Alpe d'Huez and the Col de Sarenne

The first real day of riding dawned fair. Angela sensibly decided to stick to the lower slopes, riding up to the dam and power station at Lac Verney.

I, on the other hand, threw caution to the wind and decided to head up to Alpe d'Huez. We parted company at the foot of the climb. Everyone says that the first few ramps of the climb are the hardest and indeed they are. The gradients are frequently above 10%. What no one tells you is that the rest of the ramps are almost as steep, with gradients between 8% and 10%.

Having seen the climb yesterday, I knew that heroics at the bottom would be doomed to failure. I rode the numbers. I tried to maintain around 200W, using more when I needed to maintain pace on a particularly steep part, or to overtake someone. Yes, I actually did that! After only a few of the 21 hairpin bends that mark progress to the top, I did start to get a little lower back pain, but as it didn't get any worse, I just carried on. I ended up riding in a small bunch all trying to survive to the top at about the same pace. I resisted the increasingly strong temptation to stop for a breather, even when super fit riders whizzed past going up at unfeasible speed. In the end I hit my target numbers all the way to the top, taking just a shade under 1 hour 50 minutes without stopping. Mind you, at the top, I was wrecked. I didn't dare even try to get off the bike for a couple of minutes for fear of falling over. I sat on the pavement at the finish line, re-hydrating and shouting a weak 'Chapeau' for each rider crossing the line. The selfie I took at the finish is rather grim faced, reflecting my uncertainty about remounting to ride back down to the village to get a drink.

Instead of that, here's my bike up against the finishing post!

The track for the ride up to Alpe d'Huez is on Garmin Connect.

After a very large Limonade, Chez Leo, and quite an extended rest, I started to wonder if I could complete the loop from Alpe d'Huez over the Col de Sarenne and back down to Bourg d'Oisans via the lower reaches of the Col de Lauteret. This is a popular scenic drive, known as the Tour de l'Oisans. The main snag with it is that it drops away from Alpe d'Huez, which is nice, but then has to climb back up to an even higher altitude at the Col de Sarenne. I decided to give it a go. The first problem was that on the short climb out of Alpe d'Huez, I got cramp in both legs. I managed to ride through it by knocking the power back and taking it easy for a few minutes. After that, the ride through spectacular scenery was only slightly spoiled by the road surface. As they say in France, chausee horribly deforme. Or at least, they should. The 2013 Tour de France raced over this route. It beggars belief!

I had a few problems with the connection between my head unit and sensors on this part of the route. Eventually I cured them using the Windows method. Turn it all off. Wait 5 minutes and then turn it all on again. I'd already decided to break up any steep descent by taking photos. It allows the brakes to cool off, really important on a hot day when an over inflated tyre could lead to a blow out. The overall result is that the track for the Tour de l'Oisans is in several pieces, with a few gaps.

Tour de l'Oisans Part 1
Tour de l'Oisans Part 2
Tour de l'Oisans Part 3
Tour de l'Oisans Part 4

The scenary behind Alpe d'Huez is spectacular

Yes, that really is the road down!

Even at this time of year, there is snow on the highest peaks.

One of the less scary tunnels on the Col de Lauteret. It's on the right...

So, I may have been slow, but at least I've proven that I can get up this sort of climb. If I can get out of bed tomorrow, I may well have a go at another one!

First Time Up

After a day and a half travelling, we've finally arrived in the Romanche valley. The autoroute was much busier today. We were using the sections that link Paris to the Mediterranean coast. The roads were wider, the traffic heavier and the service areas more like those on English motorway.

It's quite amazing how quickly the French landscape changes from rolling hills, reminiscent of Hampshire, to full-on mountain ranges. It happens between Lyon and Grenoble. One minute rolling agricultural land, full of sunflowers and vineyards, the next, towering mountains waterfalls and snow capped peaks.

We arrived in Bourg d'Oisans at around 3pm, and decided to head straight up to Alpe d'Huez. On our first ascent, we averaged a shade over 25 mph, but that was in the car! It's a long, hard, twisty drive. The steady stream of struggling cyclists is testament to the attraction of achieving the ascent, and the difficulty of getting up it.

Here are a few views from today.

This is the airport, which the locals call Altiport. That is the runway and yes, it does dive off the side of the mountain! 

There are quite a lot of mountains in the Alpes...

The lower part of the climb from further up the mountain.

 A rider doing it properly, together with evidence that we cheated...

The Romanche valley to the east of Bourg d'Oisans.

The forecast is set fair for tomorrow, so the plan is to ride up for real. I think it's going to hurt!

Gadget Update

A couple of months ago, I needed to get some new cycling shoes. The shoes I had been using were several years old and completely shot. I wanted a pair for the Alpine trip and that could take both Shimano SPD and Look cleats. I've been using SPD for years, but was still harbouring the desire to get a set of power measuring pedals, which only come in Look form

A visit to one of our local cycle stores resulted in purchase of some Bontrager shoes that fitted the bill perfectly and were on special offer. While chatting about my reasons for wanting shoes that could take both kinds of cleats, it turned out that the shop actually had the Garmin Vector pedals I'd been thinking about, and the matching Garmin Edge 1000 head unit. To cut a long story short, I ended up doing a deal on shoes, pedals and head unit. It goes without saying that they're not cheap. But if you can't be outrageously profligate in support of items on your bucket list, when can you be?

The data available from the new set up has been unbelievably useful. I've heard commentators and professional cyclists talk about 'riding the numbers', and now it all makes sense. For example, I can see how my power output affects my heart rate, and I can see and correct the balance between how much work I'm doing with my right and left leg. I now know that I can ride for long distances at power outputs around 200 watts, and can hit 500 watts when I need to. I'm expecting that the ability to set a pace based on power output is going to be invaluable when tackling unfamiliar Alpine geography.

My acquisition of an Edge 1000 means that Angela benefits from some technology trickle down. Her bike is now sporting a set of Garmin sensors and the Edge 750. Both head units have full European mapping, so we shouldn't get lost in the Alps!

It's Nearly Time

So here we are. The final weekend before we go away is upon us. Yesterday we did the final preparatory rides. Today we get to pack up the equipment.

We've had a glorious summer in the this part of the UK this year. There has ben very little rain and hardly any need to take a gilet or arm warmers when going for a ride. So yesterday was quite a change. Within a couple of miles of starting to ride, I was in a deluge of heavy, stinging rain. At least it was warm! I stuck with it and managed to complete the 50km I'd planned to do.

It didn't rain all the time, though the roads were wet all the way round. I did have to reacquaint myself with the rather different performance of my brakes in wet weather though. The 8% climb away from the A31 in Ropley, leading up and over the Watercress line, was more like a river than a lane, and I'll swear that a pigeon was taking a bath in the torrent on the railway bridge itself!

Angela was on a different course, and was bright enough not to set out in a downpour. She did have to shelter under a tree at one point, though.

Later in the day, I washed down both bikes, and removed all the parts that might be susceptible to loss or damage in transit. Today, we get to pack them up ready to travel.

Les Vêtements

Mountains are tricky things. Oddly enough, I learned this from a canyon. Well I say, a canyon. In fact it was the mother of all canyons, the Grand Canyon.

Canyons, like mountains, offer very different climactic conditions at their upper and lower extremities. The top of a mountain can be many degrees cooler than its base. They can also, of course, be swathed in cloud. Likewise, when the rim of the Grand Canyon is often quite cool first thing in the morning, lower down it resembles a desert. It's very dry and dusty.

For a cyclist, the difference in climate and difference in effort between climbing and descending demand different clothing at the foot and the top of a climb.The trick is to have just the right clothing available while avoiding carrying more than is absolutely necessary. Once again, modern materials come to the rescue.

My kit for the Alpine trip consists of:

• Wicking base layer, which in my case is a kind of string vest. Very Rab C. Nesbitt!
• Short sleeved jersy, in bright yellow so people can see me coming
• Bib shorts
• Separate arms that can be added to the jersy, yet fold up and fit easily in one of its pockets
• Separate legs that can be added to the shorts. These also fold up and fit easily into a jersey pocket
• Short sleeved gilet which is wind proof and shower proof and also folds up to fit into a jersey pocket

Needless to say, I've been riding with this kit for a few weeks now, and it really works.

Le Materiel Electronique

These days, it's amazing how much electronic equipment you can carry, even on a racing bike. A full satellite navigation system, mapping system and data collection system are all contained within my Garmin Edge 705. It clips to the handlebar stem, is about the size of a typical laptop mouse, and yet tells me where to go, shows me where I am and records how well I'm doing.

My mobile phone, a Sony Xperia Z1, also has detailed mapping loaded, and can also show me where I am, but this time on high resolution maps on a large, colour screen.

Finally, my camera, a Canon EOS-M, combines high resolution image wizardry and great optics in a tiny package that fits easily within the storage capacity I have on the bike.

So there's absolutely no excuse for getting lost, for failing to record my tracks and data or for duff photos. Apart from operator error, that is.

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!