Today I took a break from riding and spent the day exploring the Serre Chevalier region with Leah. We took the bus into Briançon and hiked up to the old city.
This charming part of the town – the highest city in Europe at 1350m – is a walled city at the top of a hill (in Toronto it would be a mountain, but not here). We wandered the tiny streets and stopped for lunch at a café where we watched some of the Tour.
Briançon is close to Italy – so close that the menus were bilingual, Italian and French.
After lunch we headed back to where the bus dropped us off only to find that it wasn’t a bus stop! A bit of panic set in as we we had to catch the next bus or we’d be stuck in Brainçon for the next few hours. We found a marked bus stop and waited for a bus. When I attempted to board the bus the driver told me that his bus was just for packages – and looking down the aisle, every seat had a box on it.
So we went to a nearby hotel and asked the reception desk attendant for help. She called the bus line and then told us that we were at the right stop, just the wrong bus. In her thick French accent she told us to go back “where you were” before starting to giggle at how funny she sounded. For emphasis she repeated the phrase a few more times…
We eventually found the right bus and made our way back to Chantemerle in time for our wedding anniversary dinner.
As a rest day for the Tour riders we took the opportunity to check out Alpe d’Huez. The bus took the riders to the top of the Col du Lauteret, and the non-riders right to the top in the village of Huez.
The descent down Lauteret was 40 of the fastest downhill kilometres I’ve ever ridden! Coasting downhill at blazing speeds for the better part of the hour is quite a thrill… but nothing compared to the climb up Alpe d’Huez. (When I get home I’ll post pictures and video.)
The Tour passes through in two days but already the route is packed with caravans and fans… all who were in full support mode – cheering all of us as we made the ascent. After noticing my CANADA jersey, a trio of Dutchmen even sang the opening line of “O Canada” to me as encouragement.
It was a complete thrill that will stay with me forever!
We boarded the bus and were on our way at 8am for the nearly 10 hour trek to Serre Chevalier.
By the time we made it to Alpe d’Huez I could barely muster a smile as I was sick and tired of being on the bus!!
But we passed cyclings mecca and continued to our hotel. After a good meal – including Beef Carpaccio – we went for a walk around this small ski town and were amazed by the tranquility.
After an ontime departure, we “enjoyed” a turbulence filled flight to Paris.
Getting through the airport required a lot of patience but we finally found the Sports Tours bus… Where we waited for nearly an hour as one of our tour members arrived but their bike didn’t.
Mine survived the flight and is ready for a ride!
Once we checked in – to a hotel with tiny rooms – Leah and I checked out the Eiffel Tower and wandered by the Arc de Triomphe.
Delivered from the deep
Adventurer and former Royal Marines commando Dom Mee was single-handedly crossing the Atlantic in a 14ft boat when he was hit by the fallout from Hurricane Rita. In this remarkable dispatch, he tells of his 31-hour battle with monstrous waves and bitter cold – and how he nearly gave in to death as he clung to his wrecked and sinking craft
y the time the message came in to warn that another storm, the worst so far, was heading towards me, I already loathed the Atlantic. The sea had done everything to thwart my expedition: my boat, Little Murka, just 14 feet long, had been battered by the worst hurricane season in living memory.
In the 39 days since I’d left Newfoundland to cross the Atlantic, I’d been lashed by the aftermath of three storms: Katrina, Maria, and another lass not quite big enough to have a name. And now Hurricane Rita wanted to take me on a date. It was the worst weather in the Atlantic for 100 years.
Though I had food for 60 days, I hadn’t expected my transatlantic record attempt to last more than a month; but I’d already spent more than 30 days cooped up in my tiny cabin, so cramped I couldn’t even straighten my legs.
Little Murka rolled and tumbled on seas as big as the Pennines. Battened inside the boat, my iPod in my ears, I felt like a man in a washing machine.
I didn’t even have a sail. This was the first attempt to conquer the ocean with wind power. Little Murka was a converted dinghy, pulled by a kite, an airborne strip of corrugated nylon 10 metres square on twin lines. And a hurricane is not the weather for kite-flying.
I’d travelled fewer than 500 miles, barely a quarter of the journey, and that was across the shallows of the Grand Banks. These were the seas of Sebastian Junger’s book, The Perfect Storm, and they were pounding me to pieces. The communications gear was first to go. I lost two satellite phones and my email capability – and with them a link to civilisation. My braveheart wife, Angela, was praying for me at home in Somerset, and my project manager, Adrian Wibrew, was able to send me staccato telexes. The latest warned: ‘Hold on. Biggest storm yet.’
I knew that Rita, which formed in the Atlantic before sweeping into the Gulf of Mexico, was intent on serious harm when I felt Murka shudder at 4am on Sunday. I took a wind-check. It was blowing at 65 knots (70mph). In the dark I could see little of the waves apart from plumes of white, high above, like ghost horses galloping down on me. Within seconds, a massive wave caught Murka, scooped her to the top with the ghost horses, and spun her. The boat swung sideways into the seas. I was at the mercy of the gale. This voyage was over. Even as I clawed my way back to the cabin, I’d begun to pray.
I believe in God, but I don’t believe God can help those who don’t show their faith through their actions – and I’m not talking about going to church on summer Sunday mornings. If prayers were to protect me, I would have to do everything humanly possible to make the miracle happen. In the carnage of the cabin, with my kit scattered all over, I struggled into a drysuit and lifejacket. My hands shook as I filled a bag with anything I could find to help me survive if, as I feared, I had to abandon Murka.
I pushed a fistful of flares into the bag and stared at the Epirb, the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. I punched it. I have never had to initiate a rescue before. I have been gored by a wild ox in the Arctic wilderness, and paddled my kayak 400 miles to base camp with four broken ribs. I have been pulled from the water after a trawler ran down my two-man rowing boat during a Pacific crossing. But I’ve never hit the Epirb before.
As I sent out the signal to inform the coastguard that I’d like someone to fish me out of the Atlantic, I knew it was probably way too late. Nothing could reach me in these seas. In practical terms, all I had done was send a message to Angela: ‘You can start worrying now, love.’ The first capsize came after 10 minutes. I braced my body and fought it all the way over, but it was like stopping a train with a shoulder charge: Mr Incredible could do it, but I can’t.
The rolls came every 10 minutes or so. After an hour-and-a-half, on the ninth capsize, Murka went over and didn’t come up. Water started to spurt through the air vent. I was hit by the thought that I’d probably suffocate before I drowned. But I was damned if I was going to do either of those things willingly. If the sea wanted to come in, fine. Let it. I’d open the hatch, and go out to meet it halfway.
Before I turned the handle, I fumbled through the debris sloshing around the cabin with me. There was a miniature of whisky I’d been saving for my 35th birthday: that would be Tuesday, and it seemed wiser not to wait. I took a swig and wished myself luck, then downed the rest with a toast to Murka: ‘Thanks, gal, stick by me if you can.’
The last decision was to hit the second panic button, the PLB, or Personal Locator Beacon, that transmits on aircraft frequencies. That’s the signal that says: ‘Goodbye world, I’m in the water.’
The water rushed in like a boot to the head. Half the air was knocked out of me as I fell back, and then I was submerged. An arm snaked round my waist as I pulled myself through the hatch, and I tried to shake off the sensation as a symptom of panic. But it wasn’t an illusion: something, or someone, was holding me. Another arm latched on to my leg, and I struggled with an urge to scream out every drop of oxygen in my lungs. Panic closed in, trapping me in a space as claustrophobic as the cabin.
I tore at the arm around my waist, imagining this was some sea demon that dragged a man to the ocean’s bed. My lungs were blistering, my hands were numb and a flashgun exploded behind my eyes as my head slammed into Murka’s deck. I suddenly knew this wasn’t a demon: I was snared in the sea anchor’s cable.
The loop round my waist slipped free as I twisted, but the rope on my boot was holding me like a noose. I scrabbled at it with the toes of my other foot, but that was hopeless: I had no choice but to double over and free it with my hands. I breached the surface and took seven or eight breaths, as much water as air. The blurred sky was growing light. Skyscraper waves surged towards it. The wind was too strong for breathing; it rammed too hard in my face to be inhaled. Later, I was told the wind speed was 70 to 80 knots, and the waves were 50ft high. I hated and feared and loathed the North Atlantic with all my guts.
Praying for the harness I had managed to attach to myself to hold, I heaved myself on to Murka’s lurching hull, spread my arms and legs in a starfish shape and pressed my head to the yellow body like I was hugging my mother. The temperature was close to freezing. Within minutes I was close to slipping into unconsciousness, and then I would be back in the ocean. I kept praying.
I managed to stay straddled across the hull for five hours.The seas did everything to tear Murka from under me, and I did everything to hang on, until around 11am an immense wave lifted us halfway to heaven. It dashed us down, throwing me clear and flipping Murka over. How I survived that plunge, or how I found the power in my limbs to stay with Murka and pull myself on deck, I can’t say.
If those five hours were not to be some futile gesture in the face of fate, I had to keep Murka upright long enough to bail out the cabin. The winds were too cold to be survived for much longer. I had felt the dreaming daze of hypothermia drift over me again and again, and been shocked back to life as waves broke over me. Soon, my brain was going to shut down and no dunking would revive me.
All I had to bail with was my grab bag. It seemed an impossible task. Every bagful of water that came out was replaced by the spray from a wave or a gust of iron-hard raindrops. I knew if I could bail out the cabin I might have a hope of riding out the storm. Later, someone might find me. Bailing kept the blood flowing, but I couldn’t feel my hands or feet.
I started to think of the people who make life worth living: my family, my mates, the team who had spent 18 months planning this record attempt with me. I thought of Prince Philip, who had invited me to present his Gold Award to teenagers at St James’s Palace, and had followed the planning of the Kite Quest with enthusiasm. And I thought of the Queen, who quietly took me on one side on my last visit and wished me good luck. ‘I have asked to be kept informed every day,’ she said.
Outside, over the blast of the hurricane, I heard an answering sound that wasn’t the storm. It was a throbbing noise that made the boat vibrate, a mechanical noise. An engine. I flung open the hatch, pulled myself half on to the deck and started waving my arms wildly. For a few seconds I couldn’t see anything and then a Hercules aircraft, so low the wave crests were almost licking its propellers, roared overhead. They threw me two bags of life-saving equipment. I tore them open, and realised I already had everything I could see in there – lifejacket, food, water.
The Hercules circled me for hours until another replaced it. A container ship loomed between the waves, and I fired off my flares to help it locate me, but the captain didn’t dare get close enough for a rescue: in those seas he was more likely to smash Murka to splinters.
Through the night and past dawn I watched the shadows of the ship and the plane, waiting for the seas to quell enough for me to escape. A full 24 hours had passed since I had struggled out of the flooding cabin. I was so sure rescue would come from the container ship, the Berge Nord, that the appearance of a coastguard vessel took me by surprise. The captain and 20 crew of the Cygnus had sailed through the night to save me. They put an RIB, an inflatable boat, into the water and within minutes I stepped on to the Cygnus. We lashed Murka to the stern, planning to tow her back to Canada. I was suddenly dog-tired. I managed a few garbled words over the radio, a message for Angela, then I collapsed.
The storm hadn’t taken its last swipe. Murka’s towline snapped on Tuesday afternoon, my birthday. My boat, and what was left of my equipment, bobbed away on a swell so rough the Cygnus crew couldn’t launch the RIB to save her.
I had prayed for a miracle to save my life, and that’s what I got. The sea took everything else.
Another uphill and challenging finish to a somewhat scenically dull stage. Grey skies and grey houses really don’t excite me. But the thought of the breakaway succeeding certainly held my attention. It wasn’t until the final two kilometres that the last member of the breakaway - Sylvain Chavanel – was absorbed by the hard charging peloton.
I can’t wait to see the catch in person – lying on the couch I get really into it, so I can only imagine how great it will be to be there in a couple of weeks.
Stage 2 Results
Thor Hushovd (Nor, Crèdit Agricole)3.45.13, 43.83 km/h
Woo Hoo!!!! Le Tour is underway for the 95th time – with one major change; this year Leah and I will be there to see the final seven stages.
Today’s first stage also featured a major change in that it was a full stage instead of the traditional Prologue time trial. This means that the first man across the finish line gets to put on the Golden Fleece.
After a somewhat boring stage – at least on TV - Alejandro VALVERDE sprinted to the win, and donned the Yellow Jersey as the leader of the race. Many experts are pointing to VALVERDE as a candidate to win this years event, though my bets are with Cadel Evans (sixth place in Stage 1).
One the negative side of things, Mauricio Soler of Team Barlo World – last years King Of The Mountain – suffered a fractured wrist in a fall just 9km from the finish line. He finished the stage but lost over three minutes to the leaders.
Today I was at Gears having my final pre-France bike tune-up when a father and son walked in with the sons bike. The back tire was flat and looked like it took a serious hit. The father wheeled the bike to the service counter and asked the tech, “Why is the tire flat? Isn’t the bike made for tricks, and this kind of riding?”
The tech picked up the bike and gave the wheel a spin. The deformed rim was immediately apparent and the the tech politely asked what happened. The kid replied that he rode into a curb and the tire just went flat.
The father interrupted and repeatedly asked, “Isn’t this what the bike is made for? We bought it with that understanding so why did this happen????
Each time he repeated these questions he got louder.
To the credit of the staff at Gears the tech didn’t flinch and calmly explained that the bike is a trick bike, and is made for jumps, ramps, etc, etc. No wheel can take a direct hit against a square concrete curb – clearly outlined in the deformed wheel.
The father continued to insist that the bike failed, and that Gears has to fix it.
Now I understand that fathers anger, but as someone who takes great pride in his ability and willingness to complain about wrongdoings, this was not a situation where someone else was in the wrong. The kid rode his bike, full speed, into a square curb. The kid messed up. End of story. This could have been a great opportunity to teach the kid a lesson, but instead another spoiled kid learns that there are no real consequences to his actions.
The final exchange I heard was the father telling the tech to charge him for the repair and then refund him the full cost of the bike…
An Early Cancellation Fee (EECF) applies if, for any reason, your service is terminated prior to the end of the service agreement. The ECF is the greater of (ii) $1100 or (iii) $220 per month remaining in the service agreement, to a maximum of 400 (plus applicable taxes), and applies on each line in the plan that is terminated.
