Day Four (final) - NICE2TRI.COM Tour de Chamonix
It’s 8.00am and the sun is streaming in the window. The sky is azure blue and a snow capped Mont Blanc is clearly visible in the distance. In contrast to the amazing view I feel absolutely battered. If I woke up at home and felt this way I would go to casualty and tell them I’d been run over. The previous 3 days of physical abuse via bike are starting to take their toll but never mind ‘cos today is Alpe d’huez day!!
A bowl of muesli and a banana and we load up the bikes into the cars for the drive to the road cycling Mecca called Alpe d’huez. The drive there is stunning as we drive through Megeve and descend out of the Alps towards Albertville. It takes 2.5 hours to reach our destination which frustrates a few in the group as I had sworn it would only take about an hour and a half!
We turn into the open air car park which sits about 0.5 km from the base of the climb at approx 1.00pm. Rather later than we planned…….again. We emerge from the cars and start to ‘don the garb’ as they say, apart from Lostboy who is wandering around the car park asking if anyone has a spare cycle jersey as he’s left his back in St Gervais. Funny how those voices in his head tell him to pedal like a nutter up a mountain but they don’t stretch to “pack your f*****g jersey”. The Sneddon comes to the rescue with a spare jersey, which is fortunate for Lostboy because if I’d had a spare he’d have spent the day looking like he was wearing a marquee. In contrast the rest of the crew are desperately shedding kit. Spare bottles, bike tools and even excess inner tubes get ditched into the cars in an attempt to save weight. This ride will be straight up and down with no room for extra weight! The Lord needs to get his bike back to a shop in Chamonix by 7.00pm and so we decide to skip the planned 30 minute warm up and just spin into Bourg d’Oissans (3 minutes away) and back. So a 6 minute total warm up. This feels like Groundhog Day as we did exactly the same thing 4 years ago and it doesn’t make your legs feel great to climb out of a car and go straight into a 10% climb that goes on for 13km.
I’m sure anyone who has been following these blogs will know the order of play:-
Lostboy shouts good luck to all and disappears up the first part of the climb, which from our viewpoint looks steep enough to be a launch ramp from Thunderbirds. The sneddon has opened a gap of about 10 metres by the first hairpin which would steadily grow until I lose sight of him. The Lord is tucked in just behind me for the first few switchbacks twiddling away on his triple chain ring (at this point I’m very envious of the cadence available with one of those) and the Dog settles down for his powerful session of 5000 or so leg presses on his over geared 12/23 rear cassette! (Where fitness is lacking the dog gets through on power and anger yet again.)
Alpe d’huez despite being a Hors category climb is not as evil as the Col de la Joux Plane. The gradient is fierce at the beginning but by the halfway point there are odd opportunities to clear the lactic from weary legs. These opportunities may only be 3 or 4 metres but are relished by the weary climber. While reading the names emblazoned on the tarmac by cycling fans it occurs to me again how magical this climb is. The road leading ever upwards is like some kind of ‘yellow brick road’ painted with “ALLEZ SASTRE!” or “FRANK/ANDY SCHLECK”. Underneath the newer painted names are legends from previous years such as “ARMSTRONG” and “ULLRICH”. There are very few sports in which you can measure yourself on the same course/court/pitch etc as the professionals which is maybe why cycling in Europe is regarded very much as the peoples sport.
A church marks the halfway point of the climb and I remember from my previous ride here that the road mellows very slightly from here to the summit. My heart rate doesn’t drop (approx 180’ish) but my cadence and speed increase a little. Just below the last 2 switchbacks (21 in total) the professional photographers hang out so I rise from the saddle to put on a good show for the cameras. 2 more bends and I’m onto fresh Tarmac (and spray painted names), up through the town and at last some flat road. I know the finish is only 2 or 3 minutes from here so get out of the saddle and push hard taking my Heart rate up into the 190’s. Down a long straight and over some cobbles on which the front wheel skids out and I have no idea how I remain upright. Once the bike is stable I kiss the hair band wrapped around my glove and thank my lucky stars I’m not splayed out on the tarmac again. Throw a left at the final roundabout and sprint uphill about 200 metres to the finish. Lostboy is sitting at the side of the road looking………lost. We shake hands and I ask where the Sneddon is. “Haven’t seen him” says Lostboy. “Well, he was definitely in front of me up the climb” I reply. “Looks like he’s lost then” says Lostboy with a big fat grin. In all honesty how hard is it? I have never in all my days seen so much graffiti on a tarmac’d road. All you have to do is follow the names and they take you to the finish. Every other road is clean of spray paint. “Looks like I’ve officially beaten him then” I say as I slip my shoes off and sit on the curb. The Lord arrives next looking pretty good, damn that triple chain ring!
My phone rings, it’s the Sneddon, the conversation goes something like this:
Snedd’s
- “where are you?”
Me
- “we’re at the finish, where are you”,
Snedd’s
– “I’m by a big hotel”,
Me
– “thanks Snedd’s we’re in a ski resort….there’s a fair few hotels”,
Snedd’s
– “it’s called club Med”,
Me
– “sorry mate I’m not a holiday rep, just a visiting cyclist. Ride around for a while, you’ll find us”
10 minutes later he turns up looking pretty p****d off, too which we are of course very sympathetic……….not. Brownedog has now powered and pulverised the mountain into submission and is consuming Coca Cola faster than an 8 year old at his first school disco.
The dog then goes onto tell us of a horrific crash he saw while on his way up. Apparently 4 young Dutch semi-pro looking riders were descending like rockets (on this hill that could be up to 60mph) One of the guys behind said something and the guy at the front turned his head to answer. The split second he took to turn back to the road was already too long and he had left it too late to brake for the 180 degree hairpin. Now faced with a choice of clattering into the curved concrete crash barrier (and possibly over it to a 500 ft drop) or going down on his side in a baseball players slide he chose the latter. Coming off a bike on to tarmac at 50 odd mph wearing only lycra is never going to be nice and this boy was screaming his head off with the whole of one side looking like steak tartar.
“Thanks
for that dog, shall we get the lift down?”
I felt more nervous on this descent than ever before. I don’t know whether it was the fact someone had crashed quite badly or that I didn’t particularly trust the surface with all those painted names. Also this was the last stretch of a long 4 day tour and I felt I had got away with a fair few possible crashes. I elected to take the descent easy and stop and take a couple of photo’s half way down. This had the desired effect and meant I got a good few shots of the other guys coming down to boot.
Back to the car park and a job well done. Bikes in the car and a scene from the cannonball run ensues with us trying to get back to St Gervais in record time. The Lord heads straight to Chamonix to return his Specialized Allez. We head straight upstairs to spit and polish the Palais de Gerbil so Sally doesn’t castrate us the next time she comes out. All done in record time and stop the clock at Geneva airport with 5 minutes to spare before check in closes.
All in all an amazing trip.
Big thanks to those who made it so enjoyable, namely the guys in the above blog. Lostboy, the Sneddon (who supplied the lovely Craft teamkit), the Lord and Brownedog.
Even bigger thanks to the Gerbil for the use of his apartment(s) which made accessing all the climbs so easy.
GIG’sy.
One Response to “Day Four (final) - NICE2TRI.COM Tour de Chamonix”
July 29th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
well done gigsy the best blogger and tram dodger there is!!
