Day 4 - 190km, long day ahead

The team left for day 4 at 8am this morning, in good spirits with great weather. It is going to be long day, more to come later.

Preparing lunch

Showtime - Leg Check

It is time today to involve the readers of this blog in a little quiz..

Day 3 - A long ride

Today was a long ride, 162km, which took about 10 hours to complete. The riders were very tired by the end of the day, but a beautiful ride it was.

Day 2 - Another beautiful day

Today is another terrific day to ride, it was very cold overnight, about 8C we heard. All tents are wet but surely they will dry soon after being setup again at the next stop. This was a long day, about 160km with 2 very serious cols, turned out, riders were on the road for more than 8 hours, leaving at 7am in the cold, facing the heat on the cols halfway the day.

Day 1 - Finally, conquering the Alpe d'Huez

The previous post ended with the team photo, all ready to start the climb. Enjoy a series of photos showing the heroic effort. Final results are in the bottom of the post.

Day 1 - Alpe d'Huez - Preparation

The first day started with about 100km to the bottom of the Alpe d'Huez. Riders worked as a single team to make it to the final checkpoint, but each would take a personal approach to the top. After a little rest, some soup and a few snacks the team started their ascend of the mountain, looking up at 21 switchbacks. The poll resulted in Edwin being favorite to arrive at the top first, Chris and Lennart to make it 2nd and 3rd.

On Air Again...

We have not been updating the blog for a few days, other than trough tweets. The wireless network of the TFL can only be used by TFL Laptops, which means we need to shuttle images across from our own. The provided laptops are also very heavily used by the other teams, causing queues!

Luckily, our friends at McDonalds provide free wifi :-)

New blog posts will be arriving shortly, with some amazing pictures of our heroes.

Day 1 - Excellent day for a ride in the mountains

Riders left this morning for the first stage of the TFL. For now, just a few pics for the followers at home, after the break...

Unloading and Final Preparation

After lunch, Paul, Ben and Chris biked to the hotel, some 20 km away from the planned location, but plans were changed drastically last week.

Transportation

While the riders were flying to Italy, and making their way to Bardonecchia, Marco and Rolf left on friday, with the camper and the van.

Support Team Extended

Today we have some great news to share with you all. We bumped into Sully today, started chatting and agreed he would join the Support group for the team. We are delighted that after all the discussions between the riders about their legs, with Sully we do not have to discuss any of that, hairy legs are just a given for him...

A message from TO our sponsors

The team has secured the funding required to participate in the Tour for Life. A minimum amount of funds was required to enter the event, there has not been set a maximum level...

Although the team is slowly making it's way to Bardonecchia, it is not too late to sponsor the team, and to raise some more funds for Medecins sans Frontieres. Feel free to donate, the more the better... 

You can find more information on the Sponsoring page, or you can go directly to the team sponsoring page at the Tour for Life site: Yes, I Sponsor 

Poll Tinkering Suspicions Dropped

We are happy to report no illegal activities have been found during our investigation into the mysterious lead of Edwin in the Alpe d'Huez Poll. It appears that Edwin has a very dedicated campaigner in Alma Eyra, who somehow worked her charm and managed to convince a lot of people to vote for Edwin. With this we conclude our investigations, we hope that the other riders will also get their campaigners a bit more active, in order to get the poll results as unbiased as possible.

Important: Poll Tinkering?

Regular visitors of this page must have seen the poll on the right hand side of the screen and voted for who they think will be the first of the D'isney Snel team to finish on the first day, at the top of the Alpe d'Huez. For reasons we do not even begin to comprehend, we have noticed that Edwin is leading suspiciously strong! Has anyone read the bio's in the team page and compared training schedules, physical and mental fitness for real?

We are investigating this matter with urgency and will report back to the community any results we may find. If any tinkering with the votes is happening, we will bring the criminal(s) to justice.

Rumors suggest (but can not be confirmed at the time of writing this post) that someone is campaigning strongly for Edwin, which in itself would not be illegal.

In the meantime, in order to make this poll more realistic we urge you all to vote, and to vote fairly.

A reward for information that may lead to solving this problem, or easing our concern is made available. Please leave any tips that may help solve this mystery in the comments to this post.

Lieske's Cups

Cup A (Arpeggio)

Today, Lieske came by to donate 40 cups of Nespresso coffee in various flavours (should get Paul started at least for one day).

Looking forward for the rest of the Nespresso drinkers to follow her. Remember we are packing on thursday night, so make sure your donation is received by thursday afternoon.

Follow by email

You can now be alerted by email when new posts are created on the site. Just use the Follow by Email section in the top right hand corner of the pages,

Tent check

As some team members will be sleeping in tents, we need to make sure our camping gear is in order. I checked out my tent today,  everything is complete. Hopefully the others check their kit as well, we don't want to get surprises while setting up camp.

Shoot..

During the tour we will be providing you more information about the riders and their endeavours. There will be lots of photos and action-video in the posts.

Training

 

Just walking through the office, you may bump into a bicycle every now and then, just like I did today on the 3rd floor. Apparently Edwin is training for the tour by riding the bicycle to the office.

New Sponsors, a little help is appreciated

Bob and Rolf are sponsoring the team by making their Nespresso coffee machine available for use in the camper during the tour. They will also provide a number of capsules. It would be much appreciated if other fellow Nespresso drinkers also provide some capsules (for the home-machines), so that we will not run out of coffee. The capsules we use in the machines recently installed  in the office do not fit in the home-models, so please note that only the capsules of the type shown at the right fit.

 

Surely, you will appreciate the opportunity of having a good espresso, will help to power the riders as they are getting ready for their day...

We would be very much delighted if anyone has an Aeroccino (see right) for the team to borrow for a week. That way we could start the morning even better, with a proper capuccino!

Outfits arrived

Today we had the delivery of a big box full of outfits for the team: shirts, jackets, shorts, arm and leg pieces and shoe-covers. All are designed specifically for the team. Lennart was pushed by his (female) colleagues to do a little run on the catwalk...

The Gear

During the tour we will be presenting the riders. They will tell you all a little more about their passion, their preparation and the experience in the tour. Besides a few personal notes, it might get a little techie, but for those who are interested in those details, it may well be worth to check it out...



The outfits

The team will be riding in custom designed outfits. The creative input from the team resulted in a very professional looking design. It includes the Cars2 Ride logo, the D'isney Snel logo, as well as the logo's of the main sponsors.

The order has been placed at the vendor, we can't wait to see the actual results.

We are very interested in your opinion about the design, so please feel free to leave some comments.

Stage 1, the Alpe d'What?

The first stage of the tour ends at the summit of the Alpe d'Huez!



Logistics

The team will spend the night at various camp sites en route. We are using two vehicles to support the team, a camper and a mini-van. The camper is a Dethleffs A5890, which can sleep 6 people, although that might get a little to cozy. Four people will probably sleep in the camper, the rest in tents.

Our friends at Disneyland Paris have kindly arranged a mini-van with Hertz. The mini-van will be following the team along the track, and will support the team during the day with tools, drinks, food, motivational speaches etc.

Marco (mini-van) and Rolf (camper) will leave for Italy on friday, august 26th, to catch up with the rest of team in Bardonecchia on saturday evening. The first stage of the tour starts on sunday morning, the 28th.

The Challenge



The trip

Paul Zonderland announced recently, during a Townhall session, that a team from Disney Benelux will participate in the  Tour for Life. The goal of the initiative is to raise funds for  Artsen zonder Grenzen. The team name is D'isney Snel, more information can be found at this location.

From Italy to Holland.

Fifty-two team have been in training for the tour, and have raised funds by arranging sponsors. They will ride from Northern Italy, through the Alps, Vosges and Ardennes to Holland, passing steep cols, and famous areas. The finish is on September 4th, at the Cauberg, where the team will be greeted by family, friends, and the Disney colleagues.