Cyclopaat, an alter ego with a twist
It took me a while, but I finally found the time to stitch together a gallery with the highlights of our Tour de France 2021.
They are displayed in random order, so you can have fun by guessing the stage.
If you want the larger original(s), drop me a line.
The (summit) selfies are at the bottom of the recap post.
Just a quick note to inform you (who?) that the “Col Collector” page has been updated with (new) Tour de France 2021 climbs and some previously forgotten Austrian climbs.
The latter were cycled during my Marmotte Gran Fondo Hochkönig in 2017…
As a bonus, I’m attaching a nice 2021 Tour de France shot by Paula ❤️ and one by the photographer from Photo Breton…
As promised, I will conclude the reporting on my Tour de France 2021 with a recap.
I cycled 14 out of 15 available days and have my own stupidity to blame for having a “rest day”.
While I guess this Tour de France once again showed I’m (still) capable of pushing myself through – and over – my limits, there’s no denying that I will have to take it down a notch.
How much will also depend on my capability to keep enduring the back pain on every climb.
Sure, taking in the mostly overwhelming landscapes, the feeling of tininess when looking around and the stunning views are great “distractors”.
But I keep increasing the number of short breaks to ease the pain, which eventually do not help very much any more either.
On the upside, these enable me to take in more of the views and make pictures too 😂
Anyway, lets get to the recap…
We’ve already travelled home and I’ve cycled my pancake flat backyard yesterday afternoon, but here’s a short recap of my last Tour de France 2021 stage.
That was Friday the 13th, and I had no idea if I would.even get out of the village on my bike.
I did (get out of town), but as the road immediately started going up at between 7% and 10% from our apartment, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get all the way to the summit of the Croix de Fer for the last time.
After all, it’s a formidable, close to 30 kms long, climb, I was not in a good shape and trying it with no warming up to speak of…
I already knew I had gone too far Wednesday, but the aftermath (evening, including dinner) was just fine, as was my night.
I slept like a baby until I woke up at just past 4 am for a toilet break and the lights went out when I got out of bed…
I’ll keep it short, but suffice it to say, it put a lid on stage 13, which would have been short as we needed time to pack things up too.
That stage was therefor planned to get up to Les Karellis.
Although originally intended to be combined / extended with Col d’Albanne, that plan was already off the table after Wednesday’s massacre.
But now, even the short stage was cancelled.
Despite my experience, I had managed to get past my breaking point and not recover from it until the next day.
We went for some sightseeing by car and I even got back to Valfréjus to pick up a souvenir.
Now, the question is: do I dare to ride a stage 13 tomorrow, on Friday the 13th?
I think I’ll stick to my usual “Epilogue”, IF it even takes place 😂
