Rapha Gone Racing - The Alt Tour
Please leave a message after the beep. Hey Lachlan, JV got a bit of an idea for you. Excuse me laydeh. It's a genius idea and obviously I was straight away into it. We're thinking that if we did the Tour de France start to finish, you ride all the transfers unsupported just like they would have done in 1903, in the first Tour de France.
Can you beat the Peloton to Paris? It's like the event I was born to do So immediately I was like yeah I'm in. Is everyone ready? -Yeah. So stage one with the transfer.
When I started to look at what the route actually looked like and then we started to look at the numbers and I was like, this is a real, real challenge. That's stage one, now we can kind of work through looking at this here. The next step was like, okay this is going to be the hardest thing I've done by a significant margin and that got me really excited.
If I'm honest, I didn't think about this much at all until the last ten days. I tried to not ride at all, I figured I'm going to be riding so much that the best thing I can do is just be really motivated to go and ride. I was just trying to go to the beach and sleep hang out with Rach as much as I could.
Which has been nice, but I'm definitely ready to go and ride. I feel like I've been cooped up and I'm ready to get out there on the road and unleash. I'm a huge fan of the sport and I really love the older traditions of cycling, I think that's what makes it so interesting. And I guess the inspiration of doing it in this format is a throwback to the original tour route, where they used to cover really long stages and they would be self-sufficient during the stage, so they had to fix their own bikes, sort their own food there wasn't mechanics and chefs and soigneurs. I've always thought I would have been a much better cyclist if I was in the 30s you know? It's true.
If you weren't a little bit anxious about it, it means you're not biting off enough, I think. Yeah, nice one, hope to see you out there. I've done two Grand Tours and each time I have an hour massage every day, a chef cooking for me, mechanics looking after my bike, bus driver driving me around, a director telling me where to go and what to do and even then it's still hard to stay together physically. You know, you can get a saddle sore, your knee can start hurting.
That's what I'm nervous about. Rigo would probably hate doing something like this, but then if I was going to go and lead Tour de France team like this, what a nightmare! But I like to think there's like some sort of mutual respect. Like we caught the train, we all caught the train from Paris to Brest with the team and we're got out of the train station and they were left at the team buses and cars and then I just walked to the AirBnb and I was like, I'll see you guys in Paris. It's the last night, heading out in the morning and I'm very excited. I also shaved for the occasion, Yeah, pretty sharp, pretty sharp. Just did a little repack on the bike for the tenth time, because I'm seriously nervous, I'm going to try and sleep, I'm feeling a bit like the night before Christmas, which is good I'm excited.
I am, see you tomorrow It's not just a sporting event, that's like so much bigger and for the month of July, everyone in France is aware of what's going on the Tour. It's a buzz you know, it's exciting. I'm ready to get going now. Yeah, no I'm excited. It's funny being on the other side of the barriers though. I don't know, as soon as it started and I'm like...
Let's go. Next stop Paris. I saw the Tour when I was like ten and that's what made me want to get into cycling to start with. But then I guess since being in the Peloton, you have a different perspective of what it is.
The whole idea of the sport we are involved in you can lose your way and think, what do I actually do? You know what's my purpose? What do I contribute? For me, it's amazing to be able to do it for World Bicycle Relief. I think there's a lot we take for granted about bikes. As an athlete, we just think of it purely as like a competitive tool.
Whereas for a lot of people it is means to accessing education, water, transport. If we can raise money and give bikes to a bunch of people who don't have them just by riding a bike, that's pretty sick. Trying to keep this knee from falling apart. My knee was really hurting for the last two hours of the ride. Which was just stressing me.
Morning. -Morning how are you mate? Good, sleep well? Like a baby. So you're cheering on Woodsy today? You know, I don't know much about cycling, but I got the flags.
See you later mate. -Okay good Luck! I was trying to prepare everything as best I could with the time frame I had. When I finished racing and I had a new bike and was feeling like getting that ready and then the last thing I did was like, oh I should put new cleats on.
And then I hadn't tightened the cleat all the way and I guess it slipped at some point. And so I didn't even notice I was pushing and my cleat was in the wrong spot and then I was like, okay this doesn't feel right. And then proceeded to wake up like every half an hour and like stand up next to my bed to move it to be like, is it good, is it good, is it good? And I was like no this is bad and I was like, Oh my God, I think I'm going to have to stop.
I have to get some paracetamol for this knee. It's not getting worse, I think I fixed the problem, it's just strained from yesterday so I'm trying to nurse it as much as I can. I'm still making good time and just trying to go as easy as I can when I can, but then just keep some decent speed and stay ahead of the bike race. Well, that was the Mûr-de-Bretagne. The final of stage two is a loop and they wouldn't let me across the finish line the first time we climb up there twice so I did the climb twice now then I'm just going to ride this loop in reverse to behind the finish line to complete the stage.
Yeah and I was just going straight up the middle. They pulled me off like 800 metres from the line. Merci But yea they come for me I was just riding up the middle of the road. And i was like - "Damnit!" I guess he has someone do it like a million times so I'm assuming and like people getting me beers and it's sick.
So I couldn't really get access to the finishes a bit like crossing the line, this elusive thing. Even on the first day, I was after the race they were packing everything up, and I had to go round the back, so that was just a challenge in itself. It was kind of like evading the Gendarmes for like the last 10k to try and get in there. And then even though it seemed like super trivial to try and get 150 metres further it was kind of the goal.
Oh yeah today's turned right around for me. Ever since I started the transfer I've been having a real great time. Cannot complain. That's for you.
Well, there's two camper vans and we have five people creating the film, capturing the content. I'm lucky in that they're very good at what they do, so I'm able to just do what I do and it's a huge pain in the arse for them because I don't really have a plan and I just go out and do it and they're like trying to chase the dot around, like everyone. And yes we interact because I'm not trying to do a loneliness challenge but no they don't give me food, they don't give me water and sure they give me emotional support and like, I don't care. It's great to have people around capturing what you do, so we can share it with people and then hopefully they can be inspired to go on and do great things.
Baguette is going to be the star of the show. I'd like to be like asleep right now, but I'm doing this interview, you know, My bivy set up just over there. You see this camper I'd love to get in it.
I'll let you guys film whatever, I'm just doing my thing and you can film me. It's a mocha. I'm just being genuine, and then I'll allow anyone to see me being genuine. Ultimately, if I don't like what I see, well that's just who I am.
My purpose in being totally transparent in what I'm doing. Yea, I'm just a guy doing it, I'm not like a superhuman, I'm very vulnerable almost daily. I think it's important to show that human element in sport and particularly in cycling because you don't see it, you see like four hours of guys doing battle on the road and the rest of what goes on is somewhat of a mystery. So I guess by doing the event, the Tour in this fashion, you can come ride with me, see how fast I was riding, See what I was doing, you could follow me into the bakery, see how many baguettes I was sticking down my gob.
You know? I think that's a good step in cycling to go in that direction and be like, hey this is an open book. This is like my first proper food since I've started. This looks good.
Because I know the stress and pressure that goes into the job of everyone who's at the race for them to be interested in what I'm doing it's nice. Yeah he's amazing guy and what he does is incredible. I'll do the sweat for him. Every morning or every night I try to catch the updates on Instagram Stories or the website and I was getting pretty worried about him. It's cool they take the time during what is probably the most stressful three weeks of the year and say hi lachlan! Are you Julian Alaphilippe? No. -You look like him.
Oh, thank you. -Yeah. Yeah, I'll tell him. I am not Julian Alaphilippe -You look like him Yeah, no I'm not s***ting you. ♫ Nobody said it was easy ♫ Started to feel my knee I was like oh it's probably normal, like just the stress of the first big long day. Maybe if I could get my hands on some flat pedals. This might be dinner. -Do you ever think about dinner?
I could ride in those for a couple of days and my knee would become less inflamed. What a day. And then I could switch back to the road shoes. I was trying to find dinner. I hope I don't have to buy a whole bike for the pedals. They had bikes for sale.
At least they're team colour. I got a pair of sandals while I was in there and I was like alright I'll do dinner shop tomorrow. It was like 70 euros for the bike and I just wanted the pedals and they would not sell me just the pedals, so I bought the whole bike, took the pedals, threw them on the road bike it helped like immediately. I was like oh I can pedal again, I can go hard.
We're back in business, we are back in business. Would you like this bike? Do you have a need for this bike? No you sure? It's brand new. The app always sends me a notification right at this time. It's like ten to ten it's almost saying aim to sleep like nine hours.
I'll do my best alright?! It's good once you're in, I feel like getting into an F1 car. When you're behind the race it's sweet, then when you get a day ahead of the race, you've got everyone setting up for the stage and there's a car that goes around with yellow signs for the peloton to follow. We were just on the road together like leapfrogging each other all day.
You know I'll be going along and then I'd see the yellow sign and be like damn it they got to head again, when did they get ahead? And then I'd get ahead and then be like, oh there's no signs here like ah yes, I've dropped them and they'd come past on the climb. Like every time I'd see them, it's was just like Hey! Oh hey! It got to a point when it was funny for like a day and then it was just kind of like hey. yeah coming past. Can't believe how many people are out here already 24 hours before the race has even started. It's awesome. Now I just stopped in the town at the start of the TT, made myself a couple of sandwiches, fresh baguette and some cheese and ham, now I'm just pushing on.
Nothing else much to report just pedalling away here. Yo! How are you doing? Hey, sneaky recon. Mighty fine chocolate milk. Oh s**t. Sorry mate The chocolate's to make you go the distance, the beer's just for a slight buzz then my coke's just to mellow back down again. Just in the end, just cancel each other out.
You just feel like slightly better version of yourself It's awesome to have people coming out and support you. You're on the knife edge and you're ten hours deep and you've already been riding that wave of nearly cracking for 45 minutes and you're really in your own world because you're like at the end of your limit and someone can enter your world like very easily at a moment that you don't really have space for anything but the effort in yourself. That can also be hard. Sometimes you finish a big conversation with someone and you get really deep and chatty they're like, okay see you and then you like, okay see you and then you're like, oh wait I'm about to get up a 15k climb, like, I'm not mentally ready for this right now, I had to slightly modify the sandles becauseif you're riding 12 hours in sandles they do rub. Yeah, I had to poke three new holes in there.
Blistery action. Even though this was the solution, ironically it came the problem again. I switched back to the road shoes, my knee was fine, but my feet were so cut up from the sandals and then it proceeded to just continue to rain every day that my feet were just staying wet and slowly becoming infected like the blisters and everything. And I was like, I've got to go back to the sandals. So I since switched back to the sandals and now I'm just going to stick with it you know, it's like because I've got enough going on I'm done with it now.
The sandals to Paris. Yeah. It's very wet. Actually had a good night's sleep, believe it or not, but yeah I got to pack everything down get going. No shower last night, feel a little rough.
Make a quick coffee and get going. Problem now is if my mattress gets a hole, I've used all the plugs on the bag. I'm really hoping for a nice day, no rain, just you know a bit of sun for this to be spectacular. Outside assistance. I'm leaning on the van Any idea how the TT's going? Magnus Cole is fourth. He's an inspiration man, he's what gets me out on the bike Seeing what he does makes you think like let's get out and ride as well.
Yeah he's an inspiring guy. What he's doing, all the new adventure he's having is just amazing. It's so inspiring, it's so much more than just riding the stages of the Tour de France. It's such a huge thing all in all. So the guy pulled alongside riding with me he was like talking and he was like, oh do you want to try some carbon soles in your sandals? And he's like just try them.
Weather gods coming to the rescue, great. That's all I've ever wanted to do is to ride bikes. I think when I was younger, it was more like an obsession of like being really good. Good job Lach, that's it, good job Whereas now it's just I'm not trying to beat anyone any more, I'm just trying to have the most fun I can and push myself in ways that I know will maybe grow me as a person as well as a bike rider.
That's kind of my drive now. Racing in elite level brings out just the worst in me. I'm happy to admit it, but when I'm at road races, I feel like I'm just the worst version of myself. It brings out a part of my personality that probably once was obsessive and basically selfish and just like a s***ty person. Every time I go down that path it just comes back and I don't want to do that. Of course I've got another flat tyre.
I was having tube trouble and I found a bike shop and they had tubes and went in there and it was like 6K to go and Ben O'Connor was up the front. And so I called Rach. Ben O'Connor's wife and Rach are really good friends and they were together watching it and then I got the blow by blow, well he won on one stage and almost took the yellow. So they're all pretty excited. I'm a big fan of the sport, and it's amazing to experience all the single climbs that's like road cycling folklore, that's like big, hallowed ground of where all these famous epic races took place. You get to just go and share these roads and every time you do it, it's a bit surreal, because you're like, wow this is where it all happened and this is where it's going to happen again.
You have to know someone to get led on to the soccer pitch where the Real Madrid plays on, no, no, it's just out there and the mountains for free. Right now this is just a farm track and in five days time this is going to be like the centre of the cycling world. The first time I came here was with my dad, Ventoux challenge twice Now three, five, six then seven.
I think that was the nicest time though for sure. There's just no one about. Because you're so far into your own head. I probably won't be like, what are you doing. It's like, you know what I like.
You feel okay mate? Sorry I was going to call you this afternoon. I think when you speak to people who are just having a very normal day and then you hang up and then you get back to what you're doing, you're like this is sick and you realise that very soon you're going to be back to normal life and you'll be wishing you're out doing something stupid and hard. That's easily the hardest climb of the Tour.
Easily... Wow... I have a really good relationship with my dad. like we're great friends. Since day one he's been the most supportive dad and like he's more proud now than any race I won and he gets it all. You know, he's more excited about it than anyone.
So I'm really looking forward to just being with the people I love, because it feels like it's been a long time Yeah, I wanted to like share the experience because it's been like, very nice. Where have you been hiding? - You ride pass me down here this afternoon Oh really? -I was behind you! Good to see you man If you meet Lach like he's a very relaxed person, but underneath that is a real determination. If he sets his mind to something, that's what he wants to do, I think you guys saw that, you know.
There were times when most people would have broken and he came close, but he still had that determination to get through. I had different ideas for today. I guess we didn't check the weather. The storm came through right when I was falling asleep last night like full gas lightning, we had everything, I was like oh s**t. He's also an innovator you know what I mean? He wouldn't have got through the second week if he hadn't taken his shoes off and put those slippers on. Because he realised that what he was doing wasn't going to work so he adapted and he changed that.
These are the wet weather editions. We're not like overly emotional towards each other We don't express ourselves by talking they're just kind. of in our actions. I know how busy my dad is, it's a big deal for him to come flying halfway around the world to watch me finish. I was just totally taken aback by it. 30Ks from Paris, it's still absolutely p**ing down.
I guess this is the last test. I'm just really enjoying it and I had that chance to process everything just by myself. That was the only point I was emotional, I was like tearing up a bit, like just to myself, because it was so nice. So then finally we came down into the city and you could see the Eiffel Tower.
I was just like oh s**t.. I don't know what's wrong with these guys. Because I hadn't let myself think about it. It's way too dangerous to think that far ahead.
I feel so strongly about like what cycling has given me, that like I just want everyone to be on a bike. Like you have people come to you and say, I started riding because of you I got back on my bike because of what you've done. Well maybe I did have an impact on that person's life because they were able to find cycling at a time when they needed it. They can come back to the bike and have a new relationship with it, They could look at my relationship with bikes and say he ran a different path let me try this because that's ultimately me like realising my goal. Good job Lach you've inspired us all. I going to get on my bike right now.
It's not me getting to Paris, that's not my goal. My goal wasn't just to get here and be like I did it. I beat the Tour, you know give me my yellow jersey. So to have like a result be like more people getting on bikes blows my mind. You know, like how good's that?
2021-11-01 16:28
