First, was the prolog on Thursday, with great weather and perfect conditions and my nice ACDC didn't go unnoticed...
Before Prolog
It is a very short but very steep climb. I was quite happy to do better than last year, reassuring me about my fitness... Finishing 9th...
The start is in the middle of the night and the weather was still perfect at the time. Feeling much less nervous than last year. It sure helps to have done it once and have some confidence that it is possible to ride 1000km in the next 40 hours or so...
Start in Schaffhausen
The first 3 stages to Chur were really nice. I enjoyed the peaceful ride during the night. No traffic, perfect temperature, not much wind and I could keep a nice pace. I was also harvesting the fruits of the many hours of recon and never hesitated at any crossing while some other relying on their gps where taking wrong turns and losing precious minutes in the process. As a result 5th place in Chur! Probably too fast given that there was more than 800 km left...
The first stop was scheduled in Bonaduz, a few km from Chur after a stretch where support vehicles were not allowed. Just as I left Chur, a few rain drop started fall, in crass contradiction with the weather forecast issued less than 12 hours before... and a quick glance in the direction of the Oberalp pass indicated that worse was to come... Rain gear in the car... So getting wet after 5 minutes of light rain... Not happy... As I was reaching the crew in Bonaduz the rain was getting serious, so I decided to postpone the first stop and go to Ilanz in the hope that the rain would have stopped by then... Totally wrong!!! Almost a tropical rain was falling on Ilanz, with the noticeable difference that the temperature was closer to zero than to 25 degrees... I had to change clothes to put something warmer and rain resistant on and hope for the best. The ride to Oberalp is a long, not very steep climb with quite a few portions of flat and I usually enjoy that climb. Not today. Feeling powerless, cold, slow, unmotivated... even thinking for a minutes if I should quit... but can't quit so early in the race... what about the team and the guys coming to join in Bulle... maybe they would be happy to skip a sleepless night in a car following a idiot on the bike moving uphill like a slug... but probably they would be disappointed (and me too), so stop thinking about quitting at least for the next 400km and then we'll see...
Getting close to Oberalp pass
The Furka and Grimsel pass offered a bit of relief as it wasn't too wet ad the slope of Grimsel is not too steep, and the long descent towards Meiringen was quite helpful in regaining some strength. The stage to Interlaken was eventless but I felt very slow as some of the team of 4 were cruising by me with their TT bikes.
The problems started again after Spiez with very heavy rain and at some point I had to stop as I just couldn't see anymore. Rain and sweat in my eyes and fog over the glasses... I decided to put again my full rain gear before the Jaun pass just to find out 2 or 3 km later that the rain stopped... So again losing 10 or 15 minutes to change completely to more adequate gear... We were getting behind our planned schedule and got to Bulle around half past seven. Andreas and Thomas were replaced there by Erik and Marc. I was in 8th position at the time, so quite happy and still motivated... but still a long way to go...
Jaunpass - km 400, at least not raining anymore