Geoff Thomas Foundation

STAGE ELEVEN

MARSEILLE TO MONTPELLIER 182.5 km

For Stage Eleven of the Team Thomas Tour de France, Geoff hands over the
diary duties to one of his key sponsors DAN ELLMORE, from kit suppliers
Impsport.

My connection with Geoff came about through Pete Slater, from SIS, and our
association with the London to Canterbury Sportif ride that took place the week
before the Tour. The Geoff Thomas Foundation was the official charity of the
Sportif so all the products we sold from that meant we made a donation to the
Foundation.

I actually met Geoff for the first time when he had the Palace versus
Liverpool charity match last season ~ and I haven't been able to get rid of him
since to the point where he demanded I room with him this week.

But it wasn~t until the Sportif organisers held a media day a few weeks
before the event took place that the idea of coming out here to join him for a
few days of play took hold. Right now, after I finished the fifth of my five
stages in six days, I'm re-evaluating that decision!

My first idea was to come out and ride a stage but a few people told me I was
being soft and, when it turned out that Ian Wright could only make the first
week of the Tour, I decided to do either weeks two or three with Geoff and the
boys. Week three looked a little bit too hard ~ so here I am.

And it has been an absolutely incredible week. The main thing that strikes me
is how hard everybody works here. Obviously, you know the riders are going to
ride several hundred kilometres every day but the support staff are up two hours
earlier to get everything ready. And you only have to look as though you~re
thinking of getting off your bike and there is food and water being thrust at
you. Danielle, the masseuse, is up until 2 in the morning massaging the riders.
The amount of work that goes into it is incredible and I, for one, would have no
chance of getting around without it.

I'm from a cycling background but Geoff isn't and for him to do the Tour once
and be back for more is outstanding. You could do it once out of naivety or
stupidity but after that, it's ridiculous!

The other thing that strikes me, as I have said on a couple of blogs I've
written for websites back home, is that I can't believe people RACE this event.
The challenge for us every day is to beat the route. You get up in the morning
at first and think "I can't believe I've got to ride that far today." But, by
the end of the week my attitude was more, " Okay, here we go, let's knock it
out." Having said all that, I still wouldn't want to race it!

You could have a bad day, like Griz did yesterday, drag yourself around 240
km, just to be told, "Sorry, you've missed the time limit. You're out!~ I'm
definitely not cut out to be a racer.

If I'm honest, I saw the Galibier as a bit of a personal challenge out here.
I've never been much of a climber the lads may have noticed that climbing is not
my style! But, before I came out here, I e-mailed all our customers to try and
drum up some sponsorship for the Foundation and mentioned I would be doing these
Alps, the Galibier foremost among them.

There are people who have donated on the basis that they want to know first
how much it hurt and I can tell them how much - a lot! The Galibier is an
incredible challenge - its reputation, its steepness - you're scared of it
before you even get there and it lived up to its billing. Getting up it was a
great feeling.

I struggled up there and that really put into perspective what the four other
guys who are cancer survivors, along with Geoff, are going through. I've been
training since January for this and I'm a fit and healthy bloke. The guys here
make me look UN-fit and UN-healthy and they have got over some terrible
illnesses. They're also battling through the pain still - Steve and Bully have
had bad knees, Dave had a day when he couldn't eat because his throat was so bad
and he still beat me up a mountain by five minutes.

On the blogs I have written, I dedicated each of my five rides to people I
have been close to who have had cancer. Sadly, only one of them has survived.
Today's ride I dedicated to a friend's mum, Anne Gibson. Doing something like
this gave doing this a bit more poignancy.

After the mountains, today was more my sort of terrain, a fast, mostly flat
route, inland from Marseille and, coming from Lincoln, more of what I'm used to.
It was important to me to do more than my fair share at the front to give the
rest of the lads a break and I think I managed that. I don't have anything to do
tomorrow apart from fly home and recover. They have another 100-odd miles to
ride.

It was a great route and when we were whizzing in line over roundabouts,
sometimes at 25 mph, you end up thinking "Bike racing is great." Then you ride
up the Galibier and you think, "I want to throw the bike off the edge of this
mountain!"

But would I do something like this again? I think I would. And that's a
horrendous thing to say!

Riding the Tour is the stupidest, hardest thing I've ever done. But I will
get up in the morning go home and miss everything about it - apart from Geoff's
snoring.