Riding the Dales: Sky trio reflect on their Tour de France challenge
Monday 30 June 2014 15:41, 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
