I woke this morning after a sound 8 hours sleep ,suprised by, but suspicious of how well I felt. I mentioned this to one of my fellow cyclist over porridge. He advised me that feeling good was indeed a portent of disaster just as I had feared.  He left me with one piece of advise that I mulled over as I pedalled gently to the start.  ‘Go slow at the start or you’ll die entirely’. Not wishing to die, even partially, I followed his advise. It didn’t work.

I took the Hills steady but suffered all the way including up Curraghmore before descending into Tralee.

Tomorrow I will face Curraghmore once again before arrriving back in Tralee.

Ok I know e everyone is waiting to hear how Stage 2 went but I’m not feeling 100% at the moment so you’ll have to give me a couple of hours.

My mission for today is to stay ahead of this Van.

Beautiful calm morning in Tralee. Signed on and sipping coffee looking out on the Wetlands. The calm before the storm.

Ahhh! That’s Bas.

It is quiet sad that I have rushed back to save my Strava data before all those other, faster guys with something better to do, get home and upload their times.

Still I did well to stay with such strong cyclist for as long as I did.

Stage 1- Flat me @rse

173km with 1218m ascent at average of 31.6 km/h. Ouch

I headed out the road to Castleisland at 42km/h knowing I was going too fast. Four and a half hours later I was still with the lead group of twelve. I knew I was going well when I looked around and saw I was the only one around me who didn’t have shaved legs!  Kinda like that time in MCR ,when I went for a drink in Canal Street. The result was the same- 5 minutes later I was all alone, sweating and confused.  The last 40km/h I did by myself.

Signed on and waiting to go …

Got an invitation from my ‘Rider Friend’ Monsieur Girard to join a singles club in France. I am planning to attempt the three assents of Le “Geant de Provance” on July 2nd 2013 five days before le etape.

It will be difficult but I am already considering trying to become the first Irish Galeriens by doing a fourth assent by MTB. If I succeed I will actually be the second Irish Galeriens as my friend Hugh is doing the Galeriens the same day and will undoubtedly finish some time ahead of me.