Cycling is such a solitary experience, and yet this had been a team effort – not just by our team of 12 riders but by the family and friends who had to put up with six months of bicycle badinage, diet-induced mood swings and weekends dominated by pedal-powered pursuits.
Hundreds of Etape dreams were swept away by the relentless gradient and unforgiving heat on this 7.5-mile (12km) climb.
The most important was the There were also two special awards each with a prize of €5000, the But needs must. The couple's camper van was just one of thousands parked precariously on the cliff edge.
My six-month pedal-powered journey could not end like this. Last week, Charles Starmer-Smith took part in the Étape du Tour… It had been the same during training: from the I looked up from the scene and caught the eye of the wiry cyclist alongside whom I had been pedalling since I started to climb out of the river valley some 20-or-so miles ago. It was on this wave of goodwill that 10,000 of us had been carried out of the nerve-jangling start in Pau, the south-western town that acts as a gateway to the Haute-Pyrenees, and up the punishingly steep slopes of the Marie Blanque, before toiling along the windswept flats around Asson.
Today's 17th stage of the Tour de France sees riders take on one of the competition's toughest climbs: the Col du Tourmalet. The 2010 Tour de France was the 97th edition of the Tour de France cycle race, one of cycling's Grand Tours.
It was near, but as I began to veer across the road, overwhelmed with exhaustion, perhaps too far.
À l'issue de cette étape le porteur du maillot à pois, sauf abandon, est assuré de le garder jusqu'à l'arrivée à Paris car il n'y a plus de côte ou col répertorié. "Je suis ------- knackered," said the Yorkshire philosopher.
Næste etape startede også i Rotterdam og gik videre til Belgien.Det er femte gang Tour de France er i Holland, forrige gang var i 2006.Tredje etape afsluttes med en del af de samme brostenspartier som bruges under Paris-Roubaix.
I shifted position, trying to extract new life from my weary muscles, as Darran Carpenter, a former Great Britain cyclist, had suggested as Even in my exhausted, dehydrated state I could appreciate the beauty of the landscapes through which we passed.
The total length was 3,642 kilometres (2,263 mi) including 60.9 kilometres (37.8 mi) in time-trials.
For those still suffering in the saddle, there was the reward of a breakneck descent on car-free roads that surpassed all others. It all became too much for the cyclist alongside me, who suddenly fell down – and stayed down.
Only two failed to reach this point – one stopped by mechanical malfunction, the other by an overzealous doctor who diagnosed heat exhaustion from a single glance. I was out of water and out on my feet.
Until this point, I had followed the tips I had picked up during my training sessions. In the distance the summit of the Tourmalet shimmered tantalisingly. He not only went on to conquer all 113 miles of the route; he also made it to the top of the Tourmalet in the top 20 per cent of all riders.
Above all, I thought of what my brother might have made of it all. I freewheeled down to the finish area in La Mongie scarcely believing that I had done it – 1,529th out of the 10,000 who started – and to anxiously wait for news of my team-mates. The people of the Pyrenees are cycling-mad, and now on this, the 100th anniversary of the first time this mountain range was included in the Tour de France, a fiesta was in full swing. It was just after the "10 kilometres to go" marker that I spotted the "Go Team Starmers" sign from 200 yards away and was grateful I had my shades. It was the kind of reception usually accorded presidents, popes and the peloton.
It was an emotional moment. said the voice inside my head, getting louder and more persuasive with every turn of the pedals.
My thoughts turned to what my team-mates had sacrificed to be here: the blood spilt, the sweat expended and the kilos shed.