Chasing wheels

Love the visual twists and the tight focus shooting. Really clean piece of work.

Via the fantantically dapper 00o00 blog

In 1983, aged 22, Laurent Fignon won the Tour de France in his first attempt at the race, making him the youngest winner in 50 years.

He remains the last rider to win the Tour de France at their first attempt.

He is one of three riders (Contador and Ullrich are the others) to have won the white (best young rider) and yellow (overall) in the same year.

In 1984, Fignon won the Tour de France again, this time beating Bernard Hinault. At 23 he was a double champion in cycling's most prestigious event.

There is much more that I could try to add but that record alone should stand as testimony to the greatness of Fignon in cycling's pantheon.

Le Monde has probably the best obituary that I have read: Laurent Fignon est mort.

It truly does justice to the achievements of the last truly great rider to emerge from France.

Paris Match's obit features a clip of Fignon from this year's Tour and portrays well the humanity of the man: Laurent Fignon. La mort d'un grand champion

I feel lucky to have listened to his voice one last time this summer when I was over for the Etape. As a co-commentator and analyst he was without peer for the accuracy of insight and the intelligence of the information he conveyed to the audience.

If you haven't already done so, you should read his autobiography which I consider one of the best books about cycling I've read.

Buy the English version from Amazon - We Were Young and Carefree: The Autobiography of Laurent Fignon

Buy the French version from Amazon - Nous étions jeunes et insouciants

Photo: Nord Eclair

We're on the move. Finally I've got round to buying the proper domain for this blog - www.chasingwheels.com.

I'll still be publishing to the old address (I hope) but links will start www.chasingwheels.com/page-name rather than www.atomicecho.com/cycling/page-name

It's a long overdue change and it should free up my atomicecho.com domain to be more about my work and other stuff.

If you are following me using a feed reader then you may need to update your subscription. I'll be updating the Chasing wheels Feedburner feed source so that should still work for all subscribers to that.

I'm hoping that if I've got this right all the existing content will still exist at the old address so no unpleasant broken links. But I'll not be able to sort it out until after the Bank Holiday weekend when I've got time to look into it all properly. So apologies if things are a little broken until then.

It sits there in the hallway, untouched. It pleads with me every time I pass it, but I ignore it.

I ignore it as long as I can. But there comes a point where you have to take the bike out of the box and reassemble it.

Out it comes, number still attached to the centre of the bars, dustier than I remember. The frame sticky with a coating of sweat, energy drink and road dirt.

It's almost a week since the Etape and it's the first time I've looked at my bike since packing it away for the journey back. I've ridden the 4km to work a couple of times without thinking much about exerting myself and that's as much as I've concerned myself with riding a bike.

What are you meant to do after you've achieved a goal as massive as the Etape? There's no reason to go out and ride it again. (There wasn't much reason other than the "because it's there" one in the first place)

Mentally there's no next step to take. Physically my body craves rest and complains when I so much as suggest exertion.

I take myself down to Hillingdon on Tuesday for the first ride since the Etape. People say how much they liked my video piece while I fret about my handlebars not being on straight.

It's the usual 4th Cat routine, so I try my legs in the first quarter hour to see how they feel. Sore, no snap when I click up a gear and push the pace.

So I do what I always do: wait for a slight lull in the pace, then increase the effort and move off the front.

My breathing is steady but I can feel the pain rising. Nobody will come across the gap, they'll just drag me back within a lap or two.

Then there's suddenly someone across and we're two away. He's pulling harder than I can manage and every time I try to come through my legs choke, forcing me to drop back into the wheel.

A few more riders come across but I can't hold the wheels, my legs are numb. I need to let this one go. So near to making that magical break happen.

Shuffle back through the pack, I've done my turn.

Wait for three laps to go and the watching to begin. There'll be a drop in pace and that's the time to go hard.

There it is. Bit too far back but I'm going anyway. Pace hasn't dropped as much as I thought and there's still two to go.

Another Dynamo follows the counter and goes away. That's the ticket: attack in pairs or follow the chaser and use them.

He's away, I'm spent, sit in the back and let the race go away from me.

Don't see the finish. Wonder where and when I'll find the courage to stop making excuses for not getting up there in the sprint.

While riding the Etape du Tour, I also found time to make a video report for BBC Sport

You can watch it on the BBC Cycling site: Tour de France 2010: How tough is the Col du Tourmalet?

My favourite shot in the whole piece is at about 01:00 in as we climbed the Marie-Blanque. Absolutely beautiful moment.

Filming is also part of why I took so long as I had to ride well within my limits so that I was able to compose my thoughts and figure out filming opportunities. That probably added about half an hour to my time to the foot of the Tourmalet.

If I hadn't been worrying about shooting I'd have gone all in, all day and pushed for a faster time up the final climb as well. But it did mean I got to take in the experience a bit more than I would have otherwise.

Big thanks to:

• Thida at ASO for sorting me out with an entry
• Joe at Rapha for the kit
• Sandy and Phil at Cyclefit for sorting out my position
• Jimmy at Sigma Sport for giving me a second opinion on the position and sorting out a new saddle (Specialized Romin) which was very much an improvement on my old one
• Perry for the bike box loan
• Everyone who has donated money towards Roy Kinnear House so far