Preparation and relaxation

After reaching our chalet at the top of Alpe d’Huez and meeting some of the other members of the tour group I was staying with, I unpacked my bike, re-built and fettled with it and pondered what the best preparation for Saturday was. Eventually I decided an ascent of Alpe d’Huez was worthwhile. Being Thursday I had a full day on Friday to recover if my legs felt a bit tired after completing the climb. Although I had climbed Alpe d’Huez a number of times in 2011 it had been a year and I needed to reacquaint myself with the mountain to make sure I knew what was coming 100 miles into La Marmotte on Saturday.

Alpe d'Huez - July 5th

14 km to the summit

Alpe d’Huez is characterised by its legendary 21 hairpins, each named after a stage winner on its famous slopes, but it is the first two miles of the climb which are important to any cyclist because the gradient rarely dips below 10%. This is hard attacking the climb fresh, but after 100 miles I could only imagine how hard this was going to be. After reaching the foot of mountain and having a nagging sense of regret that I was at the bottom rather than the top I started the climb, eight miles and over 1100m vertical metres to the summit at 1860m. Immediately it was harder than I remembered and straight away my heart rate shot up to 185bpm and panic set in. “If I feel like this on one climb how the hell am I going to be able to do four in one day?!” After about two miles in I started to settle down and find a tempo and controlled my heart rate. I reached the summit in just over an hour, not bad after a 4:30am start to the day and a day of travelling. At the top I knew I had done the right thing. I had a picture in my mind of the mountain, the steep sections, the longer drags between hairpins and the overall distance. Eight miles up a mountain feels more like twenty in your head. Mentally I knew this would be tough come Saturday.

Peter Sagan winning stage 6 of the 2012 Tour de France

Friday consisted of a short ten mile ride to do no more than keep the legs spinning. There are plenty of side roads off Alpe d’Huez and they serve up spectacular views and fantastic cycling and on any other day it would have been great to explore further. Buying some new kit was inevitable and watching stage 6 of the Tour de France in the afternoon in the chalet’s TV room with about 25 other cycling fans atop Alpe d’Huez was a great way to wind down and prepare. To be honest, it doesn’t get much better. Friday night consisted of having a large dinner including plenty of carbs and protein. Conversation didn’t deviate from what we were embarking on the next day and nervousness permeated throughout the chalet like a bad smell. Saturday morning at 4:45am I was showered and kitted up and by 5:15am most of the people staying in the chalet were around the breakfast table eating anything from porridge to pasta. My breakfast consisted of a bowl of pasta two bananas, two croissants, cereal, a yogurt, orange juice and two black coffees.  At barely 5am it is hard to eat anything, but shoving down food for no other reason but to store and provide energy for later is especially tough but undoubtedly necessary. I had decided on the amount of energy bars and gels I would need for the ride factoring in the feed stops on route and packed them into my jersey pockets. After a final check that the bike was in working order I put on my long sleeve jersey for the chilly early morning descent of Alpe d’Huez and by 6:15 we were heading down the mountain into Bourg d’Oisan for the start.

La Marmotte start

Our tour operator parked at the bottom of Alpe d’Huez so people could ditch any cold weather gear needed for the descent. After a brief final chat a few of us headed off to the holding pens each consisting of up to 2000 cyclists, totalling 7000 in all. I was quiet just thinking about the ride and what lay ahead. Others chatted but the nervous tension was obvious, so much so that riders were frequently diving off into bushes and side alleys to answer one last call of nature. The role out took place at 7:30 and the first 30 minutes was a flat section in which the key thing was to find a group and get pulled along to save the legs. With 2000 cyclists rolling out at the same time this wasn’t hard to do. After a short climb over an impressive dam there was a slight descent and then we hit the first climb of the day, the Col du Glandon.