Le Training

One of the odd things about Alpine climbs is that while they are undoubtedly hard, they are not particularly long. Alpe d'Huez, for example, is only 14 km in length. That's only about one third of the distance of the shortest lunch time ride I normally do. However, with an average gradient of over 8%, I wouldn't be surprised to find it taking me two hours of hard riding to get up it. The combination of the Col du Telegraph and the Col du Galibier involves around 30 km of climbing which could easily take 3 hours or more.

Since we have nothing that comes close to these sorts of climbs in Hampshire, the question is how best to train for this trip. One component of my training has been regular rides of  30-60 km, on the rolling, heavy back roads, so typical of this part of Southern England. I've been doing these several times a week for the last few months, often first thing in the morning or at lunch time. Ridden hard, these courses take from a little over an hour to rather more than two hours. While they cannot simulate the relentless climbing of an Alpine col, they do provide an opportunity to work hard for the length of time that a single climb should take.

The only real way to make things harder is to go further. So amongst these shorter rides, I've sprinkled in some longer trips to build endurance. Back in April, I rode from Winchester to Bristol, a trip of about 135 km. I managed to average a speed of around 25kph, at least in part due to some long stretches of pretty flat road, and the Bath to Bristol cycle path, which mainly follows a disused railway. I also spent a day cycling 135 km from Winchester to the New Forest and back.

In the final build-up to the trip, I'm taking part in a charity ride around the Isle of Wight. It's in aid of the Forest Holme Hospice Charity. We'll be following the round the island cycle route used by the annual Randonnee. We'll be taking the ferry from Lymington, and riding anticlockwise around the island from Yarmouth. At just on 100 km, it's a decent distance. And the roads on the island tend to rise and drop quite sharply, making it hard to maintain pace and rhythm. For the build-up to this charity ride, I recently rode two laps of one of my 50 km routes, non-stop. And tomorrow, I'll  be riding from Winchester to Poole, also a distance of around 100 km. This ride crosses the New Forest, and includes some decent climbs as well as some stretches of flat road to test 'time trial' mode. I'm giving myself around 5 hours for the trip. Why is that important? I have an appointment with a Barbecue at the end of it, that's why!