Photo: The last 1km, what every climber longs to see.

The great coffee scandal. As I learnt my cycling in Italy I was taught the importance of a coffee on a ride. In fact I think it’s illegal not to have one on a ride in Italy. Yesterday the group ahead of us deviated from the route for a coffee so two of us missed them and the coffee stop.

A similar thing happened today when even more confusion over coffee meant a small group of us missed out again. I was beginning to think there was a conspiracy to keep us slower riders from our coffee to stop us challenging the obviously stronger riders!

After our third Col of the day, Mollard, and lunch the coffee deprived crew decided to go in search of our fix. We found a wonderful little patisserie with fantastic cakes, and coffee.

Fuelled with caffeine we started the last climb of the day, the Col du Télégraphe. The legs were feeling good so I gave it a go and pushed on. Two of us split away from the other two and finished the climb nine minutes ahead of them. The coffee had done it’s trick.

We’ve agreed that whatever happens tomorrow we will be stopping for coffee.

Year to date

11,479km / 100 rides / 114 km average per ride

116,202m elevation gain (13.1 Everests)