Things have been quiet on the building front with most of my guys away on holiday, but that’s given me time to catch up with other stuff and we’ve got some interesting project ideas that are cooking up nicely.
Recent outdoors activity has predictably involved a lot of cycling – on road bikes and mountain bikes. Maybe a bit too much cycling, if I’m honest. The legs don’t feel right and I think I need to reassess my training programme.
We had a great day out recently doing downhill mountain biking in Tignes. This has really taken off and Tignes is offering a free summer season pass for all the lifts. Can’t say fairer than that. It’s all single track and great fun, but it’s a serious sport now and some of them absolutely fly down the mountain – literally – so you have to keep checking back over your shoulder to make sure there isn’t some airborne nutter sailing over it.
I’m doing a 140km ride with the club on Sunday, almost to Grenoble and back, but it should be relatively relaxed. Coming up though is the Tour de Mont Blanc, which is a 320km race over 2 days, taking in France, Italy and Switzerland with 9000m of vertical climbing. I’m doing it as a bit of a recce for next year’s cycle camp.
I finally managed the day out enduro biking which I’d wanted to do for ages with my friend who runs the Mountain Pro Shop near Albertville. He took me out around the back side of Beaufortin and we covered a huge area, most of which I’ve never seen and we didn’t see another soul all day. I’ve got a feeling that my friend may have been born on a bike as he took me over some really tough, technical stuff – I fell off within the first five minutes and then continued to do so regularly throughout the day. I was sore and bruised.
It’s been a great week with the cycle camp guys staying at Chalet Merlo. On Tuesday we cycled up to the top of Col de la Madeleine ahead of the Tour to get a (small) sense of what the Tour racers put themselves through. We had an outside table booked for 18 for lunch with the best vantage point to see the Tour coming through. The guys were blown away to get such a great view. It was also good to watch from the comfort of our own table as we were there for four hours.
We totted up 300km cycling over Tuesday and Wednesday and I think the cycle camp guys have had a blast. It’s my last day cycling with them tomorrow.
I got my official time and placing for La Marmotte: 8 hours dead – I’d timed 8 hours, 17 mins but they don’t count the time for a particularly dangerous downhill section; I was placed 1,157 out of approximately 7,000.
Camping above Sainte Foy
The camping with my son last Friday night was a roaring success – will definitely be going again. We rode our motorbikes up to a flat spot next to a stream well above Sainte Foy, made a fire, cooked dinner over it, played a game of cards and then went to bed. We cooked breakfast over the fire and were back home by 10 in the morning. Simple stuff, but my lad absolutely loved it – you can’t beat open-fire cooking and brushing your teeth in a mountain stream.
It’s the furthest I’ve ever raced and the highest I’ve ever climbed and there was plenty of suffering. The official race results haven’t been declared yet as there were so many competitors but I did it in 8 hours and 17 mins. Not as good as I’d hoped but it was a hot day and quite a few of the guys came in around 11 hours.
The 5000m climb is the equivalent of rising from sea level to the summit of Mont Blanc. The last section of the race was torture – a 1000m climb into Alpe d’Huez in the blazing sunshine.
I’m told that on such a beautiful day the cols were a thing to behold but I couldn’t see through the cascades of sweat going into my eyes.
Anyway, I did it. I have been on the bike this week but the legs weren’t working very well. Guess it’ll take a while to recover.
The guys from the Bethel Cycle Club in the US start arriving tomorrow for their cycle camp stay at Chalet Merlo. One of the guys wants to have a go at the time trial over the col in Val d’Isère on Sunday, and then on Tuesday the whole group will be cycling from Chalet Merlo to Col de la Madeleine to watch Le Tour fizz past on the hors categorie climb.
The guys have a contact in the Liquigas team so on Wednesday we’ll cycle from Albertville to Chambéry and we’ll get to hang out in their start area and meet the cyclists. Really looking forward to the whole week.
Tonight, my son and I are going up into the mountains on our motorbikes with a tent to do a bit of wild camping – he wants to take his catapult and we’ll light a fire, but we’ll more likely be heating up a tin of spag bol than roasting a freshly-shot marmot.
Well, this weekend is the big one. 5000m vertical ascent. All the training and racing so far this season has been building up to this… hoping to have some decent race stats to report back next week.
In La Grand Bo last week there were 270 racers in the 100km course and I came 70th with an average speed of 29.4kph, and 8th in my category.
The weather has had a turn for the better – it’s been beautiful this week. Have been really busy with clients asking about chalets and building projects so been racing around meeting, looking and quoting.
Took advantage of the weather and got some training in on the bike, so all set up for the race tomorrow – La Grand Bo in Le Grand Bornand, Haute Savoie. Bit of a hike to get there, so taking the family and staying the night. They might even cheer me on a bit.
A catch-up for the last two weekends’ worth of cycle races: I came 10th in my category in the Cluses to Les Carroz race; 129th overall – about mid-table, which is where I seem to keep coming in the smaller races at the moment (I fare better in the larger races).
In the weekend just gone the race was in Morzine (one of this year’s Tour stages). It was the biggest climb so far this year, 3700m of misery in absolutely diabolical conditions. It was cold and we actually had snow coming down on the first col at 1750m. In June.
There was a pretty low turnout of competitors because of the weather but the ambulances were still kept busy with racers suffering from hypothermia. I’ll say it again. In June.
The course included the Col de Jouxplane, where Lance Armstrong bonked a couple of years back and I wasn’t far off doing that too. I finished the 160km race in 7 hours, 8 minutes.
The progressively bigger climbs are leading up to the big cyclosportif event in a couple of weeks – Marmotte, which is a 5000m climb.
Have included a video below from recent la Beaume to Drobie race.
The day’s racing on the Megève Mont Blanc started out okay with about 3000 competitors but there were quite a few crashes and, tragically, one of the cyclists died when he went off the road and into a ravine. That race was completed but they cancelled the remaining race. You really fly down the hills and there’s always a risk of crashing, but it was a very sobering experience.
I’ve attached a couple of photos, the first of me looking fairly fresh, the second, on an uphill section, looking a little less fresh.
I’m up tomorrow at about 5am to get to Cluses on the other side of Chamonix. The race runs to Les Carroz.
I’m racing on Sunday in the Megève Mont Blanc cycle race, basically a whizz up and down a few of the local cols – about 2500m worth of climbing.
There’s a choice of races in terms of difficulty and I’m plumping for the middle one as I’m still struggling with my training after feeling out of sorts last week. The Virtual Competitor on the Garmin is a major help, though, and me and my cycling mates are hooked on it.
You can race against yourself on a route you’ve previously done, brilliant for pushing yourself on days when you don’t have a training partner, and you can swap routes with mates so that you can race one another. Then, to see it all in glorious technicolour, you can upload to GPSies and trace your route through the mountains in 3D.
The Col du Petit Saint-Bernard is now open so we’re looking to take the motorbikes over the top and into the Aosta Valley (Italy) this weekend. Today and tomorrow look dreadful, weather-wise, so Sunday might be the only window.
Last weekend in the Ardèche Gorge was great and the kids absolutely loved the canoeing and camping. I thoroughly recommend it – you take your own camping gear and stick it in waterproof barrels (proved their worth when we capsized) and you set off down the river and pitch camp when you fancy. There was a good variety of gentle paddling and some frantic rapids (where the capsizing occurred). Next time we might start higher up the river and take a longer run at it.
I did the bike race with a friend, a 2500m vertical climb over 135km, and all was going fine until the final, uphill section where I got horrendous cramps. Had to get off the bike to writhe around on the side of the road for a bit, which kind of spoiled my race, and I’ve not felt all that clever for the rest of this week, which is not good as I need to keep training for upcoming races.
Got back from holiday to find it snowing! Bit of a shock after a week of Caribbean sunshine but good to be home. We’re off to the Ardèche Gorge this weekend for the first bike race of the season. It’s 135km with a bit of vertical thrown in. We’ll be camping and doing some canoeing too, so hoping for good weather…
