On Sunday, Pascal did a sportive (otherwise known as a training ride). It was a fair distance away so the boys and I opted to stay at home and track him remotely, whilst at the same time, sending encouraging messages to keep him going.
We printed off the route map and checked his position every hour or so, then drew it on the map to see his progress. All good. At one point, we noticed that he was approaching a “feed stop” so our eldest decided to send him a text to point this out. It’s a newly acquired skill of his and takes him some time to type out a message. Mostly because he has to keep switching the keyboard between lower and upper case to “recognise the letters”. He finally hit “Send” and we checked to see how close “Daddy” was now. Pascal had arrived. Frankly, he’d probably arrived some time earlier and was already preparing to leave, his tummy filled with mini flapjacks and squash.
The ride continued. We sent more cryptic texts. Eldest has latched onto emojis as a better way to communicate than mere words and punctuates any text with multiple emojis, usually completely unrelated to the text that precede it. Apparently a cat with hearts for eyes means he loves Daddy. Who knew?
Whilst all this riveting chat was going on, youngest marked the 12:15 position on the map and then fell asleep for an hour, thereby demonstrating both his interest in remote bike riding and his active support for his dad in one fell swoop.
Sunday was a good ride for Pascal. Apart from the rain. And his family not being there to cheer him on. Other than that it was great. He finally tried out chamois cream for the first time and discovered that it really does help. Oh, and he wore his fine new jersey (but I think he mentioned that already).
The next morning he woke up and happily announced that his legs felt fine and he could do it all over again. 87 miles? Really?? Still it bodes well for the 314 coming up.
And his final route map arrived so the reality is setting in. Martin is piling on the miles this year in preparation for the ride and Pascal keeps bemoaning his lack of saddle time. He’s even going for a ride with his ageing mum this weekend to “get a few more miles in”. Any excuse. 🙂