Riding the Dales: Sky trio reflect on their Tour de France challenge
Monday 30 June 2014 14:41, UK
The 2014 Tour de France starts in Britain on Saturday and this week you can see how four Sky faces got on when they took on stage one of cycling’s most prestigious race.
Three-part series Riding The Dales: The Yorkshire Tour Challenge follows rugby World Cup winner Will Greenwood, former boxing world champion Johnny Nelson, Winter Olympian and Sky Academy Sports Scholar Elise Christie and Sky Sports presenter Sarah Jane-Mee as they take on the 190km leg from Leeds to Harrogate.
Featuring the infamous Buttertubs Pass, the gruelling stage weaves through some of the county’s most spectacular scenery – although the four intrepid riders had little time to admire their surroundings as they battled to conquer the course.
skysports.com caught up with Johnny, Elise and Sarah-Jane after the event to find out how they got on…
Congratulations on completing the first stage of the Tour de France! How did it go?
Johnny: What a ride! I loved it and hated it at the same time; I’m glad I did it but I’d never do it again! It’s an experience I think everyone should try because it really tests your character, hunger, mettle and self-belief. There were times I wanted to give up; Elise Christie would fly past me humming and I was thinking ‘how are you doing this?’. It was hill upon hill upon hill and I wanted to get off the bike and sling it in the dales. But my pride wouldn’t let that happen. It was testing but it was good.
Elise: When we’d finished we were all glad we’d taken part – but when we got to the halfway point we were thinking ‘what are we doing!’ I certainly couldn’t have got up the next day and done it again like the pros!
Sarah-Jane: It was the hardest thing I have ever done. I knew it was going to be hard physically and I had prepared for that with all the training. But what I wasn’t prepared for was how mentally tough it was. There were some dark moments on that bike. There were a few tears and more than a few times I said, ‘I can’t do it’.
What preparation had you done for the challenge?
Sarah-Jane: I hadn’t cycled since I was a teenager before this, so I was literally starting from zero – and it was a steep learning curve! But I stuck to the training plan that British Cycling gave us and I was training for 13 hours a week, doing four-hour rides for about three months. For normal people like me, if you want to do a stage of the Tour de France you have to fit in training around your schedule and that is exhausting. I had a holiday booked in the penultimate week before the challenge and I am so glad I did because I thought my legs were going to drop off I was so tired!
The hardest part was going up Buttertubs – but the highlight was coming down Buttertubs!
Johnny: I didn’t do as much training as I’d like to – I’m not sure how people find the time! I also had a bit of an adventure getting to the start line. The ride was the day after Froch-Groves II at Wembley so we struggled through the traffic after the fight and drove up to Yorkshire but when we got to Leeds we couldn’t find the hotel and eventually got to bed about 4am. And then had a 6am wake-up call!
Elise: I’ve obviously got a good fitness background from my speed skating but I had been off for eight weeks doing nothing after the Winter Olympics and then had three weeks on the bike – although the first week of that was learning how to ride clipped into the pedals! But once I got the Pinarello life got easier! Cycling uses the same muscle groups as speed skating, which was a positive – but the endurance was something else. The ride took 7hrs 45minutes, whereas speed skating is a maximum of two and a half minutes on the track.
So what were the highlights and hardest parts of the ride?
Elise: Every time I go up a hill now on my bike I think ‘is this going to end up being like Buttertubs?’ That was the worst, but there was one after it called Grinton Moor which was horrendous as well. Finishing was an obvious highlight – everyone was so happy – but my highlight was SJ getting back on the bike after her fall. I know what it’s like to fall from skating so that was impressive from her.
Johnny: The hardest part was going up Buttertubs – but the highlight was coming down Buttertubs! Going up, I was doing zig-zags across the road because it was that hard to get up it. My mother-in-law was in the car behind and I thought ‘if you come close enough to hear what I’m saying your ears would bleed!’. But going down was much better! When this all started I didn’t trust the bike and it took me a bit of time to build up the confidence going downhill. But coming down Buttertubs I tucked up and whizzed down the hill. I absolutely loved it. All of a sudden the one thing I dreaded the most was the thing I loved the most.
Sarah-Jane: The toughest part was definitely Buttertubs. I think everyone admitted that was hard. Even Will who is the most enthusiastic and definitely one of the fittest people who I know, even he said that was tough. When you look at it, it just looks like a mountain. I know it is not technically a mountain but it looked like a mountain and you feel like you are going backwards because you are going so slowly. It was my Everest.
Will you be tuning into the Tour on Saturday to see how the pros get on?
Johnny: I’m certainly going to watch it. I’ve got a new-found respect for those cyclists now I know how hard it is. I’m looking forward to seeing how easy they make it look! But it has also highlighted to me about the roads not being cycling-friendly. I commend Boris Johnson for what he’s trying to do in London, getting people into that frame of mind. We went to the Tour of Flanders in Belgium in the build-up and it’s cycling crazy, you’re encouraged to do it and it’s the kids, the mothers, the grandmothers – everyone’s cycling. We should do that here and we’d have a healthier nation if that’s the case.
Elise: I’ve really got into cycling now. I’m off to Korea for two months of training, though, so I have the stage on Sky+ and I’m going to try to watch it out there. It will be interesting to watch how they do it and pick up some skills from them. I’ll be rooting for Team Sky!
Sarah-Jane: I’ve been invited to go up to the fan park in Yorkshire for the start of the race which I am very excited about and hoping to go to. It is going to be fascinating to watch and think back to me churning those pedals and trying to get up those hills. The atmosphere in Yorkshire should be incredible, too. We did our ride a month ago and people were coming into their front gardens and cheering us on. There are all the big yellow signs everywhere and people are hanging out bunting with bike jerseys on. Yorkshire is going to go wild.
Tune in to "Riding the Dales: The Yorkshire Tour Challenge" on Tuesday and Wednesday at 7.30pm on Sky Sports 1 HD and Thursday at 7.30pm on Sky Sports 3, or catch-up On Demand.
