Geneva August 2017. After 7 stages, many tears and lots of physio tape holding up various bits of my body I swore I would never do another 7 day Haute Route again. However, in March the offer of a free entry courtesy of Eco Team Ne Jetez Plus, in return for working the kit check at registration day and promoting the “Do Not Litter” message during the event, to both HR Norway, and then followed by the Alps just a few weeks later seemed too good to turn down! And so now, 2 years later, the start line of another week long HR is just 7 days away, this time in a North to South direction, starting in Megève and finishing in Nice. Eight stages in 7 days, over 800km and 20000 metres of climbing.
Last time, I was plagued by injury – neck and shoulder pain with pins and needles down my arm meant that for weeks I was unable to ride outside properly – however this meant that I was more focussed and my training more structured on the turbo as a result. I then randomly developed knee pain on the very first climb of Stage 1 which then threatened to derail my whole event for the rest of the week.
This time round I’m definitely feeling much more relaxed (maybe too relaxed?). Consequently my training has been less structured. I am probably less fit compared to 2 years ago, but hopefully mentally much stronger having completed it once before. I will also miss the camaraderie of having LD team mates this time – with Mark Gray and Alex Donaldson starting the 5 day Swiss Epic MTB race in Davos on Tuesday, and Mark Noblet fighting an even bigger challenge of his own at the moment.
HR Norway at the beginning of August was a great training block with 3 days of spectacular riding amongst the fjords near Stavanger. I felt fit and strong throughout the weekend except I now appear to be taking a long time to recover as my legs have turned to jelly since my return 2 weeks ago.
Looking at this year’s stages in the Alps, the one which is worrying me the most at the moment is Stage 4 – Alpe d’Huez to the Col du Granon. It doesn’t look like much on paper – just 80km and 2800m of climbing. However it is a long drag for 25km up the Lautaret where it will be vital to be in a group, and the Granon is a brute – an average of 8.5% over 12km with a kilometre of over 10% halfway up. This is where I was within 20 minutes of missing the time cut off on Stage 2 in 2017 after loitering for too long at the feed stations during the day (I also swore that I would never do the Granon ever again, such was my misery when climbing it). The Granon stage comes the day after the Queen stage where we will tackle the Madeleine, Glandon (both from the tougher North side) and then Alpe d’Huez with a total of 4600m of climbing. So the legs will be particularly tired and heavy.
My main goal over the next few days is to try to adjust my body clock in order to be ready for Friday’s 630am flight from Gatwick!
Registration day
A 3am alarm to catch the early flight to Geneva meant that I was fast asleep by 1945 yesterday evening. I don’t think I’ve been asleep that early since age 5!
After a solid 10 hour sleep the day began with dragging my bike bag 1.5km downhill to the HR village in the centre of Megève over cobbled pavements to load it into the lorries. Not fun. It’ll be 7 days before I see it again in Nice.
The weather in the mountains can change very quickly and so every rider is supposed to have 5 mandatory items of kit – helmet, overshoes, leg warmers, long gloves and winter jacket. This is the 3rd time I’ve worked the kit check at a HR. It never ceases to amaze me how many people turn up to the mandatory kit check without their kit.
Tip for anyone doing a HR in the future – everyone turns up first thing in the morning to register and pick up their kit bags and jerseys resulting in long queues practically stretching out of the sports centre. Wait until the late afternoon – it’s much much quieter.
Standing around for several hours at the kit check and getting all 500 or so participants to sign up to the sustainability charter (time penalties if caught littering!) probably wasn’t the most restful way to spend the day before the start of Stage 1. However it was great fun meeting everyone with familiar faces from previous events including a few from Norway just 3 weeks ago. Although what is not so fun is seeing how seriously fit and lean everyone else looks and wishing I had spent a few more hours on the bike. Too late now!
So – kit all prepped, bottles are made up, and the bike is ready. Not sure about the legs however.
Stage 1: Megève to Megève (97km/2600m)
After a restless night it was a 530am alarm for the 730am start.
Stage 1 started with a neutralised start to the bottom of Bettex, the first climb. Because the first 8km was narrow and gravelly in places the organisers started separating us into pens of about 100 people for a staggered start, much to the consternation of those who arrived late, those who wanted to be in the “front group”, and those who had been separated from their friends. Cue lots of passing of bikes over the barriers and sneaking under the tape when the organisers were distracted in order to gain a few valuable seconds (which actually didn’t matter anyway as timing didn’t start for another 8km).
It was nice starting on familiar roads, and the first 2 climbs – Bettex and Plateau d’Assy – were ones I already knew well from having spent nearly a month in the St Gervais area during my year off in 2015.
Whilst descending Plateau d’Assy I quickly identified a rider with an appropriate build to act as an unwitting domestique for 20km valley section. Important to conserve energy when you can! Going over a bump something fell from his bike which was then crushed by his back wheel. Within seconds he had pulled over to the side of the road with a mechanical. As a result I ended up starting along the valley road by myself. Luckily within several minutes a guy called Angus (we are all wearing numbered bins with our names on them) came steaming past with a Spanish guy on his wheel so I quickly jumped on. We picked up a few more along the way and Angus was more than happy towing along our little group – “I may as well do what I’m good at” is what he said. Thank you Angus!
We waved him good bye and left him at the start of the next climb up La Cry and from then on it was pretty much constant climbing (bar one short neutralised descent of a few km) all the way to Megève, cruelly past the race village, to finish up another 8km climb to the Cote 2000 above Megève.
So overall a nice and relatively gentle start to the HR with beautiful views of Mont Blanc for much of the ride. It was a real novelty to be eating lunch at lunchtime – the more usual HR stages usually sees me eating lunch sometime in the mid to late afternoon. It is also nice to not have the stress of moving to a new hotel in a new town tonight.
However today was the first and last short stage (except for the ITT which comes on Stage 5) – from tomorrow onwards the epicness scale ramps up.
Some random stats
Number of climbs – 5
Food consumed – 5 bottles, 3 raw velo bars, 2 crackers, several cubes of cheese, 3 slices of salami
Random things seen – 5 hot air balloons, 1 wedding
Number of times someone commented on seeing a Dynamo outside of Richmond Park – 2
Stage 2: Megève to Courchevel (Col de la Loze) (123km/3300m)
After a relatively gentle Stage 1, The HR officially became epic today. The day started by climbing over the Saisies, a long descent and then a hot slightly upward drag into the headwind with some manic and surgy group riding in the valley, past Albertville and the turn off to the Madeleine (tomorrow’s breakfast treat), over another energy sapping 8km climb called Montagny before today’s main event – the 24 km climb to Courchevel.
By now it was really hot. And the climb seemingly endless – each kilometre marker seemed to take an age to appear. My legs were so trashed by now after the valley riding that I wondered several times how slow I could spin without falling over. One guy said to me as he passed me (as everybody else seemed to do) how easy I made it look as I was “so light” on the pedals – because my legs were exerting very little power. Trying to keep in a group in the valley had well and truly killed them off.
However the finish line wasn’t in Courchevel 1850, the highest of the 6 villages, but on the Col de la Loze at 2304m, via the newly opened 6km road for cyclists only which links over into Meribel (and tackled by the Tour de l’Avenir several days ago). As the road opened this summer, the tarmac was beautiful and smooth. However as it’s for bikes only, the road builders dispensed with niceties such as the need for hairpin corners – what followed were ramps of up to 16%, an absolute killer with 3000m of climbing in the legs already. Halfway up I stopped just to check if my brakes were rubbing – nope!
The views from the top were spectacular however! It’s a climb which should be on every cyclist’s bucket list – it’s beautiful and tough – but it joins a select list of climbs* I never ever want to do again.
And today was just leg loosener for tomorrow’s Queens stage.
*Climbs I never want to do again – the Granon, the Mortirolo, the Muro Di Sormano, and now the Col de la Loze.
Stage 3: Courchevel to Alpe d’Huez (144km/4500m)
Stage 3. The biggie. Three of the biggest HC climbs in the Alps – the Madeleine, the Glandon and a summit finish on Alpe d’Huez. The strategy for today was all about survival. And pacing the first 2 climbs whilst making sure I was fed and hydrated in order to arrive at the bottom of the Alpe with reasonably ok legs. For me the crux was definitely the Glandon, particularly the last 4km which average 10%. From the top of the Glandon onwards I was back on very familiar territory that I know so well from many years of summer trips in the area.
Luckily it wasn’t as hot as we feared it could be as Alpe d’Huez can be like a furnace in the afternoon. Today actually felt better than yesterday even though there was considerably more climbing – I think in hindsight the manic group riding in the hot valley yesterday killed my legs and I didn’t eat or drink enough. Nine hours on the bike today. But today was a great day and I felt I got the pacing, nutrition and hydration strategy right.
Food consumed – 7 bottles, 3 Raw Velo bars, half a packet of Percy Pigs, several potatoes and cubes of cheese, a few bits of salami,4 crackers and 2 gels.
Stage 4: Alpe d’Huez to Col du Granon (Serre Chevalier) (80km/2400m)
Stage 4. From the Alpe over the Sarenne, a drag up the Lauteret and a summit finish on the Granon. The shortest stage (bar tomorrow’s ITT) and the one I’ve been dreading since this year’s route was announced several months ago.
The Col du Granon and I have history – in 2017 it was almost my undoing as I ended up being within 20mins of the cut off after spending too much loitering at the top of the Izoard, and the suffering in the sun and the heat up the relentlessly steep 10km climb with no shade, no hairpins to spin and recover.
The other reason why I have been dreading today was the 24km drag up to the Col du Lauteret. It’s a busy road that links Bourg d’oisans with Briancon. On previous visits I’ve seen many a cyclist toiling up on their way to the Galibier and it’s a climb that has never appealed to me.
At a gradient of only 3-5% for most of it (it steepens 6-7% towards the top) I knew that being in a group would make a huge difference. Unfortunately my worst fears were realised – with legs tired from the first 3 stages it was a toss up between sticking with a group and risking blowing up the legs before the Granon, or losing time by battling solo into a headwind. In the end the fear of the Granon meant that I opted for the latter. I spent a rather miserable an hour and a half, often by myself, trying to hold any wheels that came by for as long as I could but letting them go before doing too much damage.
A lovely swooping descent into Serre Chevalier valley followed. In the end, after the misery of the Lauteret, climbing the Granon wasn’t any where as bad as I feared – it helped that it was a cool day. It firmly remains on my list of climbs I never want to do again however!
And finally, tomorrow is the “rest day” – just an ITT up the Izoard after breakfast.
Stage 5: Izoard ITT (19km/1200m)
The rest day – just a 19km ITT up the Col du Izoard. I finally managed to have my first decent night’s sleep since Stage 1. And with a 930am start time instead of the usual 7am we also got a lie in! But even so, when I woke up I didn’t particularly feel like doing a massive hill climb TT.
Surprisingly good legs (for day 5), perfect weather and spectacular scenery to distract from the pain soon changed that! Today was the best stage yet. It was one of those days which made me feel extremely lucky to be out here in the Alps doing what I love. And I gained 2 places in the women’s GC.
As we started down the ramp in reverse GC order, as an extra bonus we got to see the faster guys TTing up whilst descending back to the race village in Briancon. Thanks to summit finishes, all week I’ve been seeing faster finishers cycling down whilst I have been toiling up. Today it was my turn to shout out “useful” advice such as “keep going”, “not long now”, “looking strong”.
A shorter day meant that I also finally managed to catch up on some sleep in the afternoon. We are also staying a second night in Briancon which is great as it takes away a lot of the stress of a daily change in hotel, packing and unpacking etc.
Two left.
Stage 6: Briancon to Pra Loup (104km/2300m)
I felt really weary for the first two-thirds. It didn’t help the stage started with another frenetic group ride down the valley, but punctuated by some climbs including the punchy and little known Col du Pallon – only 1.8km but at 10%. Luckily I had a wheel or two to follow for most of it even if my legs were too tired to stick with the bigger groups. The 19km climb up Vars was a slog. However from then onwards, things picked up! I made sure that I left the feed station before a few of the stronger people who had overtaken me on the way up and started the technical descent alone, hoping they would catch me by the time I reached the lower slopes of the Vars for the valley section towards the bottom of Pra Loup. And sure enough they did – what then followed was the most fun part of the HR so far – being in fast and cooperative chain gang and overtaking other groups in the valley. By now it was really hot – luckily Pra Loup is only a 6km climb.
It was a nice short day – we were finished by 1230. Preparing for a HR is obviously a lot of time on the bike for the several months leading up to it. What may be less obvious and just as important is how you spend your time when off the bike. Every day, as soon as you cross the finish line it doesn’t mean you can now relax, for this is when the second part of the “race” begins – recovery drink straight away, booking in for your massage (everybody gets 15 minutes), having lunch, then shower and massage. Next it’s off to the hotel (you have to find it first; I’ve been lucky in that my hotels have been within a kilometre of the race village; one some days people have had to ride another several kms), find your bag, check in. Wash kit, wash bottles. Prepare kit and bottles for the next day. If you’re lucky maybe there will be time for a short nap. Then it’s the 1830 briefing, dinner, repack bag and sleep ASAP before the alarm goes off at 5am. The more organised and efficient you are, the more time and energy you save and the more recovery time you have.
So – just one day left. “Just” the Cime de la Bonette and a few other lumps and bumps between us and the finish line on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice tomorrow.
Stage 7A Pra Loup to St-Étienne-de-Tinée / Stage 7B St-Étienne-de-Tinée to Nice (193km/3700m)
Final day – it’s all downhill to Nice from here, right?
None of us really paid much attention to Stage 7 when the road book arrived. Sure – we knew that it was split into 2 stages, and that the first part involved going over the Cime de La Bonnette which at 2802m is the highest road in Europe. It only started dawning on us mid week, after getting through the epic Stage 3, and the Stage 5 ITT, just how hard and how long Stage 7 was going to be – in fact the longest of all the stages in terms of distance.
There was no lie in for the last morning – we had the earliest start of all – 645am sharp from the top of Pra Loup. First up was the mighty Bonnette – a long climb at over 23km but thankfully no steep gradients until the final km (the “cime” bit).
Out of all the climbs this week, I enjoyed this one the most. How could you not – just look at these views…
By the time I got to the top I really felt invincible! A strange feeling that I’ve never had on the bike before. And somehow, even though it was day 7, that’s how I felt for the rest of the stage.
A long neutralised descent into St-Étienne-de-Tinée followed where we all regrouped for the start of stage 7B at 1045. I only just had enough time to refill my bottles, reorganise my food and grab some cheese and crackers before it was time to go again.
More valley riding! Unlike the rest of the week I even enjoyed this part. I managed to cling onto a massive group going at 67kph down the valley. A few km from the bottom of the next climb (Col de St Martin) just as we turned a sharp left through a little village, I finally got dropped – probably as well as thing were starting to get a little dicey in the group. (I subsequently found out that 15 went down at the same corner in the group behind).
St Martin was another long climb at around 15km but for the last several km i found myself in a nice group of people, led by Swedish Dan, who I had been cycling on and off with all week so we made a good pace for the top.
We’ve been so lucky with the weather all week – not too hot, not too cold, no rain…until the final long descent when it poured. There were even a few hailstones. Who knew that all that riding in Cyprus in March in that heavy rain would turn out to be excellent training!
For some time during this wet descent it was a reunion of the HR riders from Norway from just over months ago – Caroline, Amandine, Anders and myself. It was extra fun riding with friends.
There were a few more lumps and bumps along the way but no more significant climbs. The legs continued to feel good even though my power meter did not (it decided to die halfway though the stage).
Somewhere along the way Amandine and I became dislodged from the group. Caroline unfortunately had a mechanical and was waiting for Mavic support. So for the last 20km or so it was just Amandine and I working together towards the finish line. The timing stopped in Aspremont, 20km uphill from Nice and it was great to cross this together with Amandine, having cycled together for much of HR Norway as well. By now the sun was shining and all there was left was a gentle roll down the hill (finally) to the official finish on the Promenade des Anglais.
After being on quiet roads and empty ski resorts all week it was quite a shock to the system to be suddenly back in the city with all the cars and people. In fact the most dangerous part of the whole ride was probably along the sea side cycling path with cyclists, scooters, children and pedestrians randomly walking out in front of you.
475 started in Megeve of which 45 were women; 401 completed all 7 stages. The standard of climbing is incredibly high so I was pleased to even come in 23rd in the women’s GC, gaining 3 places on the final stage and significant time gaps. It has definitely felt easier and more enjoyable doing the 7 day HR second time round. Each day an increasing number of people were bandaged up. Luckily I managed to stay rubber side down on all the descents and manic group riding for 7 stages…but thanks to a lapse of concentration on the way to the hotel after the finish line in Nice, I fell off my bike whilst trying to mount the pavement to avoid being run down over by a tram!
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