Doubts
It seems like ages since I've been out on the road on the bike. Most weekends since the etape have been taken up with doing all the things I couldn't do earlier in the year due to training for Annecy.
The route for the Tour de France has been released, and the etape for this year is back in the Pyrenees, taking in the massive climbs of the Tourmalet and Hautacam. I can imagine that all those planning to do the race this year are getting quite excited now - it should be a great ride (as long as the weather behaves)
Speaking of the Tour de France, I spent the weekend in Paris and took a stroll along the greatest finishing straight in the world, the
Champs Elysees. It's not hard to imagine around 200 cyclists hammering around it at the end of the Tour, but I didn't appreciate how much of a hill there is on it. Especially now that the circuit goes right up to the
Arc de Triomphe. A nasty sting when your trying to maintain a speed of 50-60km/h at the end of 3 weeks riding.
And now I'm back in the UK, and it seems that my bike is permanently connected to the turbo trainer. It's a really good workout, and I get a lot from it, but it's no alternative to getting out on the road and putting the long rides in. And the more time I spend off the bike, the more enormous the task of preparing for, and riding, the Marmotte becomes.
This is really beginning to play on my mind, as as I mentioned at the very start of this blog, I'm prone to not even attempting things which I deem to be out of reach. I need to get into serious training, so that I feel like I'm moving towards my target, not letting it get away.
Then there are the scary aspects of the course, and these are really turning niggling doubts into full-blown paranoia the more I think about them.
Take the first climb of the race up to the
Col du Glandon for example. It's 24km long. That's longer than Ventoux, and much longer than any climb I attempted on the etape. And that's just the first of 4 HC category climbs!
After that there's the descent back to the valley. I'm far from being a great descender, and this part of the course is actually neutralised as they've had many crashes and even fatalities in the past. Gulp.
Into the valley and there's a 15km, slightly uphill, drag to the foot of the Telegraphe. The key here is to get in a group and do as little work as possible, but what if I don't get into a group and have to pull along on my own? My legs could be shot before I get even halfway round.
The Telegraphe doesn't sound
too scary, but it's another long climb which saps the energy just before you get to the big one - Galibier.
Galibier sounds brutal. The second half of the climb averages at around 10%, and gets up to 14-15% in places. Tough on it's own, but with two mountains already behind me I may just pedal to a standstill (how do you say 'put me back on my bike' in French?)
The general consensus is that if you crest Galibier still on your bike, it's a massive milestone as you have a lovely long descent all the way to Bourg d'Osian to recuperate, and you're likely to have ample time to get up Alpe d'Huez, even if you take a break at each one of the fabled 21 hairpins.
But even then there's still so much that can go wrong. As I've said, I'm not the greatest descender, so when you add in fatigue and several dark road tunnels into the equation, coming down off the mountain is fraught with danger. By the time I get over Galibier (if I do) I'll have done as much climbing as in the 2013 etape, and I don't need reminding that I was pretty much on the limit there. So the descent is likely to be quite tense, expending even more precious energy.
Then there's
just the Alpe to go. For the first two hairpins, the gradient averages 11% - nevermind resting at each corner, I may have to stop every 10 metres! After that it will be an utter, painful, delirious, never-ending slog. The internet is awash with stories of Marmotteers collapsing on the Alpe, only to wake up in hospital in Bourg and their finishers medal cruelly snatched away (I've even read of one poor guy collapsing in the town of Huez, having completed the climbing and had less than 1km to go). I have no doubt I'm gonna hate every moment of the Alpe, which is a shame as it's the climb I most want to do. I'll have to come back some time and do it on it's own.
So that's what I'm up against. I always felt I was strong enough to do the Etape, but even that pushed my body to the limit. This looks like a wholly different proposition. And I really am scared.
