We were up at the crack of dawn this morning in order transfer across to the start of the next stage by bus. The modern eco-friendly hotel that had been a major plus point at the end of a very hard day yesterday, sadly proved not be very ‘washing-friendly’. All my hard work last night in hand cleaning my kit for the next day was still in a soggy mess in the bathroom.
I should have put it on regardless, as after an hour-long transfer, we started stage 3 in the pouring rain. Phil, the tour leader, and legendary weather forecasting was spot-off yet again...even Michael Fish got it right occasionally?. But we were now all quite hardened to a bit of drizzle from the last two days and we knew the real test would be much later in the day with the infamous ‘Pavé’ sections.
Pavé – is basically cobbled farm-track that varies between a nightmare and a disaster to cycle on. Rumour has it, from all the peleton chat that takes place throughout the day (usually in short sharp breathes) , that the entire Tour de France could be lost for some riders by just this small 16km style of road. Crashes are highly likely and mechanical failure a given as the entire peleton race through these very narrow tracks at break-neck speed.
After some rather nice undulating hills we duly arrived at our first 300m section of Pavé. To see it in the flesh was an eye-opener...to cycle on it was eye-watering on the nether regions to say the least. As the day progressed the sections of Pavé got longer and more jarring on every part of our body and bikes. The longest section of over 3km was summed up best by Davinia, one of the two girls attempting the entire Tour.
‘I used to be a girl...but now I am not so sure’.
We arrived back to the hotel quite soon after the last section... shaken to the core and only missing the odd filling... but with stage 3 complete.
My already enormous respect for these pro-riders only continues to grow!
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