The Etape de Tour Saved My Life - part 1

This is the finest piece of cycling equipment I possess.

How I came to have it installed is an interesting story - of incredible good luck, of incredible bad luck, and how by attempting to fulfill a dream borne of a longtime friendship and a shared passion for bike riding I cheated certain death at the roadside, on top of the Tourmalet.

The tale began in Autumn 2007 with the visit of friends from NZ, coming to Melbourne to stay with us in our ramshackle bikeshed of a dwelling, half demolished, leaking but spacious for 2 families.

Apart from the usual tourist gigs, David and I also managed a Sunday ride around the Dandenongs, following a course pointed out to me by my colleagues at Lonely Planet as the loop to undertake across from the 1 in 20 and back via the Silvan Reservoir, Mt Evelyn and the Hors Categorie Inverness Road climb.

The ride turned into something of an epic day out, which Dave has documented on his blog, one of those rides where you start to worry a little whether the cramps being endured are going to let you get home, and how a mistake in navigation could be quite costly in the cold and rain.

Dave was forced to ride my vintage Fausto Coppi, with pretty average bottom end Campy groupo. The tyres were hissing and sprayed rivers as he bombed past me descending the other side of the 'Nongs, bravely braking deep into the bush-clad corners he had never seen in his life before.

We missed the vital turn at Inverness Road (thank God) and climbed the Tourist Road instead, making it feasible for me to stay on my bike the whole way, then rolled along the tops before descending like madmen to the car at the Basin. Coffee was ordered in the posh suburban tea-rooms and our eyes glowed with the joy of surviving a mad day out.

With the rain soon forgotten, talk turned to finding some more epic rides to do, and how jaded we were of the annualised Round Taupo, Round the Bay 'rinse and repeat' nature of our cycling. So when I picked up a cycling magazine in June and saw that Australian based Bikestyle Tours were accepting entries for the 2008 Etape de Tour I threw caution to the wind and laid down the credit card immediately for 2 entries.

To my amazement I was emailed back with the news I was first in the queue, and that while official entry forms would not be released until December, I was assured of participation.

I gingerly phoned Dave.

The psychic connection had already been at work - he was absolutely committed. With a a scientific power based training program developed by our mate Smiley from his company Performance Labs HC in California aimed at the NZ National Age Group road title, he would be well prepared for a mere 165km around the Pyrenees in a year or so.

That gave me the jitters somewhat, as I had nothing like that planned as a training regime. My planning centred around a new bike and a triple crankset!

Entry forms finally arrived before Christmas, with a submission deadline in March 2009. My training started in earnest with the Victorian summer, even managing a few hill rides including a trip back to the Dandenongs with Kleppie where he introduced me to the dreaded Inverness climb to the top of Mount Dandenong. Horrible as it was, I rode the whole way and was rapt.

Christmas in NZ, a trip to the UK and USA for work, the start to the new 2008 year was busy. I wasn't stressed about training, which was planned to begin in earnest on return from overseas. The other complex details of planning a trip to a foreign country to race bikes were falling into place with alarming efficiency. Bike riding buddy Glen had a lifelong mate Jay who lived only an hour from the race start in Pau, providing the opportunity to turn this into a multi-family holiday in a beautiful part of the world.

In the following weeks I rode an early morning speed trial from Melbourne to Flinders in the hot Victorian winds, and when farm-staying near Alexandra in late February completed an epic ride through the hilltops of Eildon climbing relentlessly all morning.

All of this, with no knowledge of the ticking time-bomb in my chest.

Dave and I had joked about the entry form and the pain in the ass requirement for a medical sign-off. "Too many fat Englishmen having heart attacks on the climbs" we laughed. Dave was slightly worried he would be prejudiced by his Type 1 Diabetes, but since cycling was part of the management of that, and his race results were exemplary, we figured there would be no hurdle to getting a GP's signature in the box.

The key phrase was 'fit to take part in cycling races'. Huh, it was an insult to us.


Finally, on February 25, 2008, with the deadline for submission of the entry form looming, I booked a session with the local GP at the Albert Park Medical Centre to get my form signed. Having not seen a doctor for more than a dozen years, enjoying fantastic health and racing bikes all that time, I was slightly nervous but accepting of the need to follow the process. I needed this box signing!

John, having recognised me as the sort of bloke who would probably happily avoid doctors for another 12 years, booked me in for a set of standard blood tests, stamped the form, then putting it (unsigned) on his desk came round to check my blood pressure.

My blood pressure was weird. 165/60. He checked again. "Probably nothing" he reassured, "but since you're over 40, and seem so averse to visiting we people of the medical profession, I'm sending you for a stress test with one of the best people I know up at Epworth".

My heart sank. How was I possibly going to make the March 15 deadline for posting the entry form if I had to undergo that bloody bureaucracy? It could be a waiting list of weeks - this isn't just any old bike race, we were dead lucky to get entries, it's the easiest the course has been in years, and everything is worked out for the trip!

I rang the Victorian Heart Centre at Epworth immediately, begging for an early test date. Best they could fit me in was Wednesday March 12th, in the afternoon. Weeks away!

That afternoon, I emailed Natalie at Bikestyle with the following message:

Dear Natalie,

Just a quick note to let you know not to panic that my entry form hasn't reached you yet.

Training is proceeding well, but my doctor has decided I should do a Treadmill Stress Test, for which the vacancy is 12 March. I'll turn the results around in time to get them to you for the 15th.

Talk about fussy - this more than doubles the cost of entry! Doctors with Google on their office desk are a pain - a quick look at Etapes convinced him he needed his conscience covering.

Cheers

Natalie emailed back:

Thanks Nigel.

Its good to have an attentive Doctor.

Natalie

I spent the next few weeks stomping around moaning about 'bloody doctors' and the need to get my blood pressure down to ensure my entry went through. Kleppie kindly offered to sit the treadmill test for me, which given his gazelle physique and ability to climb the Dandenongs (and hoover donuts afterwards) seemed like a fine idea - but my conscience got the better of me.

Three little words in scrawly handwriting on the referral got the better of me too. "Possible systolic murmur". Googling it gave me a couple of momentary panics that something serious might be lurking, and that a regime of aspirins might ensue, but how bad could that be? A stressful job and a family history of heart disease pretty much assured me of some arterial tax to be paid in my life, but I was confident that at 44, my fitness and diet were serving me well.

When the 12th finally rolled around, I rode the KTM690 to Epworth and parked out front. Sitting in the waiting room for the ECG/Stress test filling in the forms, I surveyed my fellow outpatients. Not exactly the picture of health - some needing post-surgical ECGs, others clearly taxed by a lifetime of cigarettes and obesity.

I arrogantly wondered what the output record was on the treadmill test, and checked my diary as to what time I was due back in my next meeting back at Lonely Planet.

Continues in part 2.