I forgot that most of you couldn’t care less about my assessment of cyclocross and would much rather hear about my trip to the Tour.
Right on.
Well, we were there for 9 days, and that is a lot to cover in one blog, especially when you’re not blogging live. Trying to recall the details of the trip 12 weeks out is a bit challenging, so instead I will show you some pictures and then tell you some stuff about the trip.
First up – day one of our tour we rode around the valley to Saint Jeanne de Maurienne. It looks exactly like it does on TV when the helicopters are flying overhead and the peloton is riding along the valley floor as they head towards the Alps.
As seen on TV
The tour group we were with is Adventure Travel Group. I was worried that our group would be populated with a bunch of rich pansies who can afford to do this sort of stuff but don’t have the time to train and thus only want to ride 25miles per day at 15mph. Fortunately, that was not the case. This group was hard core (I was the strongest climber there and overall the strongest rider, but that was to be expected since I was the only one in our group who raced regularly, and by regularly, I mean more than one or two occasional Cat 5 races). This is not a tour for people who cannot handle hard core riding. In fact, this was not a relaxing vacation. This was like training camp. Every day we were up at 7, breakfast by 8 and on the bikes by 9am. We rode no matter what, which meant that we rode up the Col du Telegraphe and the Col du Galibier in the rain, in temps that were around 65ºF at the base and 38ºF at the summit. We descended between Telegraphe and Galibier in the pouring rain. That was fun…trying to get down the mountain as fast as I could so that I could hurry up and start the next climb and warm back up, all the while trying to slow down around the turns and switchbacks because you’re descending in the Alps and it’s pouring rain.
And that was just Day 2.
Col du Telegraphe was fun. It was not terribly steep (most of the Alps are not steep, averaging around 8-9% grades) and it was not terribly long. It took me about 55minutes to go from the base to the summit. For that climb, I had two companions, my husband Andy and this triathlete Eric who was fairly strong on the bike. We chatted and joked and made it to the top and were all like “Woo! Alps! Bring it!”
Climbing the Col du Telegraphe with the Husband (left) and Eric the Triathlete
I have no idea wtf this is, but it's at the summit of the Col du Telegraphe
Then we realized that we had to descend for 11km, then start Galibier, which is longer and steeper and taller. Suddenly the excitement was gone and the task at hand loomed ahead. When we hit the base of Galibier, I turned to my husband and said “Listen. I am cold. I cannot wait for you, I am going up this thing as hard as I can so that I don’t freeze.” And off I went.
Galibier is not a nice mountain. It’s cold, dark, and desolate. It is a menacing, lonely place where nary a tree or a hedge exists to remind you that life does exist outside your little pain cave (I can’t believe I just used the word ‘pain cave’ in a sentence, but it seemed appropriate). On this day, Galibier was shrouded in dense clouds, and a steady rain fell as I made my way up the mountain. There was a group of riders participating in a brevet event who were also making their way up the mountain, and I slowly plodded along, passing them one by one. As I climbed higher on the mountain, the cyclosportif people appeared less frequently, and the only living things I saw were cows and the occasional mountain goat. Eventually, I started to get hungry, so looked for a good place to pull over and eat. I saw a small stone hut like structure on the side of the road, with some cars parked outside and some bikes leaning against it. I pulled over and dug a granola bar out of my pocket. I poked my head into the building, which had no electricity and no heat, and thus was not really much of a shelter from the weather. As it turns out, it was a cheese shop, and from the looks of it the place had been there since at least the 1300s (and from the smell, the cheese had also been there for at least that long). As I was standing there, our tour van pulled in. Lise, one of our tour guides, hopped out and asked me if I needed anything. I said that I was good, just having a snack, and then I admitted that quite honestly, I was not interested in riding back down Galibier and over the Col du Telegraphe again to head back to our hotel. Lise informed me that half of our group had already turned around after summitting Telegraphe and that she would drive the van to the summit of Galibier to wait for anyone who was riding up. Gary, Lise’s husband, was riding with the remains of our group, who were further down the mountain. Lise asked me if I wanted to stop now and get in the van. It was 38ºF and raining, and I was 5km from the summit of Galibier. I do not ride in the rain, ever. I looked at the 5km to go sign, turned to Lise and said “no, I’ll ride up. It’s only 5 more kilometers.”
Up to that point it had been a steady gradient of around 7-9%. The last 5 kilometers were completely fogged in, which was probably a good thing, because had I seen the summit from where I was, I would have gotten in the van. But, I hadn’t seen it, so I was unaware that the last 4km were over 10%. It got colder and rainier and I started questioning if I really could go any further. About 3km from the summit, there is a tunnel that goes through the mountain to the other side. It is closed to cyclists but open to automobile traffic. As I was passing it, a police car slowed and the driver rolled down his window and yelled something to me in French. I just looked at him blankly and continued on. As it turns out, they were telling people to take shelter in the tunnel because the weather was getting bad really fast. They ended up getting 6cm of snow on the summit, and half of the cyclosportif people had to be rescued from the summit. But I just kept riding.
Near the summit, I started to get freaked out. I was climbing up these biblically steep walls with no end in sight. There were no cars, no buildings…nothing. And then I turned a corner, and saw our van, and Lise was standing outside it cheering for me. I looked and saw the summit sign, stood in front of it long enough for Lise to snap a picture, and then I got in the van.
I'd love to tell you it was an amazing view, but all I saw was fog and dirt.
About 15 minutes later Eric the triathlete arrived, and about 10 minutes after him the Husband showed up. By then I had changed into dry clothes and was hanging out in the van. The rest of our group trickled in over the course of the hour.
The Husband
It’s funny, because everyone talks about Alpe d’Huez as being this epically hard stage of the Tour, but as a climb, Alpe d’Huez is not that hard, and if you ride it when the Tour is coming through, it’s like a goddamn party up there with all the people and the Dutch corner and the beer and the names on the road. Alpe d’Huez is very much a festival-like atmosphere, whereas Galibier is more of a festival of lost souls.
Approaching the summit of Col du Galibier...AKA Festival of Lost Souls