dot upon my far horizon — surely a revenge of sorts for my dismissive attitude on La Plagne the previous day. I at once hated and admired my friend, jealousy at his strength countered only by wonder. I felt utterly pathetic as he danced delicately on the pedals, pulling the tarmac down and beneath his tyres. The sun that had become my bête noire was his best friend. Sleeves rolled up and smiling, to him the Madeleine was nothing more than an opportunity to top up the tan whilst taking in a bit of a hill. And with each glimpse of his prowess, the circling vultures of negativity closed in.

A couple of particularly steep corners later and I was audibly cursing Drew, spitting my disdain as if his contrasting condition and velocity were all at my expense. He was purposely taunting me, riding me into the ground as revenge for my actions upon the Stelvio, for having ignored his concerns on the Izoard and La Plagne, for having forced him to come on this trip with its evil Folder of Doom. Was he really so stupid, really so spiteful? I would have spat in disgust had my saliva not already dried up and disappeared.

The best of times upon the Glandon:

The air cooled considerably the higher we climbed, an arrestingly fresh mountain atmosphere that proved a stark contrast to the day's earlier, stifling extremes. Whereas on the Madeleine it had felt like I'd been inhaling hot sand, this new breeze was like an elixir, each intake of breath verging upon a quasi-religious experience. No doubt thanks to that climatic change, the remainder of the energy I had sorely lacked that morning returned, and then some. Drew was either fatigued or had grown accustomed to the idea of my continued existence, no longer expressing the desire to be a bike-length ahead at all times. Just as well too; given half the chance I would have been down in the drops, out the saddle, doing my best Pantani impression. It was inconceivable that the climb on which I had almost thrown my bike into the valley could be part of the same day. My earlier miseries were a lifetime away, part of some distant nightmare or a horror story overheard.

Get yourself a copy of The Breakaway for just £3.99.

Ride the Helter Skelter

For stage 18 the Tour de France will tackle Alpe d'Huez twice. The GC contenders will surely be

Double-ouch stage profile

nervous about this stage. The sprinters and rest of the autobus regulars will be absolutely bloody dreading it. Alpe D once in a Tour stage must hurt enough. Twice will purgatory, for them. For us voyeuristic public it will be an unmissable spectacle.

I've ridden Alpe d'Huez four times (ooh, get me) but never more than once in a day, and never as part of a 172.5km Tour stage. My fourth jaunt to the top was when I rode if as part of The Breakaway (buy a copy here for just £3.99 and read a short extract from my Alpe_D day below). It was easily one of the most enjoyable climbs of the whole trip. Whilst other ascents had actively tried to end my life, Alpe d'Huez seemed to wrap her road around me in a warming embrace, the colourful (if, admittedly, painful) 21 hairpins filling me with excitement and enthusiasm. I'd go back and ride it again in a heartbeat. Even four times up the Alpe isn't enough.

"Alpe d’Huez is around an hour (nearing the three-quarter-hour mark for the best) of all-out effort. In order to maintain morale for the duration you have to concentrate on something other than the pain. Vast swathes of the road were (probably always will be) daubed with a mess of cycling-fans' graffiti. It turns a stretch of grey tarmac into something that more resembles a fun-park helter skelter. Not only are there riders' names and nicknames to discern, there are a host of languages to test and confuse an already addled mind. (Scattered incongruously amongst the sporting scribbles were an array of rather graphic depictions of genitalia, some standing proudly alone, others coupled together, usually captioned by Spanish text that I was happily unable to translate.) On my first ascent I had also attempted to sideline the pain by thinking as much as I could about each of the riders name-checked on the hairpins' signs. That technique had proved inspiring and also a little depressing, especially when huffing and puffing past the name of a pure climber like Luis Herrera (on bend 12; winner in 1984).

There are a few other distractions but none really loud enough to be heard through the pain. La Garde comes after hairpin number 16, where you might struggle to avoid the small water fountain and restaurant, its customers staring idly as you haul yourself passed their tables. You might feel like screaming when the diners neglect to applaud, but don't forget that the locals are probably sick of seeing cyclists, thousands of them, every year, groups of all sizes, individual adventurers, one and all “taming” the Alpe. The road does ease off a touch there (if you can call a 7% gradient easy), as it does a few kilometres (or 10 hairpins) later near the hamlet of Huez. If you are suffering on the climb, those are the points where you might want to resist the temptation of riding faster, when you should relax as much as possible, recover a little before the next gruelling section to come. The last part of the climb is steep (8 to 9% all the way to the summit) and only admonished by the knowledge that the pain will soon end. The road then splits in two and you should take the left fork (the road the Tour uses — remember, doing it like the pros) and come up in the front of the town. On race day this option can often be closed, forcing you to go round the back road, which is tougher and without the knowledge that you are riding on the Tour finale. That finish line is usually placed a short ride into the village, the point at which to check your jersey is zipped up, your shades are down, arms aloft as you coast in to the appreciation of the crowd — you know, the one in your head. Or is that just me?"

To buy a copy of The Breakaway for only £3.99 click here.

The Breakaway Reviewed

I'm not one to blow my own trumpet (tuba, trombone or cornet) so I'll let the rather excellent blog inthegc.com do it for me. Here's an extract from their recent review of The Breakaway:

Rae-Hansen seamlessly manages to combine a real knowledge of the climbs, the facts and figures, their place in history, both in and away from the Tour, whilst tackling some difficult, altogether more serious issues like the passing of his Father and the frailty of emotion that comes with such a huge undertaking. The trivia that Rae-Hansen plucks from an obvious deep understanding of cycling, the legend and terrain of the Tour de France is wonderfully dispersed amongst the wider narrative, providing plenty for the pure cycling enthusiast, whilst the book could just as easily reach out to a non-cycling audience as a story of (mis)adventure, longing, relationships and loss.

Click here to read the rest of the review.

No Holiday on Ventoux

Click to enlarge stage profile

Sunday July 14th July sees stage 15 of the Tour de France, the longest in this year's race. As if the distance of 242.5 kilometres wasn't enough, the organisers have lumped the climb of Mont Ventoux on at the end – just to make sure no one gets the idea that July 14th is some kind of French holiday and an excuse for a day off work.

By the time The Breakaway reached Carpentras for the the Giant of Provence the mood in our travelling camp was like the weather around it: oppressively hot, shocked and scarred by rumbling thunder and bolts of lightening.

The Semi-Circle of Death

Click to enlarge stage profile

Saturday sees the 100th Tour's first foray into the mountains (about bloody time too, I say). This year La Boucle is running clockwise and so the Pyrenees come first. On Sunday, stage 9 heads from Saint-Girons to Bagnères-de-Bigorre over quite a few Pyrenean passes, including the Col de Peyresourde.

For me the Peyresourde will forever remain a part of Robert Millar Day, an unofficial, never to be repeated event about which you can read more here.

Click to enlarge climb profile

The climb of the Peyresourde from Bagnères de Luchon (the direction I rode it and the direction the Tour will tackle) is a tad over 15 kilometres long, takes in 939 metres of ascent and has an average gradient of 6.1%. Not an absolute monster in isolation (not for the pro peloton, anyhow) but in combination with another three first-category climbs, and a second-cat, in a 168.5 kilometre stage, it will be a sore part of a much harder whole.

Stage 10 of the 1926 Tour was an inhumane 326-kilometre-long brute from Bayonne to Luchon, crossing the Aubisque, the Tourmalet, the Aspin and the Peyresourde, and was nicknamed The Circle of Death. During The Breakaway we rode the Peyresourde and its neighbour, the ascent to Superbagnères, in the same morning and joked that we had ridden the Semi-Circle of Death. I can look back and laugh now but it was no joke at the time — sweltering heat, rough Pyrenean roads and a hefty dose of the holiday splats saw to that:

The temperature had rocketed in the hour since Super-B, further hampering my slog with a heat that

Laurent Brochard

fast approached Rolf Roasting Point. As we passed through a wee village called Garin, the gradient eased to about 4%, sufficient respite to allow my mind a moment or two of contemplation: I was going to empty both bottles of water over my head; I was going to turn around and freewheel back down to Luchon, throw myself into the fountain and cry for my mummy until she arrived to pick me up. My Laurent-Brochard-style bandanna/sweatband had filled to overflowing, was drip-dripping salty sweat into my eyes, into a headset top-cap bolt now rusted and ruined by days of perspiration. I dreamt of a cold sponge on the back of my neck, the way boxing trainers revive weary fighters. In fact, forget sponges, I needed an injection of something performance-enhancing, preferably deep-frozen and highly, improbably illegal. With that thought I rode over a slogan daubed onto the road: dopé salut.

To read more or buy a copy of The Breakaway - Cycling the Mountains of the Tour de France click here.

Never Meet Your Heroes - Their Jerseys Will Do

The main inspiration behind The Breakaway was a desire to ride my bike up the high-mountain passes made famous by the Tour de France. The art of climbing by bike has always held me in its thrall. I was (still am) a skinny chap, and so riding uphill was my forte, or at least I was better at it than most of my cycling peers. There was also a rather famous compatriot over in France providing inspiration (to me and many others).

Millar in Polka Dots

Robert Millar is the only British rider ever to have won the Tour’s King of the Mountains polka-dot jersey, a feat he achieved in 1984. In 1989, I was a sixteen-year-old riding my bike at every available opportunity. Millar was by then a 30-year-old, highly successful pro on the Z-Peugeot team. That year he won the summit-finish-stage from Cauterets to Superbagnères (which also included the climbs of the Tourmalet, Aspin, and Peyresourde), and finished the race in tenth place overall. I was a new convert to the joys of Le Tour and watched events unfold through Channel 4’s half-hour highlights programme, gazing wide-eyed at an exotic, exciting world, where men did battle on high-mountains passes with names like D’Huez and Marie Blanque. And in amongst all that exoticism was a Scot, a man from my own country — entertaining, awesome to watch and utterly inspiring.

The Breakaway - A Personal Piece of Tour History

One notion that I took away from the travels behind the story of The Breakaway was a sense that the climbs we had tackled were essentially the exact same roads the Tour peloton had been riding since the race first tackled the high mountains over one hundred years ago. The road surfaces had improved (tarmac laid onto the mud tracks of those pioneering days) but in essence the Col du Tourmalet I huffed and puffed my way up was the same that created the legend of Eugène Christophe in 1913, the same over which my hero Robert Millar led the race in 1989 (en route to stage victory at Superbagnères). Many of the climbs that the race will tackle this July will be the same sweet and savage roads I was lucky enough to ride during my own tour of France.

On Saturday 29th of June the peloton will roll out of Porto-Vecchio on the island of Corsica for the start of the 100th Tour de France. Whilst a sprinter, such as Mark Cavendish or Peter Sagan, is likely to don the first yellow jersey, it will be in the mainland’s high mountains that the race overall is decided.


With Bradley Wiggins apparently all but wiped from the public’s consciousness (how fickle the British sporting fan), Chris Froome has stepped up to the plate (or kicked Wiggins clean from it) to become pre-race favourite and undisputed Team Sky leader. Whereas Wiggins’ forte is the time trial, Froome will be looking up-slope to make his winning moves. He is a far better climber than Wiggins, perhaps the best in the world right now. On the high passes of the Alps and Pyrenees he and Team Sky will most likely put on a dominant display or, you never know, he will falter, allowing a rival to steal a march and make their mark on Tour history.

Each year the riders (with a little help from the mountains) create another instalment of Tour history to add to the archive, another layer of reference for the fans (those of us around now and those of us who will be around to see the 200th Tour). No two editions of the race are the same (although the Armstrong and Indurain eras were often predictably dull). No matter what kind of cycling, or cyclist you are into, there’s always something to look forward to.

This year, like Chris Froome, but for different reasons, I'll particularly be looking forward to the Ventoux summit finish (stage 15) and the Alpe D'Huez double (stage 18). There's a real sense of satisfaction to be gained from watching the peloton race up climbs you have tackled (albeit at comparably inferior speed) — pride (perhaps a little shame too) and a deal of (in my case, unashamedly) childish excitement. That’s one of the great joys of cycling, the fact that you can ride out your own fantasies, create your own personal sporting legends upon the exact same stage that your heroes (and a few villains) once strutted their stuff.

Click here to buy or preview a copy of The Breakaway. It might just inspire you to create some Tour history of your own.

Learning to Ride

Big Person, Small Person

Yesterday I had the privilege and pleasure of being on hand for my niece Edie's inaugural bike ride. The tiny balance bike had been our gift for her second birthday but we'd had to wait a couple of months for suitable weather and, more importantly, for her legs to grow sufficiently so that her feet could reach the ground when she sat in the saddle.

She and I went for a spin round a nearby park, me holding onto the saddle and coaxing, her steering, pushing along with her feet and chattering enthusiastically. I was chuffed to have been on hand for such a momentous occasion -  okay, so her first bike ride isn't quite as significant as first steps but I'm a cycling-obsessed uncle and such things matter to me. Whether or not they will matter to her further down the line is another issue. This little pink and white balance bike might be her first and last two-wheeled passion. Or, perhaps, she'll take after her uncle and it will be the first bike of many.

It's a Stelvio No-Go

Stage 19 of the 2013 Giro d'Italia is scheduled to tackle The Stelvio but it appears that Madre Natura has other plans. With the pass blocked by snow, and more forecast to fall, (at the time of writing this blog) race organisers look set to remove the climb from the day's route. You can check out the current summit conditions for yourself by viewing the Stelvio webcam here.

This Giro has been dominated by the weather, with rain and snow almost as prevalent as the blazing sun and azure skies we expect to see in Italy at this time of year. As for snow at the top of the Stelvio? It's a mountain pass that tops out at 2757 metres, so a little inclement weather is to be expected.

Stelvio 'easy' side in the sun

I've tackled the Stelvio from both the Bormio side (which this Giro was scheduled to ride) and the more famous (surely infamous?) ascent from Prato. The latter is definitely the harder of the two, one of the hardest, if not the hardest of the many climbs I tackled during The Breakaway. If you can only ever ride one Grand Tour climb I'd suggest aiming for this one. It's an absolute brute, a bona fide legend. Reach the summit (weather and legs permitting) and you'll have lifelong bragging rights.

So, here goes with a bit of bragging and a short extract from my Stelvio ascent for The Breakaway (don't say I'm not good to you!):

How many hairpins?

I could feel the energy evaporating from within, certain my fate was but a matter of timing, unrelated to the effort I expended, sand slowly draining from the hourglass. Then the cold shakes set in. 

"I told you to hurry!" The fear shouted its final warning and once again I succumbed, made a dash toward the summit to counter the risk of never reaching it. 

At hairpin 5 I changed up a gear and heaved round the pedals in a manner that suggested I had excess energy to give — head down, the alarm ringing in my ears, teeth gritted against the pain. At 4 my quads were in agony; at 3 I felt twinges of cramp; 2 and my lungs burned from the effort; by hairpin 1 I didn’t care that the summit lay just ahead at the end of the long, steep, straight ramp. Managing the next pedal stroke was my only concern.

To read more or to purchase a copy of the The Breakaway click here or visit Amazon.

The Breakaway costs less than an inner tube and you don't even need a Kindle to read it. Just download the free Kindle app and read it on your laptop, desktop, tablet or teapot. (I made that last one up.)

The Giro d'Francia?

On Sunday 19th of May, stage 15 of the 2013 Giro d'Italia will make a foray into the French Alps. The race was scheduled to tackle two climbs up which I soared (or was it suffered?) as part of my adventures in The Breakaway: Mont Cenis and the Col du Galibier. However, as of Saturday the 18th it appeared that heavy summit-snow and a risk of avalanches had resulted in both these climbs being withdrawn from the day's itinerary.

Had these climbs still been included then hopefully none of the riders in the Giro would have been as confused as I was by Cenis, nor as challenged by the Galibier.

The Breakaway ... and the Giro d'Italia too.

... and the Giro too

Okay, okay, so the title says it's all about the mountains of the Tour de France. Well, truth is, the travels (and travails) of The Breakaway actually kicked off in Italy.


Our first five days took in the Dolomites and Italian Alps, climbs that were breathtaking to look at and ride, passes infused by decades' of myth and tifosi passion. My first experience of riding in Italy was unforgettable, but so tough that it nearly ended out trip before it had properly begun.

Lake Garda Goonie

We were turned to Goonies by the darkness of Lake Garda's unlit tunnels, almost eaten alive by Dolomiti billy goats, truly humbled by the Stelvio, its innumerable switchbacks and silver-haired Shaolin monks.

Stelvio Switchbacks

The Tour is indisputably the biggest race but the Giro d'Italia is every bit as inspiring. Could it be the fans' passion, the Italian flair for style and drama, the azure seas and skies? It's all that and a whole load of truly immense mountains that make the Giro what it is. Unmissable.

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Loch Rannoch Ride - A Taste of Etape Caledonia

The Etape Caledonia, (the 2013 edition of which takes place on the 12th of May), was the UK's first closed road cycling sportive. The event, part of the Highland-Perthshire Cycling Festival, has proved a roaring success and introduced the region to cyclists from across the UK. 

My personal Perthshire discovery came by way of seeking a ride to interrupt the car journey from Edinburgh, up the A9 and into the Highlands. What I discovered, and what thousands of others can already attest to, is some of the best cycling you’ll find anywhere in the world.

Strava Sucker

For the uninitiated, Strava is an app used by cyclists (and runners) to log their activity. Whilst you pedal it creates a map of your route, and compiles data on distance, time, average speed, altitude gained, etc.

Whether you like it or not, Strava also takes your time taken to ride “segments” (specific sections of road or their website, from there you can, “see where you rank and start moving up the leaderboards.”

A Strava Sucker in Action

trail) and then compares your results against other cyclists who’ve ridden that same segment. As they say on

I added Strava to my phone's apps late last year, mainly too see what all the fuss was about. A few uses and, although I liked that it generated a share-able map of my ride, the skeptic in me erred toward seeing it as little more than a way for show-offs to do a bit more showing off, the chance to turn every mundane rise in the road into a virtual race. The pessimist in me also began to worry about my lack of fitness.

Edinburgh to Edinburgh via East & Mid Lothian

Distance: 47.5 miles (scroll down for the Strava map)

Less then 48 hours until the clocks spring forward for the start of Summer Time and I'm staring out the window, wondering if the snow is sufficiently heavy for my bike ride to be cancelled. I put the coffee machine on, decided to wait and see how the weather developed. Half an hour and two very strong coffees later, I'm on the road, the snow's stopped, the sun's out but the skies on the horizon are dark and doom-laden.

Nevermind, at least I'm out. That was probably the hardest part of this ride, breaking that imaginary barrier, overcoming my meteorological doubts and exiting the flat. (How much improved as a cyclist would I be had the hours of weather watching and dithering instead been spent on the bike and riding?) Anything can happen now that I'm actually out, on the road and pedaling — rain, snow, lightning, storm of locusts, zombie invasion — it would only help to embellish the tales I'd tell when safely back in the flat, returned to staring out the window at the weather.

I headed out through town, away from the canal, up through Bruntsfield, across the Meadows, into Holyrood Park and on toward Meadowbank. I was in a contemplative mood and so paid sufficient attention to realise just how pretty a city Edinburgh is. In five minutes I was treated to stunning scenes of the Georgian skyline presided over by the Castle, the imposing crags of Arthurs Seat, then down the hill passed Parliament and Palace. I'd have taken some photos but removing my gloves put me at risk of frostbite and I kept thinking: I see this every day; I'll take some photos another time.

Portie Prom

Passed Meadowbank with its stadium and dilapidated Velodrome, I rolled on down toward Portobello (a separate seaside town that's become subsumed by the city). Rather than battle the traffic through the town I chose to meander along the prom', dodging joggers and excited dogs, struggling to resist the aromas of fried food and coffee that leaked from the many cafés.

The twin towers of Cockenzie power station (in the direction I was headed) looked minutely distant. I'll be there in no time, I thought, still under the influence of my morning coffees.

The Breakaway

The Breakaway

Publishing The Breakaway was a case of wresting victory from the jaws of defeat. One of the book’s sub-plots is the breakdown in my relationship with fellow traveler, “Drew” (as he’s known in the book). The trip wasn't entirely to blame for the friendship’s failure but it certainly exacerbated, and opened my eyes to, differences that existed between us.

Drew was my best friend and the end of the friendship was pretty depressing. It over-shadowed my opinion of our trip, and it took me a while (and a good deal of nagging from my girlfriend, Gaby) to come back around to the idea of publishing the diary as a book.

As I say in the introduction, the mountains of the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia truly left their mark. They changed me, mentally, physically and emotionally (helping me to see through the grief I was suffering as a result of my father’s death from cancer). I’d watch Tours and Giros on TV and recognise (even indistinct sections of) the roads up which Drew and I had suffered and soared. 

Eventually time passed,the summer sunshine burnt away the cloud and I could more clearly see the positives. I took Gaby’s advice and returned to the trip diary. A read-through left me buzzing with pride, often laughing out loud, shedding a tear or two, amazed at what we’d achieved and pining to be back on the high roads of Europe. This, I realised, really is a story worth telling.

And hopefully others will find that it’s a story worth reading.

Click here to preview or purchase The Breakaway on Amazon (you can read it on a Kindle, or on a laptop, iPad, etc using the Kindle app).