The Tour de l’Ain is a four day professional stage race taking place not far from home (l’Ain is the French department just north-west of Geneva).
A very cool feature of this event is that for three of the stages, they run same-day amateur cyclosportives on the exact same route as the pros.
Today’s pro stage left early (9:45 am) as they had a second TT stage this afternoon. This meant that the cyclosportive left after the pros – so I didn’t get to see the race.
But I did see some pre-race stuff. Like Vino arriving with his self-indulgent jersey:
After the pros left, we all lined up to try and catch them:
The weather and the route were beautiful. I don’t say this often, and I finished way back like always, but I felt pretty strong today.
Two cols on the route, Col de Menthieres was the toughest climb of the day. And it was my first time past Col de sur la Semine – I was pleased to get the camera out in time as I passed – but the route didn’t really climb this. The steepest part of the day was 3 kms up to Girons (see elevation chart).
While not exactly big crowds, there were people along the entire route that without fail cheered as I passed (and plenty of kids to high five). Much appreciated.
The best cheer of the day: “Bravo, go, go, there is a beautiful girl just around the turn. You can catch her.”
Vive le Tour de l’Ain!
6 Comments
It is official now. YOU ARE A PRO CYCLIST! Not bad for a +40year old 😉
But Eric, for the feed station I had to get off my bike and eat sponge cake.
I was really hoping for someone to hand me a musette while I cycled past! 😉
Bravo pour toutes ces cyclosportives !! Avec tout ça, tu dois envoyer des watts en ce moment (“I felt pretty strong”) 🙂
Real Pros eat sponge cake 🙂
Un de mes endroits favoris pour faire du vélo… Bravo Will !
bravo, le parcours a l’air vraiment “casse-pattes” mais avec ce beau ciel cela a du être un régal!