2011 Etape du Tour Act 1

This is Act 1 of the two Etapes du Tour being run this year. It’s basically a half a Marmotte, kind of, as it runs from Modane to L’Alpe d’Huez via the Télégraphe and Galibier. This is handy as I can use the figures from my Marmotte to guestimate some average speeds with a bit more aggressive riding over the shorter distance.

The course

As it follows the same route and I am focused more on a stronger performance I don’t have any pics or videos along the way. Frankly you could imagine the scene as pretty much the same as the Marmotte blog. The same number of starters, 7,000 and the same long line of suffering snaking their way up those long climbs. Here are a few snaps taken from my pen #4 while waiting for the start in Modane. Check out that line way off into the distance behind – if you squint! (sorry only iPhone resolution)

Rider up front

Riders waiting behind - way behind!

But let’s backtrack a bit and paint a picture of how the day unfolded. The alarm is set for 4:45 which should have me in the car by 5 for the 90 minute drive over the Col du Glandon and down to Modane for a 7am start. But, as usual, I wake early, 4:15. That’s only 4.5hrs sleep – bugger! No point in lying there and I figure the sooner I get over there and find a park the better as the start town is always bedlam. By the time I’m dressed, sunscreened and lanolined 😉 and packed into the car it’s 4:50 anyway – would have been late as usual!

The drive there is a bit full on with plenty headlights dipping in and out of view as we wind our way up and over the Glandon in the wee hours of dawn. It’s a bit difficult with all the spinning of the steering wheel but I manage to eat the baguette and banana I’ve packed for breakfast and wash it down with a cold coffee in a bottle. I drove this route on Friday especially to scope out the route so why did I get off the freeway at exit 29 instead of 30? Let’s put some pressure on! So now I’m driving through Saint-Michelle-de-Maurienne behind a tractor with no idea how far to get to a safe park. I’m leaving the car overnight and am scared it’ll be stripped by the side of the road when I come to collect it next day.

Argh! The further I go the more the road is filling with cyclists all heading in one direction. When I get to within 4km of Modane there are so many people being dropped off that I become afraid I won’t get a park at all and will have to do a U-turn and waste more time. So I pull into the next spot marked “P” – a mere siding by the roadside and manage to take the last spot available.

I quickly saddle up and join the growing peloton of riders heading for town. Most of the pens are already full and I get channeled into my spot thankfully seeded forward this year so I won’t have to wait too long. However, as it happens they leave even longer between the groups so it is still 35 minutes before we are go. The last riders surely would be over an hour waiting. That’s a big buffer and painful for them waiting in the cold.

The run out of Modane is downhill so we’re zooming along at a nice pace. As I started at the back of my pen I didn’t have to contend with hotshots coming through from behind and was able to roll along nicely all the way to Saint-Michelle-de-Maurienne.  Zipping through the town with full access to the road carefully controlled by police on every intersection is really something awesome. Closed roads all the way to Alpe d’Huez! Can it get any better?

So the first split of 16km is completed with an average speed of 45.5kph. The climb all the way to the summit of the Galibier is uneventful. I’m simply focused on keeping a steady tempo with a bit more urgency than during the Marmotte. I’d hoped to average 12+kph for the Télégraphe and actually managed a tad over 13Kph so things were looking good. I’ve already consumed one of the pain au chocolât that I’ve packed and been steadily sucking on the gel bottle to keep ahead of the energy depletion.  A very brief stop at the water station refilled both bidons with fresh mountain H2O.

The most fantastic section of the ride was the descent off the Galibier and especially from the Col du Lautaret where the road is much smoother. Absolutely spectacular sweeping and fast using all the closed road swapping turns with two big guys who obviously really know their stuff. In the past descents have been dodgy due to uncomfortable descenders having started in front of you. With this new seeding system based on previous performances that problem is almost completely resolved.

The only problem – really BIG problem – was the tunnels. There are a number of them on this descent and I had discovered during the Marmotte that it is essential to remove sun glasses before entering or you can’t see a thing. A group of about 30 of us blasted into one of them at over 50kph to be greeted with desperate shouts – SLOW! BRAKING! @#$% in French! Someone ahead had obviously freaked out and hit the brakes causing serious danger for those following. Fortunately, thanks to the skill of the riders round me we managed to settle the pace and rolled carefully through. The later tunnels were treated with greater caution with bigger gaps between us.

So, the 48km from the summit of the Galibier down 2,000m to Le Bourg d’Oisans is completed in just over an hour, average speed of 45kph for an hour! Too much fun! Max speed was 71.2kph – off the bit! On the valley floor I sat in with a bunch of about 50 riders being sucked along at 35kph and took the opportunity to devour the last banana and prepare mentally for the final challenge, l’Alpe d’Huez…. mecca of pain.

And so it proved to be again for me. In spite of good early pace I found the final 6km very tough. I was still passing a lot of riders but as also getting passed myself so it was hard to judge the reality of my pace. Best I could do was grind on and ride the threshold of suffering. At least it wasn’t as desperate or nauseous as for the Marmotte and I managed to shave off 5 minutes or so form that time. 1:27 is not a PB (that’s more like 1:05) but after the day’s efforts I had to be happy. Once through the cafés I drove hard for the final kilometer and up to the TdF finish line to join the throng of spent but elated rouleurs.

J'arrive!

So that’s it for the report as such. Here’s a few extra thoughts about the ride that you can skip if you’re over it already.

To me the big thing, challenge if you like, about these rides is the planning and execution – how well I achieve this is reflected in the results to a degree but one can gain a lot of satisfaction from the way you managed your ride as much as where you finished in the bunch. I don’t just mean the forward planning of what to carry, food, drink, clothing, short gloves long gloves and so on. As Robbie McEwen says, it’s not how much energy you expend on a race, it’s how much you conserve. The ideal is to arrive a spent force having left it all out there on the road. This requires continuing assessment of how you’re feeling and making a judgement call on how much you’ve got left to give.  Will another suck on the gel bottle make the difference?  Have you drunk enough or too much liquid? How many ‘natural breaks’

That said, here’s some Official stats:
Time    05:27:47
Climb of l’Alpe d’Huez 01:26:44

Ranking 1,595 out of 7,000 starters – 6443 finishers.

I placed 243 of 1,251 in the 50 – 59 age group.

Two 50 year olds in the top 10!  The guy who won our category came in 8th overall – incredible! Well literally?  Who knows? He had 03:48 overall time with 50min flat for l’Alpe. If I’d been able to get up the Alpe that fast (take off 30 min) my time would still have been 5hrs, over an hour behind this guy. Just very impressed by these riders.

6443 finished within the time limit. Fastest time 03:39:10 from a C Grader!  Let’s see how that compares with the pros next week.

Overview

Splits

Profile vs Time

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/98498862