Now, for the ride itself…

We landed in Bilbao quite late Saturday night and had a two-hour drive up to our hotel in Hendaye. The weather was awful – thunderstorms and torrential rain – but we built the bikes in the hotel reception, had a briefing and got to bed around half 12 (though I doubt many people slept much). Fortunately the rain stopped for day one, but it was a long day in the saddle which started heading north along the coast and then took in two Cols in the foothills before an overnight stop after 86 miles of riding.

I’d gone quite easy as I tried to keep recovering from the flu, but felt awful starting day two. Hitting the Col de Marie Blanc 10 miles in didn’t help matters as the average gradients for each of the final four km were: 11%, 12&, 13% and 11% again. It hurt. As that was a Cat 1 climb I was bricking it for the HC Col d’Aubisque, but found that much easier (although longer) and was even treated to a race with a Caterham 7 on the descent. Lunch perked me up and after a quick climb over the Col du Soulor it was down to our hotel at Argeles-Gazost. The descent was great – it turns out there is something about cycling that I love…

The one downer of the trip was that the Tourmalet was taken off the route due to the road on the east side still being repaired and being dangerous for us all to get through as a group. Day three saw three Cols and based on my showing on the first two days I didn’t have the confidence to try and tackle the Tourmalet from the other side just for the hell of it (as some riders did to varying degrees of success) but was happy to have a pretty strong day over the other climbs with the Col d’Aspin and Col de Peyresourde back-to-back Cat 1s that I felt good on.

Day four was shorter and only two climbs. I flew up the first (it was a Cat 2) and was equally quick up the Col de Portet d’Aspet where we had a group photo. Having bombed it down the other side it was a 20km run to our hotel for which I teamed up with an ex-captain of Partick Thistle who just happens to be mates with Yeovil’s Jamie McCallister (small world, eh?). Admittedly, the short day let us have most of the afternoon to relax and recover a bit ahead of the two long final ones.

The fifth day was about 80 miles long and featured some tough climbs, but started well. We had a slight uphill drag up a valley for 15 miles so the whole group was organised in to a peleton and it was great to all crack on together. Then we all got stretched out by the Col de Latrappe and the Col d’Agnes – on which Simon Warren, author of 100 Greatest Climbs books passed us on his 93rd TdF climb – before a quick descent and then up the longer, easier Col de Port where my folks were waiting. After that was another long drag uphill to Ax-Les-Thermes (again done as a group) for our final night on the road.

The last day was brutal, and not just because it was 96 miles long. It literally started going uphill … for 20km. The Col de Pailheres is the second highest col in the Pyrenees at 2,001m high and wasn’t the ideal start to the day but I felt quite strong on it. After that came two small cols (Moulis and Garavel) before finally the Col de Jau which allowed us a glimpse of the Mediterranean 50 miles away. After lunch it was another fun descent and then a largely flat run as a group towards the finish on the beach at Argeles-sur-Mer.

I must admit, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever physically done by far and I can’t describe the feeling of getting cheered in by other riders on the trip at the finish, then being congratulated/congratulating everyone and jumping in the sea. It was awesome. But that’s not why I did it…

The key numbers: 450 miles ridden, over 14,000m of vertical climbing, 19 Cols, over £4,000 raised by me personally and £80,000 as a group for Macmillan and all the great work they do. As a group we’ve targeted £100,000 as a final total, so please continue to spread the word in the coming weeks before the Just Giving page closes (and bid on any more items I auction off!) Thanks so much to everyone for their support.