Tour de France 2011, the big challenge (in English)

I have decided to write this entry in english, so non-spanish speakers can share our experience. I would first briefly explain our challenge and then sumarize the first 6 weeks of training.

Last September, after reading Brouillard sur l'Angliru, a book by Guillaume Prebois, where the author writes about his experience in completing the three big Tours (Giro, Tour and Vuelta), I thought, why not? why not completing the Tour de France 2011 myself?
I then talk to a friend who is also crazy about cycling and to my father, as we need someone to support us on the road. No need to insist. They quickly accepted to join me in this adventure. A week after, another friend joined us. Then my brother told me that he will join us for a week. The Tour de France 2011 big challenge started. We then contacted Juan de la Torre, an expert in clycling and triathlon training, who kindly accepted to program our training.

6 weeks have passed, and these are the data of my training:

October: 897 km in 35 h and 52'
November: 630 km in 27 h 5'

I hope to have the data from the first blood test and the effort test soon. We will have a blood test every 45 days, so we can control that the training is going well. Two more effort tests, one in February-March and another in June will tell us about the effects of the training in our performance.

We are also looking for sponsors at this time. At the moment we have to thank the Federación Andaluza de Ciclismo, which accepted to help us with the medical monitoring (i.e., blood tests and effort tests), and specially to Keepgoing (please, check the link on the left).

Most of the entries will be in spanish, but I will write in English from time to time so people that do not understand spanish can also follow the blog. I will also try to write in French, although I will need the help of my brother on this.

By the way, I will do the Tour the France on a Pinarello FP3, with Campagnolo Neutron Ultra wheels. At the moment I have an old campagnolo Record (with around 110000 km) which I hope to change for a new 11V Campagnolo Record next year, with 50-34 crankset and 11-23 for flat stages and 11-25 for mountain stages.

cheers