Tour de Suisse - Stages 5, 6 and 7.

I have been unable to get online the last couple of days. I'm not the most sophisticated techo and I'm having problems getting the Apple I bought over the off-season, to connect on a dial-up connection. Bloody technology. Anyway tonight we have a hotel with wireless connection so it?s sweet. Best of all, it?s free.

Yeh so anyway, the last three stages have been mountain stages which, for me means playing a game of survival. The first of them was a long stage with a 20km berg at the end. Due to the hard days prior, the peloton opted to cruise for the first 100km. This is always a great idea as it allows everyone to recover a tad and of course allows us all to catch up with each other?s news. Today?s hot topic was Rabobank?s hotel last night. We stay in a wide variety of hotels as professional cyclists but sometimes there are those that top them all and today Rabobank?s hotel took the honours; theirs doubled as a brothel?..

Once we entered into the valley with 100km to ride before hitting the climb, an end was put to the chat session and the tempo started. It was a tailwind up the valley so after our easy start, things got very tough as we averaged 55km/hr to the bottom of the climb. The 20km climb to the finish was the cue for me and a big group of others to sit up and save ourselves for the next day, which was to be the king stage of the tour. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /?>

Stage 6 from Fiesch to <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /?>
La Punt near
St Moritz was the king stage of the tour with over 4400m of climbing. I was really starting to feel it today and I was pretty nervous. After the stage yesterday I began to feel it in places where I shouldn?t be - namely the knee and some pain in the calf. My saving grace for the stage was that the first two of the three climbs were in the first 70km after which it lumpy before finally hitting the last hard hors cat climb 30km from the finish. Fortunately it didn't turn out too bad. For much of the stage, the new Astana team rode a good, steady tempo that I could cope with till the bottom of the last climb when they started attacking, at which point I just sat up and took my time to the finish. My body held together for the day. It was another 6hr hard day and although I don't feel 100% I was able to get through it. Over the last few days I have been fighting a cold and unfortunately it has gone to my chest. I?ve been coughing up a lot of phlegm which has made breathing up the bergs quite a mission. I?ve been up the Comvita products - esp., the Manuka Honey (for those non-Kiwi readers visit, the Comvita website if you?re wondering what ?Manuka? is - Carole the Ed), so