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I arrived in Alpe d\u2019Huez at noon, was in bed by 20:00, and, as is typical of these things for me, was wide awake at 04:00. So I got up very early, and headed down on my bike, via the 21 hairpin bends of the famous Alpe d\u2019Huez climb. All being well, I\u2019d repeat the effort, in the reverse direction, in 10 – 14 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were three starting paddocks, and riders were assigned to them according to their own estimated time to complete. I was in the slowest group, the last group to depart, and I was first one into the paddock. But it soon began to fill up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is an interesting situation: people from diverse nations, ages, morphologies, backgrounds, all thrown into the same situation, all thinking very similar thoughts, all looking full of nervous anticipation. And I was no different: I was worried, and just wanted to be off, settled into the saddle, tuning the legs. My calves felt like bags of electric mice. Eventually the security guy, on motorcycle, lead us to our place in the main town square. Someone important – the mayor, I don\u2019t know \u2014 gave a little speech, they counted down from 10, and at last we were off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first bit is pretty flat, we were all bunched together, all moving at approximately the same speed (a bit fast for my liking, being in a crowd), but eventually we spread out, and I found a group going at a speed that suited my target power output.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My whole race strategy was based on power. I wanted to keep below 200W wherever possible, as I believe, for me, this is the pace that best conserves glycogen. In some situations, you just have to go higher: once the slope passes a certain steepness, you run out of gears and if you don\u2019t pedal hard, you fall off. Well, I do, anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other component of the strategy was \u201csteady as she goes\u201d. I wanted my power output to be as stable as I could possibly make it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The flat ends in Allemond, where the El\u00e9ctricit\u00e9 de France (EDF) have created a dam and power generators, called Lac du Verney. The first slope is in fact switchbacks built right into the face of the dam itself. The lake is beautiful, but there wasn\u2019t much time to take in the views, as the road follows the lakeside, is flat, I was in a tight group, and we were moving at pace. Eventually we reached the end of the lake, and turned off, starting the the first big climb to the Col du Glandon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Glandon is a long haul. Towards the beginning there are some ups and downs, with the transition between the two often quite abrupt. You can be sailing along in descent at speed, bottom out, and if you are not prepared, need to shift through your whole range of gears in about 20 metres. I almost fell off when I did this in 2019; second time ready, I almost fell afoul of others who had not anticipated the change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Out of the forest, the climb becomes more regular, which is to my advantage, because my fort\u00e9 is steady going. There is another dam and large lake at around 2000 meters, just after the trees suddenly disappear, and the austere mountains come into view. I passed a Red Cross van attending to a rider, down. They were attaching ECG sensors to his chest, so I guess we were not talking cycling accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n There is a feeding station at the top of the Glandon, and it was chaos: there is not a lot of space up there, as it was early in the race we were all still bunched together, some riders elected to queue up while still holding their bikes which made for traffic jams galore, and it was almost impossible to move about; certainly continuing to ride through was out of the question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I had already formulated my strategy, based on my previous Marmotte. I would skip this feeding station entirely, and walking, passed through the crowds as quickly as I could, found an open patch of tarmac, and suddenly was descending at high speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The route down is spectacular. An early series of closely-spaced, tight hairpins gives way to long, very fast, straightish stretches followed by gentle bends or tight hairpins. Once you get into the forest, these turns are blind, so you remain in doubt as to how much you need to slow down. But I had switched my cycling computer over to map mode, which provides a map of the road ahead. As this part of the route had been closed to traffic, you could be reasonably certain the only upcoming obstacles were heading downhill: your fellow, slower riders. It is rare to be able to descend at such speed with such confidence. It scared me, but I loved it. And felt like I\u2019d saved a lot of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eventually, the route bottomed out, we were in the Maurienne, and so on the (approximately) only long flat bit of the whole course. I found a group once again whose speed met my power requirements, and we made blistering time for the effort involved. That lasted for a good 45 minutes. But I had not yet taken on fuel, and was starting to feel the effects. A big climb was coming up. What to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the Glandon feeding station was chaos last time, this time around I had done my homework: on the internet I had found a boulangerie in Saint Michel de Maurienne, which was on the route, and had called them a few days before to check opening hours. They were good all day Sunday. I was in and out in 2 minutes, a chicken salad sandwich and Orangina in hand. Not particularly high-tech food, but it fuelled the climb that was to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The boulangerie was not much more than 500 metres from the turn-off that headed up towards the Col du T\u00e9l\u00e9graphe, the next big landmark on the route. In the valley, the temperature had hit 36\u00baC, but we were moving at speed so there was a breeze; the climb to the Glandon had been done in cool temperatures; the descent and traverse under minimal to moderate effort. Suddenly, we had to climb in the intense heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Almost all the way up to the T\u00e9l\u00e9graphe, the route is in forest, but that only means sometimes you are in sun, sometimes shade, and mostly you don\u2019t get to decide which. This was the first time I saw people starting to fall away: groups at the side of the road, either looking uniformly tired, or attending to a team mate, who looked far from happy. I was less concerned with these than I was with the lone riders, many of whom were looking thoroughly spent, heads down, clearly beat. But when I asked, they all claimed to be okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a certain amount of gratification to be had at topping out at the T\u00e9l\u00e9graphe, but really, it is a hollow victory: it is not actually a col, just a notch on the shoulder of a mountain where the man-made road transitions from up to down. There was a drinks station there, and then I made the fast descent to Valloire. About half the race\u2019s climbing was now done, and it was about 14:00.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout the race to that point, I was feeling really good, far, far better than I had the first Marmotte. I believed I was well ahead of the pace I had set then, but that was entirely subjective, rather than recalling any of my previous times. But the impression was reinforced by my sense that although I was being passed quite a bit, I myself was passing a lot of people. I never had that sense in the first Marmotte: everyone was going by me, I was going by no-one. So I just had to be faster, didn\u2019t I?<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a feeding station a few kilometres out of Valloire, and I took on a lot of liquid, power gels and energy bars. Then the real climb began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were still a lot of people. We weren\u2019t really riding in bunches, but there was an unbroken chain of cyclists as far as I could see up the route. Once again I had the strong impression of passing lots of riders, probably quite a few more than were passing me. But then I noticed part of the reason: I was passing the same people again and again, which meant, of course, they must have been re-passing me. I hadn\u2019t noticed that before. As I was sticking religiously to my strategy of keeping a steady power output of as close to 180W as I could, they must have been doing a lot of slow-fast or stop-start. Once I cottoned on to this, it was easy to confirm. A guy would go by me, often at quite a clip, possibly standing off the saddle, then I would see him again, looking really bushed, at the side of the road, or I would pass him as he wobbled onwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks to long conversations with BW, I had absolutely no doubt my strategy was the right one: grinding away at a steady pace is not much fun, and perhaps doesn\u2019t pass the time as well as marking someone out ahead, and seeing how quickly you can catch them. It reminded me of an old ad for the Volkswagen Beetle. The catchline went, \u201cIt\u2019s ugly, but it gets you there\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I got to the top of the Galibier with not all that much time to spare before the cut (if you are not there by 16:00, they pull you from the race). This surprised me, as all the while I was feeling much better than last time, and therefore assumed I was travelling much faster. But it could not be so: I made the cut last time, as well. Mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/a>