Le Tour de France

This year one of the starts of the Le Tour de France is Saint-Malo. While the town is very anti-cycling it's more than happy to spend money on being an official start point for Le Tour....!

Anyhow for this year's tour there are some events and today there were two bike rides today, advertised with jolly family friendly posters around town. There was a 100 km ride with Bernard Hinault who lives locally and a shorter 50 km ride. Even though they showed small children on the poster, I did think even 50 km was a bit much for children.

My wife signed up, as places were limited, and I received the GPX file, to discover the ride was actually 55 km, and it had a few strange loops going round roundabouts twice in a few places...!

I wasn't 100% keen, as my right wrist is still weak and I've not ridden as as much as I'd like, but I thought it should be okay at my own pace. As it turns out it was group ride and not at my own pace... All was well until about 30 km, we'd been making an easy 25 km/h and I was feeling fine. About the 30 km mark there were a few small climbs, and I was getting hungry and when you're hungry pain gets worse and my wrist wasn't happy. I slowed down and gradually dropped back and limped along for about 10 km. I then had something else to eat, and was fine for the final 10 km, picking my speed back up.

In hindsight I should have eaten more and taken a painkiller - but I've run out of ibuprofen and I constantly forget that I need more carbs than my wife on a bike ride.

We arrived at the finish, received our finish medal and helped ourself to the food - which was actually rather good. There were some cycle/race things on display, plus these two old race cars.

It was a nice day out and surprisingly easy to maintain a high speed in a larger group of cyclists - even if I don't like being packed in like a sardine.