Stage 3 was a tough one. It was long, windy. It traversed into Belgium and ended in Holland. The route combined some of the climbs in Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Amstel Gold race. We had some Cat 4 and some Cat 3 climbs again.

Today was another sunny hot day, in upper 80’s, low 90’s in the afternoon. It started with a headwind, which unfortunately, never quite turned to a tailwind for us. I saw some wind mills, and realized we are in very windy territory. No wonder the dutch riders are strong.





But I can not get over how beautiful the routes are. We pass beautiful country and cobbled towns with their cathedrals and open cafes.



The routes are very marked the day ahead that the Tour uses the route. So it works well for us, as long as we stay behind the “Arrow Van”. And today, we met the Vans at the lunch stop. Luckily, we got there as they were leaving. They gave us all arrows as souvenirs. They were really friendly and were impressed we were attempting to do this. They said they use between 90 to 350 arrows depending on the stage.





I have it down now, they say a Cat 4 I think short steep or long easy grade. Cat 3, long not so easy grade (a la Dickey Ridge in Skyline) or short very steep. I was able to take pictures of the easier climbs, as the tough ones needed my complete concentration.



On a disappointing note, I did not finish Stage 3. With 15K to go, I called for the support van and climbed in. My perception that this was a Disneyland tour ended today. After 6 hours, I could not stand the pain in my behind. I kept looking at my mileage from the start. Every pedal stroke hurt, no matter what position I rode it was pain. I stayed out of the saddle a good bit of the time but when I sat again the pain was there. I had a personal goal of getting past 100 miles. Then at 109, I just had to stop. I think there were another 20 or so miles to go, or whatever the conversion is.

It turns out that I have a saddle very large saddle sore. For those of you in the know, this is nasty stuff. For those of you not familiar with this, I do not want to disgust you with the details; just trust me, it is nasty. The organizer has given me some tree tea oil to treat it. He said that Tyler Hamilton used it the year he rode with his broken collarbone. He was sitting sideways to ease the pain on the shoulder and that gave him a saddle sore.

After two-three days it dried up. The organizer told me these are pros though, paid to ride every day. In my case, the smart thing would be to skip tomorrow’s stage and let the sore heal a bit. So I will not be starting tomorrow. I will soak it in the pool and then treat it with the oil. We also picked up a Flite saddle and a Specialized saddle to see if they hit a different spot. I will experiment once I get to the finish town tomorrow because right now, the thought of sitting down on the bike is unimaginable. Even having dinner on a soft chair was uncomfortable. I had to gingerly change positions.

And soreness is starting to set in with the other guys. I am so consumed by this issue that my legs feel fine right now. And they should be tired. One guy is having issues with his knee, probably overuse. He is icing it and will start tomorrow and see how things are by mid ride. And this is only Stage 3, with the tough stages still to come.

Kevin Mahaney, the guy that rode it last year, said “one does not ride the Tour de France, one survives it”. I now understand what he means. Weekend riders are in for a rude awakening. You can come here in shape to ride, but this is an attrition game, where riding day after day, 8 hr long rides with wind and climbs takes its toll. We are not racing the event, but we have other challenges. There are only so many of us to keep the pace, and our speed is nowhere near what the pros ride. What we do in 8hrs, they do in six or five even.

In any case, the real Tour has started for me.