Scare tactics.

The article below was written by Rob Harris, a sports physiotherapist who has completed numerous etapes, and advises on the training and conditioning required to get you through the event:

"The last couple of years I’ve helped friends get through the event, one was a first time Etape-ist – in fact they were really a first time cyclist and started at the back of the field – and ended there as well! For the other, I cycled back down Ventoux to give them a bit of support and I’ve never seen such carnage at a sporting event in my life!

You hear the horror stories that in the last 3 Etapes around 2500 of the 10,000 cyclists don’t finish, but to actually see it is something else.

Try to imagine 2500 cyclists, that’s like an entire UK Sportive not making the finish line – it can be for various reasons – they get swept up by the Sag wagon because they are not fast enough or they physically just cant make it but as I came up Ventoux in 2009 and the Tourmalet last year, the roadside was littered with bodies of people walking; lying in gutters asleep; people seeking shade; people who had just fallen off their bikes with exhaustion.

It may not be what you want to hear, but so many people are ill-prepared for the difficulty of the Etape or their simply not fast enough to avoid the Sag wagon – the Sag is a series of coaches filled with Gendarmes and they hold no mercy for those deemed too slow. If that’s you, you get dumped off your bike, it get chucked in the back of the truck and you have quite possibly the most depressing coach ride of your life…

So let’s not be amongst them because the Etape should be one of the greatest experiences of your life. It is truly a memorable and prolific event that I would urge everyone to experience but with ill preparation it can be one of the longest, hardest most horrible days you could have as well."

So now you know what I'm up against.