Ready

What you have just seen is a condensed version of one of the mountains I will soon be riding my bicycle up - the famous Tourmalet. I leave in a week to live a dream - ride my bike in the Pyranees.

The Pyranee mountains hold significant importance in the cycling world as the Tour de France does several stages in and around them each year, and sometimes the Tour is decided on those slopes. Along with the Alps, it is sort of the World Series and Super Bowl of bicycling all wrapped into one.

I started thinking about doing this a couple of years ago. I couldn't do it last year for scheduling reasons, but I am going there for two weeks this year. I couldn't be more excited.

I also couldn't be in better shape. I expect to put a full thousand miles or more on my bicycle over 14 days, many of those miles in misery climbing mountains thousands of meters tall. I have told my wife that I will probably lose ten pounds or so by the end of it all from the wear and tear so she is expecting me to be a little scrawny when I return. This is what my vacation looks like.

One day I am actually in a race that is 165 km and goes over five mountains. I am nervous and excited about that all at once. It will be very cool to bump shoulders with actual professional cyclists at the start and to be able to talk to them at the finish - since that is the next place I will probably see them. Think playing one on one with LeBr0n Jame$.

I will have plenty of photos and stories to tell I am sure. We will be riding some Tour routes and we are hoping that they will have some of the barriers and banners set up for the Tour when we are there. I am going to paint my name on the road as so many others will do before the Tour comes.

I am a bit concerned about the descents - that should be intense. I have new brake pads installed. But I am a good bike handler so I will do well. If nothing else, I will die in a spectacular fashion as my broken corpse careens down the side of a mountain. Better to burn out than to fade away, I always say. My Road ID will get my broken sack of bones back to my wife for creamation.

Seriously, I plan on being very careful on the descents and I will be fine.

I have trained as much as is humanly possible for a guy with my schedule. I have spent countless hours in my basement suffering on the trainer this Winter and Spring. I hit the road with my bike early and often this Spring and endured cold, windy weather and now my bike is broken down and packed into a travel case. It is coming. I am heading to France in a week.