Bicycle Diaries 3
Monday
July 10 Day
Gap
to Alpe d’Huez. L’Etape du Tour 190 kms.
Stage
15, Le Tour de France 2006.
This
is the Etape route.
We
are in the cars headed for Gap 80 kms away, and it’s
4.30 am and we are ready to do this Etape event. We
stop
in
a backstreet of Gap, say “see you at Alpe
d’Huez” to
the Clusterettes and ride off to the start.
There are a few others there and we wait for the start. These were in
front.
Everyone’s
thoughts are different. we all have
printouts in our pockets of times to get a silver
medal. Gerald and I
are
thinking
we can do this but we don’t want to get there
in either an ambulance or a bus. We asked this Aussie was
he
looking
forward to Alpe d’Huez? Was he
confident?
The
mood is good, much better than 2 days ago, which
had people heading for bike shops to get compacts or more
cogs.
Simon
fitted a 27; Gerald and Mike have saved 300 Euros
and stayed with a 27 deciding against compacts.
Confident
move! I’ve got the sneaky 30 and Pete’s on
compacts which is practically cheating and he’s even
fitted carbon
fibre
bidon
cages. It’s too late now and we are off, or
we heard a start but we can’t move and it takes us
20 minutes to cross the
line. Simon’s disappeared, so have Mike and Pete,
they’re on a mission.
It’s a beautiful day, a beautiful ride, almost an anti climax. Gerald and I shoot along overtaking continuously slipping by people
with
accents from all
round the world and shirts of all kinds. And every bike is a
Look, Orbea or Ridley. Gerald’s got
the only Cytek.
We roll into Guillestre, can’t stop for coffee this time, fill the water bottles after shouldering a couple of hundred road blockers
out of the way and off again. Off towards the Col d’Izoard.
Up
the road to Arvieux we feel like old hands,
we
know what’s ahead; top up our bottles from our
friendly fountain and head for the summit of Izoard.
This
time we ride really well passing hundreds and
hundreds of riders
shouldering
a few hundred out of the way as we go. I’m now
starting to feel that these blockers all have
an English or an American accent. Bloody tourists!
We’ve
got to get going.
We rocket past Napoleon’s Refuge and fly down the descent. Hey, we find that we are bloody good at this. All our training and
Boot Camp means that we are great descenders and we flash down to Briancon. No-one passes us. Gerald and I have a bit of a
chat as we go and someone slides by and then we pass them straight back. “Adios amigo” or should I say “toodlepip old chum”.
It’s fantastic.
Into Briancon 106 kms done and some food and out again. This is an elimination zone and you have to be here by 1 pm and it’s
just after
12 noon… we are looking good but there’s 2 big
mountain climbs to go. Through Briancon they send us up the
road to the old
town and it’s practically vertical.
It
is 30 bloody kms from here and it’s all uphill, not
even a dip. It’s not too steep until the last 4 kms but it
grinds
and
grinds. We are lucky there’s no headwind if there
was there would be bodies on the side of the road.
Everyone’s
got their head down cranking away; there are
no overweight people around here. Anyone with any
bulk
is way back. Up ahead someone is knocked off their
bike…someone changed lanes without indicating but
it’s
uphill so no damage done. Gerald spots a sping so
we dive in for cold water straight off the snow. It’s great
and
we head for Laurtaret. It’s big country, vast
vistas and you can see the road for 5 or more kms ahead.
There’s
an avalanche tunnel near the summit and you can
see it for a bloody hour before you get there.
Finally
we are near the top but again it’s deceptively
steep or are the legs starting to go with Alpe d’Huez still
far
ahead?
This is near the top looking back towards
Briancon.
We
make it to the top, I was starting to get very sick
of that hill but Gerald waves me over because he’s
spotted another
spring we
have to fill up from. More great
water and we’re off with 137 kms done. This is the top
It’s
40 kms from here to the base of Alpe d’Huez at
Bourg D’Oisan and I know most of it’s downhill.
There’s an
elimination point there
and we have to beat 4 pm.
The descent is ridiculous, the speeds are fantastic; we pass
and pass and pass.
It’s
like race track and it goes forever and ever
through tunnels, over dams and under glaciers. It’s
unreal…but; hang on, just a few kms short of Bourg
D’Oisan it goes uphill and it’s steep. What’s
this; I’m saving myself for Alpe d’Huez. No
problem, by now we are mountain men and this is hardly
anything, and then after a flat speed drag into
town we arrive at the base of the most famous climb
in cycling in the World. This is it! At
176 kms we ride into the feed zone, grab stuff,
refill the bottles and look at our watch. We are an hour ahead,
it’s 3 pm; cut off is 4 pm now all we have to is
get to the top before 6 pm the cut off for the whole race. We
can do this! Time is not the issue and we roll out
along the dead flat approach. Gerald and I have not been here;
we know nothing but stories. Mike, Simon and Peter
drove up here a couple of days ago and they have only just
got the colour back in their cheeks this morning.
It scared them! The
hill starts and now I know why; it’s a wall of
bitumen, it’s 12 % for 2 kms and 7.9 % for 14.5 kms. The only
thing that
drops the % is that the hairpins flatten right out
and there are 21 of them. If you took them out it would be about
10 % all the way. It faces west; someone said it
was nearly 40C degrees and I’m thinking this is the Alpine Bloody
Classic all over again. But it’s ok, I got the
30 working and while it’s bad it hasn’t got me yet.
My heart rate is OK, relatively
speaking. We crank through the 2 kms and
it’s carnage all around us.
People
are walking in the hundreds. These people are
all skinny, with shaved legs, 25 years old and wheeling $10,000
carbon bikes and even though we are only going
a bit faster we roll by. Not long after Gerald says to go ahead
as his heart rate is reading in the 1000’s and he
thinks that might be a bit high. Mine’s
ok…it’s the 30 cog looking
after me. I roll up the hill, passing people
all the time. I’m now thinking I’ll make it and the
only thing that can stop
me is a massive cramp, which is always on the
cards. There are people lying on their backs on the side of the road
with their legs up in cramp. I
stop at a melting snow stream (here there are
buildings up on the mountain so the water could be polluted) and
think that this water could kill me tomorrow, then
I think if I don’t drink it I could die today. I
chuck down some salt and I’ve been dropping salt
tablets and Endura into water bottles all day and I’m off up the
hill as fresh as I can be. It just climbs and
climbs and climbs. This photo is about half way up. You
see some ski apartments above and think that’s it
but it’s not and you keep going and going then at last you
find a sign and it says 4 kms to the summit. I’m
thinking that’s one Mooney Hill or one Akuna to the Top Gate;
I
can do that ok but I’m getting sick of this. I’m
still passing people, one guy has his bike over his shoulder and is cutting
across country but it takes too long to walk up
this thing and beat the cut off; you have to be riding. Into the village
and this is really it! It stops climbing and I
start sprinting to finish this sucker and around the famous left hand bend
to the finish and it’s uphill again so I slump
back down and ride over the line. I think about a Robbie McEwen wheel
stand but I can’t even do them on the flat so I
just finish. Corrected time for me is 9 hours 57 minutes; my goal was
10 hours and I couldn’t be happier. It’s done! Gerald
turns up a little later which is fantastic. I
stagger over and find the others. Mike has done brilliantly and is beaming
widely and talking wildly. Il Falco is relaxed;
he’s be there so long he’s changed. Pete the
Queenslander finished
20 minutes behind Simon and they both got
silver medals, which is exceptional. Mike just missed and he, Gerald
and I got bronze medals. But we’re too modest to
wear them…
