life is either a daring adventure or nothing

Helen Keller

I'm a full time cyclist, now in my 8th year of international racing. I raced for 3 years for the GB national team, then turned pro in 2004 with the Dutch Farm Frites-Hartol team in support of Mirjam Melchers and cycling legend Leontine Zijlard van Moorsel. In 2005 I rode with Danish Team SATS, and then in 2006 I went for a change of scenery and spent the season in the USA riding for Team Victory Brewing. This year will be my third in the USA and I am riding for California based Team TIBCO.

My career highlights to date include a bronze medal in the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games road race, competing in the 2004 Olympic road race in Athens, stage wins in international races and several medals in national championships.

Latest News 13th July

I promised to post a regular diary of my trip in France, tiredness and internet access permitting, well I had fairly regular internet access but the chances of me staying awake long enough to write a diary on any given day were slim to none, so now that the trip is done, and I'm on a train on my way back to Brittany I'll catch up on some of the highlights of the trip....

Day 1 - guests arrive....eventually. Tour stage: Brest - Plumalec

After a minor delay due to a plane part which needed replacing, our guests arrived at the somewhat antisocial time of 5am, and in a fit of generousity the night before I'd offered to help Erin with the airport run, so 5.05am saw me at Brest airport on top of the van attaching bikes to racks and trying not to fall off! After a few hours sleep for the guests, and some inventive van packing and minor bike rack adjustments for the staff we were all ready to go. Given the late start there was a general consensus that 100km was suitable distance for the first days ride, and so we drove the first part of the course, and after a quick group photo we were on our way.

Day 2 was a somewhat grey and drizzly affair, not quite the conditions we'd been hoping for, but it didn't do much to dampen the spirits and we had a great day on the bikes, covering close to the full stage distance.

Day 3, and this was the view from just outside the hotel! I don't get to spend too much time near the sea, so I had the obligatory paddle before we set off for the day. Conditions were better than yesterday (ie it wasn't raining) although the wind had picked up and we were battered with cross winds so Paul, Tim and Jeff got to learn the benefits of echeloning, and I got to learn that if I want to provide any shelter whatsoever to a 6ft bloke, I have to sit up as tall as I can and cannot go anywhere near the drops

Day 4 was another windy one, but this time the wind was in our favour, and we had a roaring tailwind for most of the day, yay :-) This was probably my favourite hotel, if for no other reason than the cool diner table

The french do some odd things to celebrate the tour's passage!

Day 6 saw us riding through the massif central (I think, and if I'm wrong, apologies, but we definately went through the area at some point) and tackling the first serious climb of the week, the 11km climb up to Puy Mary

After 6 days of riding, we had a much needed rest day, and with the breakfast table looking like this, it was a prefect place for a rest day!

Day 8 - Figeac - Toulouse

Finally a sunny day!

As we hit the mountains we lose the sun! Today was the first of our 2 days in the mountains and we started with a 14km climb that I really can't remember the name of, and after a long cold descent and a break for lunch, complete with much needed hot chocolate, followed it with the climb into the clouds at the top of of the col d'Aspin

Final day and possibly our toughest one yet. We started the ride about 20km from the bottom of the Tourmalet, with a plan to ride to the stage finish at the top of the Hautacam. In sunny conditions it would have been a hard ride, but our weather alternated between drizzly rain and proper rain (as defined by John who is Welsh and therefore clearly an expert on rain). Despite my belief/hope/ that we might ride above the clouds and reach the top of the Tourmalet in blazing sunshine, it was cold and wet, but maybe that just added to the experience, made it more of an "epic" The group had varying methods for dealing with the cold on the descent, I suspect that Joe and Pauls decision to climb into the van near the top was the smartest, followed closely by Jimmy and Line's following suit halfway down, and trailing at the back in the wise decision stakes were me Lyne, Patrick, Tim and Jeff, who chose to stop at frequent intervals down the descent to run on the spot/rub hands together to try and get feeling back/shadow box. Once we reached the village that turned out not to be the bottom of the descent but as far down as we could go before hypothermia set in, we settled ourselves into a friendly cafe, and ditched the prepacked sandwhich lunch in favour of hot tomato noodle soup, frites and hot chocolate, sometimes the simplest foods taste the best. After a very happy 2 hours where we dried out and warmed up it was time to hit the road again, but given the torrential downpour which greeted us at the door, we piled into the vans and drove to the hotel (we briefly considered getting out at the bottom of the Hautacam, but decided that one 17km climb in the pouring rain was quite enough for one day)

All in all it was an amazing 10 days, and I got to experience some fantastic riding and more importantly made some great friends :-)