Today is flat stage said Beat yesterday and meant he would stay in bed all day. Indeed, finally sleep in, no transfer and 2 nights in the same hotel and even a bathtub, a luxury.

Whenever you are part of such an event, there is always an Australian or a Swiss. The day before yesterday morning I had the opportunity to interview Beat, who grew up in the Zurich Oberland. He has retained that typical, wonderfully dry Swiss humor that had me in trouble with laughter on the bike even as we rode the long 3rd stage through Luxembourg together almost alone.

The coming week

In terms of content, the next week will be very interesting, there are actually only highlights with the Col de Galibier, Telegraph, Isoard, the ride to Provence, Marseille and Paris.

These will be difficult days, climbing these big mountains and the next day the mountain finish at the Isoard. I am not afraid here, because these are all drivable alpine passes. You have to know that all the passes that were built for trucks are not as steep, so they are easier to ride than these forest climbs with over 10%. From a road bike perspective, 5-6% climbs are easy to ride and anything over 10% hurts.

The only thing that will be challenging here is the length of the climbs. For example on the Galibier it goes up quite long, 26 km I think. But that with the endurance performance must not worry us now after almost 2,700 km in 2 weeks.

The 3th week of the tour

Unknown to me is how I will function in the 3rd week. I have never gone 3 weeks before. In the 2nd week I had the impression to have become better, more persistent, I hope I can keep the level and do not decline. Important remains to continue to pay attention to my regeneration, so far it has worked quite well.

Statistics

Here I have updated the data from the bike computer into the table. 2,660 km and 31,000 meters of altitude in 2 weeks, incredible.

Thinking ahead, I realize the adventure is coming to an end, I can’t believe it: I’ll be back at a desk, back to normal life…well, there will be changes….