Tour De Lincoln

Tour de France 2011: stage 13 - as it happened

After yesterday's uphill exertions, stage 13 begins on the northern edge of the Pyrenees in Pau, a place the French writer, poet and politician Alphonse de Lamartine described as having "the world's most beautiful view of the earth just as Naples has the most beautiful view of the sea". The local castle, the Château de Pau was the birthplace of King Henry IV of France and in the wake of the assassination of her husband, former American first lady Mary Todd Lincoln stayed in the locale for a time towards the end of her life.

Today's stage finishes at Lourdes in the Hautes-Pyrénées, a last-chance saloon for Catholics that is famous for Marian apparitions and where millions of often poorly pilgrims who should be at home in bed flock on an annual basis in the hope that a dip in the waters of the local grotto will cure what ails them. With a population of 15,000 and assorted tycoons running over 220 souvenir shops that line the parade leading to the local sanctuary, it's probably fair to say that as well as its spiritual amenities, Lourdes boasts more worthless plastic tat emporiums per head of population than any other city in the world. Still, at least somebody is benefiting from all that mystic hokem, eh?

"Only the one climb, but the Col d'Aubisque is a 10-mile monster," writes Guardian cycling correspondent Will Fotheringham in our interactive guide to the Tour . "It's nearly 30 miles from the finish though, so the riders who were strongest the day before should stay together. The winner will have lost time the day before and thus will be given some leeway to escape during the stage. Another one for a brave breakaway."

Despite missing out on the €5,000 prize for being first over the Tourmalet, brave breakaway Sky rider Geraint Thomas won yesterday's combativity award - you can see him previewing today's stage with his team-mate Edvald Boassen Hagen in this video diary .

You can catch up on yesterday's action courtesy of Richard Williams's report on Samuel Sanchez's maiden Tour de France stage win , which is nicely complemented by this gallery of the best photographs from Stage 12 .

Stage 13 so far: Good afternoon everybody and welcome to today's Tour coverage. After a ridiculously fast opening 38 kilometres, a few crashes and several foiled peloton-breaks into this afternoon's stage, a group of six riders have opened a 18-second gap on the field, while five others are currently trying to bridge the gap. The leadng three riders are: Niki Terpstra (QST), Egor Silin (KAT) and Anthony Delaplace (SAU).

Tour De Lincoln County Alps | BottleOfPills

Now if one was to ask me if we had any great hill climbs around these parts I’d say we had a few, but we don’t really have a lot.  But it’s quite possible to string together a ride, that consists of several in a bang bang bang type of fashion that can kick anyone’s ass.  Just take a few of these hills and string them out over a long distance and well it’s pretty damned easy to at least kick my ass.

Today (Sat 2/26) was infact what this group ride did.   Normally you could probably say that there is a TAP ride in B’ville Park , but due to the recent rains, well someone decided no need to screw the trails up there and that there’d be a road/dirt road / creek bed / type of ride today.

To be honest, and not being one that wants to bust my ass for a short period time, the thought of burning out over a long period of time sounded like a winning proposition for me.  So I committed and was at the head of Saunders Creek and US 60 by noon to pretty much start the ride.

For this group ride was the architect of the route himself – the days guide punisher – Mike Boyes.  Along with Andy, Dwayne, Tom and myself.  Andy, Mike, and Dwayne were all using their cross bikes, Tom had a road bike, and me well the old trusty Trek 8500 with slick tires.

Saunders Creek is a road I used to do a lot, and guess living back in Milton I’ll eventually return to riding it often.  However today is only the second time I’ve been up this hill since I’ve moved back to the area last year.  What makes this road noteworthy is that there is a nice little climb (and one of the larger ones for the day) on it.   I’m too lazy to really nail down the grade or length but, let’s just say it’s a steep one, and long.  It dows have some areas that allow you to recover, but even in my best days, I never called it an easy climb.  Today (and not being in my best of form) was definitly not an easy climb.

This eventually drops you down onto Fudges Creek road which we proceed south towards Lincoln County.  There’s one small hill climb here, before turning onto Chapman Road which probably has the toughest hill climb of the day on it.  Once crested you are at the Lincoln / Cabell County Line, and there’s a nice little field at the top which makes for a good rest spot… and one that I take full advantage of.  To be honest I’ve only been at this location one other time, and after some of the rains we’ve had well I wasn’t looking forward to what was going to be next on the list.

Tour de Lincoln, artistic bicycles celebrating Lincoln's unique trails system

Hugues de Lincoln, recueil de ballades anglo-normande [!] et ecossoises relatives au meurtre de cet enfant commis par les Juifs en MCCLV

Tour de Fore!, Golf and History in 50 States

Notes and queries

Types d'Architecture Gothique, empruntés aux édifices les plus remarquables construits en Angleterre pendant les 12, 13, 14, 15 et 16 siècles et représentés en plans, élévation, coupes et détails géométraux de manière à completer l'étude et à faciliter la construction pratique des diverses variétés du style ogival