I had the privilege of watching part of the Tour De France this week. As always stunned at both the fitness levels and bike handling skills of the riders as they came to the finishing km’s of a mountain stage in the Pyrenees. It’s pretty stunning to see when you know the route they have been through and that it’s only one stage of a 21 stage event.
Interestingly afterwards as we were cycling back my daughter, who is 13, said to me, “I’d like to cycle the Tour De France. Can we do it together? I know they take rests so we could take rests as well”.
My initial reaction given how hard I know even part of one stage can be was to share all the information about the difficulty of the challenge. But I thought I’d double check first what she meant.
“Do you mean cycle todays stage? And we can take rests through the sections”, I asked.
“No, the whole thing” she replied.
So, my rational, parent brain was desperate to explain the unfeasibility of the request. All the illogical reasons. The difficulty of even one stage like today with 3 huge climbs and the total distance involved.
However, I also remembered a triathlete from my old club, Sarah, who completed the entire tour in 2021 as part of a charity event raising over £1m. So I had a quick reframe.
“How could we do this?”
Maybe we start small. Maybe we do a few of the sections this summer together. Maybe it takes multiple years. Maybe we don’t even get 10% of it completed. Maybe that doesn’t matter. Perhaps the value lies in the shared experience and the process rather than the outcome.
So, next step. Heading out this week and ticking off part of the route from today. I wonder how far we will get?