The Opportunity

I had thought about doing the Etape for several years. When I heard it was finishing up L'Alpe d'Huez this year I decided this would be a good year. Of course I didn't even try to signup before January. That's when I discovered all of the USA tour companies offering the ride were fully booked and already half booked for 2007. So, I looked at other English speaking tour companies outside the States and basically found the same thing. I guess the ride is more popular than I thought. I did find some other options like Velo Echappe's deal to ride this same stage on the same day as the Tour. Apparently you start early in the morning and you need to stay ahead of the real Tour starting about 5 hours behind you. That sounded like a possibility until I saw the price tag: $6700 dollars not including airfare! Wow! Anyway, all hope lost, I went back to eating pizzas.

Then on 02/24/2006 I get an email from Cyclomundo telling me they had two cancellations. I requested both slots, one for me and one for my older brother. The only problem is I haven't ridden since October 2005 and I am about 20 pounds over a reasonable weight to do this ride.