That bike's got a motor!
Munster – Day 2
Sleepless last night, jet-lag got the better part of me – never mind how my legs felt this morning. However, with rain in the forecast tomorrow and Monday I had to take advantage of the sun-filled skies and ‘suck it up’.
Descended from the hotel and blew through Munster heading toward Zimmerbach then started my first climb up to Les Trois Epis. Funny thing today, as I started my first climb I saw this grey-haired man on what appeared to by a hybrid bike pedaling ahead. I chased and chased and couldn’t seem to catch this guy. At this point I’m climbing in my 19 and this guy is maintaining a gap and it’s been 3km. Talk about sucking the fun out of the party... I’m thinking, either this guy won the tour back in the 60’s and is showing off or he MUST have a motor in his bike. I stood up, pushed harder and slowly started pulling him back without dipping too far into the red. As I got closer, it became clear that he indeed did have a motorized bicycle. When I passed him, I looked over and said “un motor dans la velo?” He smiled and said “oui!”... I pedaled off.
Reaching “la Place”, I descended to Orbey and headed up my second big climb, this time Col du Calvaire. Legs were dying today. I probably could have stuck a fork in them; they were that ‘done’. Couldn’t help asking myself, ‘this is fun, right’? Reaching Col de la Schlucht, I finally had some fun... almost forgot one of my favourite past times – passing cars while descending. Usually when you descend a Col you have an opportunity to rest and let your heart rate drop. Not today, not this time. I pushed my heart rate up to 150bpm as I hammered in my 11 tooth cog chasing (and passing) cars taking up every available inch of road as I tucked and pedaled.
Finally reached the final climb to the hotel and seriously have to make a mental note to choose my routes carefully when I’m staying on Alpe d’Huez... It’s no fun crawling up a climb at ridiculously low speeds at the end of a tough ride just to reach your hotel.
Tomorrow - Sunday, day of rest. Amen.
