STAGE 10
Luchon-Plateau de Boudin. 170 kilometres

If she was to shadow Rachel intently, it meant following in her footsteps from the moment she woke. As Cat left for the Zucca hotel, Josh and Alex were still fast asleep, Ben was tossing and turning. Though Cat was eager to talk to both Josh and Ben, she was also looking forward to the refreshing and welcome opportunity of a whole day in female company. She’d never seen so many men en masse. Though she was increasingly fond of those with whom she travelled, worked and ate, though she was admittedly smitten by him with whom she slept, if she was brutally honest she was starting to crave quality time with her own sex. Chatting with her sisters had highlighted this; as had the lengthy periods spent with Alex and Josh. The very presence of Rachel, that work commitments and the pressure of the race made extensive exchanges rare, underlined it. Josh and Alex were touchingly protective towards her – Josh to an extreme (he’d raid the press buffet for her even if she wasn’t remotely hungry and had, on occasion, insisted on swapping hotel rooms on some pretext or other – towel quality, hanging space, number of mirrors), but Cat was starting to feel swamped by the unremitting prevalence of males. Even the timbre of their voices, whatever their language; the gait of their walk, whatever their footwear, could make her feel somewhat isolated.

Rachel drove Cat along the route, through the stunning Haute-Garonne and on to the Ariege region, with the luxury of a classical music channel rather than Radio Tour providing a rousing score to the scenery. The land was quite staggeringly verdant and lush, the villages gorgeous, all being blessed with unabated sunshine and no remnant of the cloud cover which had scourged the race the day before. The mountains looked woolly with their cloaks of vegetation and seemed to encircle the valleys in an amicable embrace. Whereas yesterday’s foul weather had made the mountains all the more menacing, this morning, in 27 degrees, they seemed almost benign. For those experiencing them on anything other than a bicycle, that is.

When the girls had set up at the feed station some 95 kilometres along the route, they indulged in sunshine and time on a grassy bank, tanning their legs with eyes closed and ears tuned gratefully to the novelty of hush, the gift of shared solitude. The riders, however, had three mountains and a sprint point to contend with before they could fly past and snatch their lunch musettes. Yesterday, the peloton had been hammered by rain. Today, they would be drained by the heat. Tomorrow, their bodies would pay. The pace of climbing, at about a third of a rider’s normal speed, provides only minimal draught. In this heat, Cat hoped they’d be taking it sensibly, for their own sakes primarily, but also to permit her and her friend the luxury of let-up.

‘This is the life!’ Rachel proclaimed as if she was on holiday, stroking the downy grass as if it were Caribbean sand.