Connor swift-Tour diary

“I think I averaged 300 watts in the neutral zone”

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GOING TO FRANCE

TUES, 25 AUGUST

I had Manchester Airport to myself. The security guy was telling me how things had been starting to pick back up again then as soon as the new quarantine measures came in, it had just gone dead.

I arrived in Nice that night and had another Covid-19 test. That was terrible. I’ve had a few and I’ve never had one like it. It made my eyes water and my nose was stinging for about an hour after. I’m not looking forward to those on the rest days; the French like to get the swabs right up there.

TEAM PRESENTATION

THURS, 27 AUGUST

At the team presentation, we got to watch a film on all the previous editions which was pretty cool. Obviously, I imagine at previous editions it’s packed, but due to Covid-19 there were chairs and only a limited amount of people allowed to be there and they had a space between each of them so the atmosphere wasn’t your usual Tour de France but it was still good even if it did feel a bit surreal.

DAY 1

SAT, 29 AUGUST

I was ready to go but the start wasn’t until half two! I hate afternoon starts, I like British premier calendar 9 am starts. With an afternoon you’ve got to delay your breakfast and then wait around – it felt like a long morning.