Le Loop 2023: Stage 4 Dax – Nogaro

Cycling summary

Breakfast: 06:00

Transfer: Morning 1 hour, evening 1 hour

Start time: 08:19

Distance: 181.8 km

Terrain: Flat (1,499 metres)

Climbs: 1 Cat 4

Finish: 17:04

Time in saddle: 6h39

Temp: pleasant, rising to 36 degrees at one point but a cooling breeze

Drinks: 5 litres plus one beer waiting for the coach to transport us to this evening’s hotel

Suffer scores: 4

Local lowdown

I didn’t know, but there’s a racing circuit in Nogaro (our finish town). The professional tour will finish on the circuit, but for now we witnessed a motorbike racing round at extreme speed. Too quick for me to include him in the photo!

Tale from the Tour

Super day today and one for group riding as there were no climbs to speak of, just the normal undulations which add up. Fast train all day really.

Rode with a great group, including some who have excelled in Ironman competitions in the past. In fact I hadn’t realised that Tara had previously been crowned Ultraman World Champion – a triathlon event that takes three days to complete. No wonder I find it hard to hold her wheel at times, though no doubt she was taking it easy. I did manage to hold on to my cheese and pickle sandwich though – no chivalry there!

Little opportunity for taking photos, with the land being so flat and in any case I would not want to lose the group I was with – we were having too much fun, riding at around 30-35 kph for much of it (27 kph average overall). That said, being able to use photos that have been posted to our group chat has been very helpful.

There is a Cat 4 climb towards the end, but that’s more of a speed bump for the professionals who are going to have a very fast finish down into Nogaro. If I can hit 63 kph on the slight downhill then just imagine what they can do, with the teams jostling for position to put their sprinters in the right place for the finish on the racing circuit!

Apart from the feedstops, one other stop we made was to take a 100 metre detour off the route to see Notre Dame des Cyclistes.

The idea for the dedicating a formerly run down church to cyclists came from a priest whose parents had owned a bike shop, Joseph Massie. He had the idea to replicate an equivalent place in Italy near Lake Como.

Interesting order of things today: finish ride; have beer, transfer to hotel, eat from mobile creperie in car park, find room, shower, massage while also listening to the briefing for tomorrow, return to room to sort out kit some of which was still damp. Not doing any kit washing tonight as I have enough for a few days. Will need to do another one in a few days though. Oh, then blog and bed (though I started the blog on the bus today).

At the briefing James, from the Star Scheme charity that is supported by the Trust, told us about his ride and what he gets up to. The charity gives people like James who have had a troubled start in life to thrive, and he certainly does that with his rugby and the positive impact it has also had on him at school. And today he rode 117 km, which is 105km longer than any other ride he has done and the longest by a young person who has visited Le Loop from a charity. Chapeau to James, as we say in these parts.

Not really much of a suffer fest today. Riding with a group makes it much easier to cover distance though we did keep the speed up so it wasn’t a pootle around the flat lands of South West France.