- Distance: 3,6 km
- Vertical Ascent: 41 m
- No. of Named Cols: <TBC>
- Start Date & Time: 2019-10-03, 16:55
- Start Location: Z.I. La Negresse, Iraty, Biarritz
- End Date & Time: 2019-10-03, 17:09
- End Location: “Base Camp” (our AirBnB-rented, very tiny house in Biarritz)
- Time Moving: 13:44
- Moving Average: 15,7 km/h
- No. of Stops >3 Minutes: 0
Data: strava.com/activities/2760378266
There were an evening, a night and a few hours, between our arrival at the AirBnB-rented single-bedroom house in Biarritz and the mandatory procedure every rider had to go through.
Lost Dot, the company behind the TPR, the Trans Pyrenees Race, had done a remarkable job organizing everything to perfection. They had even optimized the weather. Only race day forecast wasn’t as good as the sunny afternoon greeting me when me and my bike mastered the various pre-race controls at the indoor skating rink that served as the #TPRNo1 staging arena.
Nicole from Capra Velo, who checked the bike for technical compliance with race regulations praised my double-redundancy approach to almost everything. That the insurance contract I had copied specifically for the event didn’t contain the clause on recovery and repatriation was a different matter. I later found the relevant paragraph in a more comprehensive booklet that came with the contract. But, well, I knew I had coverage and that I’d read it somewhere. Good to be right.
So, when Anna (Haslock) addressed the crowd of (aspiring) TPR racers shortly after 4 pm, and talked us through the obligatory and obvious but nevertheless important safety precautions and minutiae of tomorrow’s start, she also went through the most recent changes and addenda. Most notably, as already outlined in the latest update e-mail all participants had received, there would be Codebooks for passive controls, and, yes, the gravel variant for the CP1 parcours was eliminated for being too risky: Many hunting parties in the area, and the surface quality of the route had deteriorated beyond what was deemed acceptable.
And, while I was completely at ease with most of what Anna had to say — I was convinced to be well prepared at least with regards to the route — at the mention of the (not new) “Start & Finish Parcours, out of and back into Biarritz”, I felt my mood sink.
My plan, since January, had been to deliberately avoid the Basque hills south of Biarritz for as long as possible and instead approach the climb to the start of the CP1 parcours via a wide detour from the east, along the rivers Adour, Bidouze and Gave d’Oloron. I wanted to warm up on roads and cycle paths I had selected for being of good quality, rather flat, with a low variation in gradient and altitude, then hit the long and relatively steady climb to La Pierre de St. Martin.
Now, I knew I had to replan half of first day’s route. And that wasn’t the only problem I was battling. But, no matter, I had to do it, and everything else too. And the weather was too nice for somber thoughts. And I didn’t want to be any worse a friend than I’d already been towards Florian, who was still remarkably patient with me.
I donned my #TPRNo1 cap, with the so befitting “101” start number, took the brevet card for the stamps all riders are supposed to collect from the manned “Control Points” (CPs), and we made it “home”, where I first completed the last maintenance and mechanical preparations on the bike, then turned to bureaucracy again. Sometime in the evening Florian and I went to a local Lebanese restaurant and enjoyed a final dinner together before the race start.
The night then continued with me working, straight through to the morning. I managed to complete everything, including the routing and mapping changes. But, alas, now is already another day, Day One, and the race is about to start.
