Day 2 - Push for home

The last round of rides for the day was made harder by a wicked head wind that meant even a flat rode was hard work. We each took in turns pushing for 10 miles and at last the line was in sight. As we were cycling in we became aware of the marshall behind us taking the signs down. We'd noticed the road had been getting quieter and quieter and we hadn't passed anyone for a while so our suspicions were confirmed that there had been quite a bit of leap frogging going on.

We'd learnt a bit more about leap frogging as we'd talked to teams during the challenge. In the early days of the challenge leap frogging was against the rules and the next rider wasn't allowed to start until the previous one finished. Leap frogging was introduced as the challenge expanded and more novice teams started cycling. In order for the teams to make sure they got finished in the day they were allowed to set the next rider off before the first one finished. This meant the whole distance was covered, but just allowed them to go a bit faster as they had two cyclists on the road at a time. Leap frogging was allowed after 1:00 PM and what we'd been doing was really just leap frogging "light" as we'd been shadowing the first rider with the van until the last couple of miles and then setting the next rider of just a couple of minutes early. Teams that were doing the full leap frog were starting their first rider, driving on 10 or so miles and then starting a second rider and waiting for the first one to catch-up. Initially just the slower teams were hopping, but as time went by some of the better teams started hopping so they could have a lie in or get to the hotel early. The older challengers all frowned on hopping and many felt that it should be taken out of the rules again. Having found ourselves alone on the road for the last half of the day and as it turned out being the last team to finish on the second day we were feeling the same - it had been a lonely ending to the day!

We arrived at the hotel at around 6:30 and as we talked to other teams in the lobby we found quite a few of the teams that had stuck to the rules had only just finished in front of us. That made us feel a lot better!

The last challenge of the day was getting into the hotel itself. The hotel was in the centre of Nancy and it didn't have a car park with a high enough ceiling to take the vans. The town centre wasn't a safe place to leave the bikes on a van so we were adviced to take our bikes up to our rooms. The hotel seemed fine with this but you can probably imagine the chaos that caused in the lifts given we had 70 teams of riders with 4 bikes in each team!

At dinner that evening we were lucky to sit at a table with some real race veterans who were on their 13th challenge. We picked their brains on tips for the last day and with that felt mentally more prepared for the mountains.