On June 30, 198 professional cyclists will line up for what many consider the world's toughest endurance event, the

. The riders are all men, beasts on bicycles, the best in the world, grinding out superhuman feats of strength and daring, day after day for three grueling weeks.

Six women hope to beat them to the punch. There are plenty of doubters, but the women will ride the same 2,162-mile route, finishing each stage in a single day while keeping one day ahead of the boys. Same 25 mountain passes, same 100-mile days, same finish on the Champs-Élysées. Two of the women are from Portland.

"I'd like to prove we can do it," says Jennifer Cree, a dental hygienist from Portland.

"It's the biggest adventure you can think of," says

"I like that extreme challenge."

Men versus women

What the women don't have that the men have:

A peloton

to draft (conserve energy) and shield them from the wind.

Closed roads

. Cars, RVs and other cyclists will jam sections of the route.

Someone routing them

through towns and cities. They'll rely on official Tour signs, which may not be in place yet.

A team member

fluent in French.

Free massages.

The women will pay for them.

Someone to research

the routes and weather, strategize rides, clean and lube the bikes each night, wash and refill bottles.

What the women have going for them:

Six determined teammates

, training 20 hours a week. Most have raced before.

Support vehicles

on the course to supply food/drink, but the women will fix their own flats.

Hotel rooms and dinners

waiting for them.

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As far as anyone knows, this is the first time in the race's 99 years that a women's team has ridden the entire route, which careens up and down the Alps and the Pyrenees and snakes along flat, windy sections of Burgundy.

Reve Tours, which runs cycling trips in Europe, will facilitate the team's ride while the bike maker Cannondale and several other companies provide gear and full financial support to cover the associated costs.

Unlike their male counterparts, they're not pro cyclists. In fact, only one is a pro athlete. Besides Swift, 34, and Cree, 36, they are a molecular biologist, a fitness instructor with three kids, a bike shop owner with a 2-year-old and a research analyst for a nonprofit. Sure they're fit, but this is way beyond anything they've attempted.

And they're giving up a lot to try. Cree missed her brother's wedding last month. Training has cut into work and income. Family members have forgotten what they look like.

"My parents think I'm dead," Swift says.

Every serious cyclist dreams of riding the Tour de France, with its spectacular vistas, harrowing descents and millions of spectators who line the roads. The Tour is the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours" -- the others are the

, held in May and the

, held in August -- attracting riders and teams from around the world.

"There's a lot of mythology with the Tour de France, a little bit of magic," says Swift, who wrote a

. "I'm excited to get near all of that and immerse myself in it. There's a lot of questions and I can't wait to have them all answered, and maybe they won't all be answered."

The challenges are unimaginable, which is what appeals to Swift. "How can I push on the edges of myself to expand and grow? I never want to stop reaching, and this is a big reach."

Back in December, she was the first one to say, I'm in.

'You won't finish'

As part of Rêve Tours, the team hopes to drum up business in the potential growth market of women's cycling. Women take only a quarter of all bike trips, according to

The team, called Rêve 2012, is partnering with

published by Move Press Publishing.

.

Training fuel

On training days: 2,800 calories consumed

On the bike:

Boiled potatoes, homemade rice cakes, Clif Mojo bars, almonds, PBJ sandwiches.

Recovery:

within 15 minutes of getting off the bike. They follow that with a meal of low-fat protein and complex carbs. Also a lot of greens, vegetables, fruit and nuts.

Diet/supplements:

Says Heidi Swift, "Every day I wake up at 5 a.m. and take the supplements that require an empty stomach. Then I eat breakfast at 6 or 6:30 (almond pancakes, banana-vanilla oats with fresh berries, Greek yogurt with flax meal and fruit, etc, egg on tortilla with avocado) and take the morning vitamins that go with food (liquid iron supplement, etc.). At night I take fish oil, vitamin D, an immune system boosting supplement, and a few others. Two hours before bedtime I drink a pre-load product that helps me hydrate overnight to be ready to ride hard the next day. One hour before bedtime I drink a nighttime recovery drink that has proteins as well as valerian, to help me fall asleep easily. Everything is regimented. Nothing left to chance."

The Rêve riders hope to inspire more women to ride and to raise money for the

. The goal is to bring in $60,000 for the Boulder, Colo.-based group that encourages people to ride bicycles, particularly women and children. Surveys show that women avoid bicycles because they don't feel safe, so the Rêve money will help implement physically separated bike lanes in six cities -- Portland, Chicago, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Memphis and Austin, Texas.

Rêve Tours plans to offer annual trips to the Tour starting next year, at a cost of $11,000. Michael Robertson, principal photographer and creative director for Reve Tours, chose the six women for this year's ride because he wants to show that amateur riders, not just pros, can do the route, he says.

News of Rêve 2012 has vaulted the six women into the world of sponsors, photo shoots and media interviews.

put Cree on its July cover and teammate Kym Fant on its March cover.

Even with all the support the pros get -- coaches, mechanics, massages, chef-tailored meals -- dozens drop out. On long days such as

), the women may take so long to finish, they'll have little time to recover for the next day.

You won't finish, a friend told Swift.

"I wouldn't ever try to undermine the human spirit, what humans are capable of," says

, and doesn't know Swift or her teammates. "But it sounds crazy."

Jemison, based in Park City, Utah, runs a tour company, letting recreational cyclists ride parts of the Tour route, sometimes on the same day as the race.

But grinding over the entire route raises questions, he says. Specifically, are they training enough at 20 hours a week?

The Tour averages about 100 miles a day. "Have they done five days in a row of 100 miles a day? In a foreign country? With all the logistics it takes?"

Still, it's the Tour de France route and it will be packed with spectators, even the day before the pros barrel through.

"Survival -- there is no other way to look at it," Jemison says. "They'll have success and they'll have failure. The Tour was the absolute highlight of my life. Nothing comes close. Nothing. Millions of neurons are firing. Every cell in my body was alert. I was scared to death."

"We're not babying them like the professionals," Robertson says. "We are only going to take the coddling so far. ... I don't know if all of them will finish. People fall, they get sick, they get sore knees. If there's a weakness, this is going to find it."

It's not a race. "Everybody rides together," says Cree. "Every decision is going to be about the group and survival."

The team

Two of the riders are mothers. Not everyone has raced competitively, but all are experienced cyclists.

Heidi Swift

, 34, Portland; former freelance columnist for The Oregonian, contributor to Peloton and other publications.

Jennifer Cree

, 36, Portland; co-owner Upper Echelon Fitness, dental hygienist, never been to Europe.

Kym Fant

, 37, Santa Rosa, Calif.; mother of a 2-year-old named Axl, co-owner of two bike shops in Santa Rosa, markets Bayer pharmaceuticals.

Kate Powlison

, 27, Boulder, Colo.; research analyst and communications coordinator for Bikes Belong, a nonprofit that encourages bicycling.

Maria del Pilar Vázquez

, 40, Puerto Rico; mother of three boys ages 10, 12, and 14, fitness instructor.

Kristen Peterson

, 26, Boulder; molecular biologist, professional triathlete.

Bumps in the road

When she was 23, Cree rode from Canada to Mexico with her twin sister. Swift, who has pink fingernails that don't chip when she changes flat tires, has ridden hundreds of miles alone in Oregon and California.

But this is still a beatdown, and they've already hit a bump or two in the road. A third woman from Portland, Susan Peithman, left the team in March. She's a friend of Swift and Cree, so it's a sore subject and none of the three wanted to talk on the record. Peithman, who works at

, declined comment.

"It didn't work out," says Robertson, who asked Peithman to leave the team in March. "Her concerns didn't match up with the Rêve ride philosophy."

Kristen Peterson, a pro triathlete and biologist from Boulder, joined the team in May.

Every waking moment is about the ride, now. They're doubling their workouts, wolfing down calories and battling doubts.

Swift thinks of her health as her "personal demon" -- already this year, she's been sick three times. "If that happens in France, I'm toast. If this were any other thing, I might have backed away by now."

But the challenges aren't just physical. Cree, who has never been to Europe, cut her income and her health insurance by going part time at her dentist's office. She missed her brother's wedding because of training camp. Swift turned down a full-time job at Nike and cut back her freelance writing.

Through all the training and promotional distractions, they've bumped up against their limitations, they say.

"I think I've come face to face with my own athletic hubris -- too proud, too daring, you tried too much," Swift says. "I have a personal need to overfill my life.... This is the most stressed I've ever been, which is the opposite of what I want."

Men as well as women are pulling for them, they say.

"I have the idea that people are excited, whether we finish or not," Cree says. "Being out there and feeling it. That's what inspires me. Once we're out on our bikes, we'll be OK."

Follow the team:

Heidi Swift will be writing from the road each night at

under her online column called "Swift."

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