Etape du Tour 2006 - Route

You've been up since 3.30 am. You couldn't keep you breakfast down so you've spent half an hour driving the ceramic bus before entering your start pen. It's chaos, you've never seen so many nervous cyclists penned in to such a tight space. All around there are families of well-wishers, people taking pictures, nervous smiles. The voice on the loud speaker is getting excited. You can hear the cheers, everybody starts to click in, and click out, and click back in... You're just trying to stay upright, caught in a moving masse of wheels and lycra. There is nowhere to go apart from follow the tiny space of free tarmac in front of you. The anticipation is frightening, like a rollercoaster before its big dive, a river slowly churning its way to the waterfall, and then the road widens, a fast group forms, you scramble to get on the back of it, then bam!, you're charging up the road doing 30mph plus, adrenalin surging, ignoring all previous advice, pace yourself. What do you mean pace yourself?, ...this is the Etape du Tour, and you're grinning from ear to ear.