Montelimar toMontVentoux (170km)
Thank you for visiting my fundraising page.
This year I am asking for your assistance to raise funds for Erskine, the charity that provides nursing and medical care for ex – service men and women. Specifically all funds raised will go to Erskine Mains Home where my dad lived during the last 9 months of his life. The staff and other residents of Erskine Mains were like a second family to him and the care provided was to an incredibly high standard. I find it virtually impossible to find the right words to thank the staff of this fantastic charity and would like to donate as much as possible to allow them to continue with their great work. As many of you already know we had a retiring collection at my dad’s funeral for Erskine and that, coupled with a very generous donation from my work colleagues, has already raised in excess of £300. Please do not contribute again if you have already done so, unless you really want to!
Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to sponsor me: Erskine Mains will receive your money faster and, if you are ataxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no extra cost to you.
I swore that I would NEVER take part in L’Etape du Tour again after last year. Horrendous weather conditions and my general lack of ability combined to result in a long day of suffering. However here I am again, willing (?), to take on the challenge for a second year. The route this year includes the legendary Mont Ventoux inProvence, a mountain that I have cycled a couple of times on holiday in recent years. When the route was announced in early November of last year, the inclusion of Ventoux was enough to weaken my resolve not to take part in L’Etape again – more fool me!
Most of you will know about L’Etape du Tour following my exploits of last year. For those of you who don’t, basically L’Etape is one stage of the famous Tour de France which takes place every year for the world’s top professional cyclists. Each year, the Tour organising committee designate one stage of the Tour to be ridden by amateurs as well as Tour professionals. This stage is called L’Etape du Tour. The amateurs and professionals ride the exact same route although they ride it on different days. There are 9,500 places for L’Etape du Tour, 6,500 for French residents and 3,000 for cyclists from the rest of the world.
The 2009 L’Etape du Tour takes place on Monday 20 July and covers a route from Montelimar to Ventoux. The stage is 170km long and takes in some little hills (!) on the way to the big mountain. The profile is shown on the left alongside some photos of me enjoying myself (!!) last year.
The L’Etape du Tour replicates in every way the actual Tour stage which the professionals will do on Saturday 25 July, i.e. the roads are closed, and medical/bike back-up is provided.
As a warm up I’m doing L’Etape Caledonia on Sunday 17 May, it’s the only closed road race in Britain with over 3,500 entrants and covers 81 miles around Pitlochry.
More information on L’Etape du Tour can be found in www.letapedutour.com
My lovely wife Al (guess who wrote this part) will be posting future updates on this site during the count down to July 20.
Thank you once again for your support.
Chris “He’s no Lance Armstrong” Brown
First Update – L’EtapeCaledonia17 May 2009
The day before we stayed at Lynne’s inBridgeofEarn, great hospitality and she was very polite as Chris’s pre-race OCD kicked in and he checked his kit and prep. for the umpteenth time.
Chris went to bed at 10.00pm while Lynne and I stayed up with some nice rosé, earlier Chris had mentioned that he should have brought some bananas and porridge. As Plod was coming up toBridgeofEarnat the end of her 10 hour shift of arresting street brawlers she was given the task of bringing the missing items! She duly arrived at 5.15am with the bananas and porridge just as Chris was starting breakfast.
The race started at 0700 with no hitches, there were some celebs in the field including Dermot Murnaghan from Sky News. Disaster struck 40-45 miles into the race as Anti-closed road protestors (aka complete numpties) had thrown carpet tacks on the roads. This resulted in the first few hundred riders puncturing, subsequently for safety reasons the organisers and police then temporarily stopped the race as the roads were cleared of tacks.
Chris did the race with his friend Ellis, they both did it for MacMillan Cancer Support. Chris arrived home at 5 hours 15 minutes and Ellis at 6 hours 50 minutes, both were held up during the race. Chris was 841st and Ellis was 2372nd.
The idiots didn’t ruin what was a great day and both Chris and Ellis enjoyed the cycle. Ellis was doing it for the first time and afterwards said he thought he was going really well and was about 30 miles to the good when he saw the “10 miles sign”!
Both Chris and Ellis had many supporters at the finish line who cheered them as they arrived.
A good day was had by all and we’ll all be back next year.
