better cyclist, despite enduring a baptism of fire in the world's most prestigious road race.

Claude, riding for team Canada-Espagne, went out of the event at the end of the first week but says the experience will stand her in good stead.

She had risen steadily up the leaderboard but a gruelling mountain stage on Saturday took what energy she had left out of her and she was forced to drop out when she missed the cut after completing one of Sunday's two stages.

Speaking from Paris where she is waiting to cheer home the remaining members of her team, Claude said she was far from disappointed by her efforts.

"I was going in blind because I had never done the Tour before, so I didn't know what it would involve.

"The courses we had to do were quite challenging right from the beginning. We were riding between 75 and 100 miles a day, the terrain was quite hilly and the calibre of cyclist was world class -- many of them are going to the Olympics. "I took each event day by day and persevered and it was sort of survival for me basically,'' she said.

Claude said the toughest day was when the field took on the mountain. "The biggest challenge I had was on Stage Seven -- the Tour Malet mountain -- that's a mountain that's 2,114 metres high. Basically it's a 16 kilometre climb and you can appreciate coming from Bermuda that we don't have any kind of mountain of that calibre.'' "I unfortunately was dropped on a category four climb just before the mountain and I had to endure it by myself. I think that after the completion of that race, to have to go on a five hour journey and then complete two stages the following day, the body was just not up to par.'' Claude said despite the fact she didn't last to the end of the event, Canada's national coach, Christian Perzard, was pleased with her.

"He was quite impressed with my performance considering the amount of training that I have done because really it was not comparable.

"If I had to do it over again I would have trained a lot more to prepare for an event like this.'' Claude said after her experience she had been having second thoughts about taking on the event next year.

"Initially I thought `no I'm not going to come back and do this' but then I was speaking with the coach and he feels I'm capable of doing it if I just put a little more training in.'' Claude plans to stay in France until Monday and follow Berzard's training regime before heading out for the Canadian Grand Prix from August 23-28.