Put a fork in it, it's done! Though not done the way I wanted it. For now, this entry will have to be relatively short. I am tired. I am the most tired I've ever been after a bike ride. Scratch that, this is the most physical challenging thing I've ever done in my life. I'll write a full ride report after I get some rest and once I get my videos edited and uploaded. I wanted to post some pictures but the internet connection at this hotel is spotty and won't let me. So I'll post some tomorrow...
So this morning, I woke up at 4am and had breakfast, loaded all my bags/gear on the bus (the bus was to drive to Alpe d'Huez and drop all our stuff of at the hotel), and then headed down to Modane for the beginning of the ride. It was quite a sight seeing the thousands of cyclings lining up for this ride. There were 9500 there this morning. It's actually quite well organized, with all of us being assigned to "holding pens" according to our bib numbers and the pens being released sequentially. This also made it useful to gauge your program... if you noticed that most of the people around you had lower numbers, then you were riding strong and were moving ahead in the mass. If you saw higher numbers around you, you were falling behind your own group.
In any case, after a fast descent, we hit the Telegraphe. It's a tough climb (category 1) so it wasn't anything to sneeze at but it wasn't terrible either. Oh, and to remind you guys about the mountain "categories"... the climbs are categorized from cat 4 (easy) to cat 1 (very hard). As a reference, Bear Mountain in NY (4.5 miles at ~4.3%) would be a cat 4 climb. There's also a category called "hors categorie" or HC. These climbs are even harder than the cat 1 climbs. So the Telegraphe was a hard climb but most people seemed to get past it pretty well. Next up was the Galibier, which is a brute of a climb. HC category going for 18.1km at 6.9% (with the last 8km averaging close to 10%). This climb broke a lot of people. There were people cramping, walking, etc. But I managed to do okay. I stopped on the bike to take a couple of pictures but otherwise, progress over the climb was steady and I finished it without much difficulty.
After an intense and slightly dangerous descent of the Galibier, we finally hit (in my opinion) the most iconic of the Alpine climbs... the legendary Alpe d'Huez, with its brutal 21 switchbacks and its gradient of nearly 8% for 14km. Let me just say that this climb broke me. At switchback 15, I accelerated to climb past a slower group and my hamstring decided to call it a day, seizing up and shooting a searing pain up my thigh into my hip. And I was off the bike. I tried to shake it out, massage it, walk a bit and get on the bike again... but it was gone.
Now the thing about the Etape is that there are time eliminations. If you don't get to a particular checkpoint by a given time, you are stopped and put in a shuttle bus and your bike is thrown in the back of a truck. Your day is over. There is also a final time by which you have to finish or the bus will "sweep" you up and your day is done.
Anyways, I made it to the first checkpoint with an hour to spare and by the time I reached Alpe d'Huez, I had a 2 hour 30 minute window before the sweep van would come through. I was expecting to do the climb in 1:30 so I thought I had plenty of time. Unfortunately, once my hamstring went I had to walk up most of the climb (which is much slower than riding, obviously). At 2.5km from the finish, the bus shuttle came up behind me. I refused to get on the bus and I wouldn't let them take my bike. I was determined to get up the climb on my own two legs, be it on a bike or by walking. I hadn't come 3000 miles to be picked up by a bus. I eventually crossed the finish line 30 minutes after the final accepted time. (Yes, it took me almost 3 hours to walk up ~7km of Alpe d'Huez.) So officially, it's a DNF (did not finish) but at least I didn't take the bus. And I made it to the top of that climb with my own two legs. Damn my hamstring though.
Overall though, it was a remarkable experience. It was a ton of fun, it was the most challenging thing I've done yet, and I met some really cool people. I'll have to tell you guys about some of the people I've met and post some pictures tomorrow, internet connection permitting. Okay, off to bed...
Monday, July 11, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Getting ready for tomorrow
Well, one more day left until the Etape. Today was mainly a day of just settling in and relaxing a little bit before the big day tomorrow. I must've been kind of excited because I woke up at 4:30am. Fortunately, I managed to get myself to fall asleep again and stay in bed until around 7. (Considering I went to bed at 10pm last night, that's a lot of sleep for me.) After breakfast, we had a briefing by one of the tour operators who, being Belgian, obviously knows everything there is to know about cycling. Actually, his name is Peter and he's a really nice guy.
After the briefing, I went upstairs and got changed and decided to go for a ride. (I wasn't able to do a ride yesterday ... having been foiled by our late arrival at Valfrejus and the minor issue of a huge thunderstorm.) But the weather this morning was spectacular. Clear, crisp, and cool. So I got on my bike and decided to go for a little spin.
Being that I'm staying in a ski resort on the side of a mountain, I decided to ride down the mountain and come back up. I didn't want to blow myself up today but I did want to get a feel for an Alpine climb. And with a climb of about 1500 feet over ~3 miles, this fit the bill pretty well.
The climb was a good warmup and not terribly difficult. But the views were spectacular. Really amazing. (And yes, I'm from NYC but I think anybody would agree.)
And perhaps the icing on the cake was seeing a tiny little cathedral(?) built into the side of the valley on the climb up. Really really cool.
After the ride, I visited the Expo, which is essentially where all sorts of cycling-related gear is shown off and sold. This includes beautiful bike frames from Canyon and Look to clothing and nutritional supplements. I'm not a huge fan of these things but being set against a backdrop like the Alps, it was pretty neat.
Well, this will be my last entry before I do my ride tomorrow. I'm hoping that I'll be able to give you an update tomorrow evening after the ride (this will depend on the availability of an internet connection). But I'm excited and looking forward to this ride!!
After the briefing, I went upstairs and got changed and decided to go for a ride. (I wasn't able to do a ride yesterday ... having been foiled by our late arrival at Valfrejus and the minor issue of a huge thunderstorm.) But the weather this morning was spectacular. Clear, crisp, and cool. So I got on my bike and decided to go for a little spin.
Being that I'm staying in a ski resort on the side of a mountain, I decided to ride down the mountain and come back up. I didn't want to blow myself up today but I did want to get a feel for an Alpine climb. And with a climb of about 1500 feet over ~3 miles, this fit the bill pretty well.
The climb was a good warmup and not terribly difficult. But the views were spectacular. Really amazing. (And yes, I'm from NYC but I think anybody would agree.)
And perhaps the icing on the cake was seeing a tiny little cathedral(?) built into the side of the valley on the climb up. Really really cool.
After the ride, I visited the Expo, which is essentially where all sorts of cycling-related gear is shown off and sold. This includes beautiful bike frames from Canyon and Look to clothing and nutritional supplements. I'm not a huge fan of these things but being set against a backdrop like the Alps, it was pretty neat.
Well, this will be my last entry before I do my ride tomorrow. I'm hoping that I'll be able to give you an update tomorrow evening after the ride (this will depend on the availability of an internet connection). But I'm excited and looking forward to this ride!!
Location:Place des Bergers,Modane,France
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Getting to Valfrejus
So today was transfer day. We left Lyon at around 1pm (about an hour later than scheduled because of some delays with flight arrivals and such) and it took us about 3 hours to get to Modane. Though the tour company I'm with is very good, I've never really enjoyed being shuttled around from place to place with a large group. It's easier to move faster and more efficiently when you're by yourself or with a small group. In any case, as we started to get closer to Modane, the views started to get more and more impressive. This was the view from the bus as we started to enter to Alps.
As a NYC boy, I'm not used to being around such big mountains and the thought of tackling these on a bike was starting to hit me pretty hard. Like I've mentioned before, the only "mountain" that's near NYC that I could train on is Bear Mountain... but compared to these giants, Bear Mountain barely qualified as a pimple.
Though the ride on Monday starts in Modane proper, our hotel was in Valfrejus, which is a ski resort slightly south of Modane. Being a ski resort, it is obviously on the mountainside. And the drive up... wow, it is not for anybody with a fear of heights. The road itself looked like this:
With a constant gradient of probably ~8 or 9 and about 14 hairpin turns, I was a getting a preview of what the climb up Alpe d'Huez would look like. Looking out the valley, this was the view.
Modane is the tiny little town at the bottom of the photograph. When we finally got to Valfrejus, the bus driver had to literally back the bus down a narrow little road to get to the hotel. (He couldn't go down forward because there was nowhere to turn to bus around.) Like I said, not for those with acrophobia.
Anyways, this is the view from my room, which is quite nice (the view... the room is just okay.)
As you can see, it's raining. Well it was raining about 3 minutes ago when I took this picture. It's sunny now. Apparently that's how quickly the weather can turn up here in the mountains.
Well, everything is pretty set for Monday. I think tomorrow morning I will ride down this mountain and then come back up to just test my legs and loosen myself up. And the Etape Expo is literally right outside the hotel so I'll go and see the festivities and see if there's any cool schwag that I can pick up.
As a NYC boy, I'm not used to being around such big mountains and the thought of tackling these on a bike was starting to hit me pretty hard. Like I've mentioned before, the only "mountain" that's near NYC that I could train on is Bear Mountain... but compared to these giants, Bear Mountain barely qualified as a pimple.
Though the ride on Monday starts in Modane proper, our hotel was in Valfrejus, which is a ski resort slightly south of Modane. Being a ski resort, it is obviously on the mountainside. And the drive up... wow, it is not for anybody with a fear of heights. The road itself looked like this:
With a constant gradient of probably ~8 or 9 and about 14 hairpin turns, I was a getting a preview of what the climb up Alpe d'Huez would look like. Looking out the valley, this was the view.
Modane is the tiny little town at the bottom of the photograph. When we finally got to Valfrejus, the bus driver had to literally back the bus down a narrow little road to get to the hotel. (He couldn't go down forward because there was nowhere to turn to bus around.) Like I said, not for those with acrophobia.
Anyways, this is the view from my room, which is quite nice (the view... the room is just okay.)
As you can see, it's raining. Well it was raining about 3 minutes ago when I took this picture. It's sunny now. Apparently that's how quickly the weather can turn up here in the mountains.
Well, everything is pretty set for Monday. I think tomorrow morning I will ride down this mountain and then come back up to just test my legs and loosen myself up. And the Etape Expo is literally right outside the hotel so I'll go and see the festivities and see if there's any cool schwag that I can pick up.
Location:Valfrejus,France
The gauche American
After sleeping in a regular bed for a few hours, I feel a lot better... a little bit closer to a regular human being. I'm supposed to meet my group in a little bit but a few thoughts that I've had this morning.
- Why is it that if you speak French, you automatically sound more sophisticated? I could be talking to the most uneducated person in France... but if he/she is speaking French (or even French-accented English), I feel like they're far more cosmopolitan than I am. For that matter, it works with the British accent as well. When I was in London a couple of years ago, I was asking some man for directions and I automatically thought he was an intelligent person because he had that fancy British accent. It took me a few minutes to realize that he was neither intelligent nor helpful. (I blame Robin Leach for making me think that all things British were high-class.)
- Being 6 hours ahead of NYC is a little discombobulating. I constantly feel like I'm "waiting" for things to catch up to me. For instance, this morning I opened up my beloved NY Times homepage and... it was still showing yesterday's news. I mean, c'mon! So now I have to wait until early afternoon before I can get the "morning" news. I tried reading the French newspaper but that's kind of hard to do if one doesn't actually know French.
- The NH Hotel that I'm at right now is very nice. And the breakfast that they served puts a lot of American hotels to shame. A lot of hotels say they serve breakfast... which is true in that breakfast is something that you put in your mouth in the morning. But more often than not, a breakfast at many hotels would be stale corn muffins and bad coffee. The breakfast here? Well, let's see: crepes (with Nutella), sautéed mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, eggs, bacon, a variety of cheeses, fruits, yogurts, and fresh (very fresh... as in just baked) pastries. The croissants are unbelievable. And even the coffee machine is awesome. It's this giant thing that has something like 10 options on the front, ranging from straight up Americano coffee to cappuccinos. Just hit the button and the coffee beans are ground up RIGHT THERE and the coffee is made fresh. It is awesome. I want one. Except it would fill up my entire kitchen and would probably cost me a month's rent.
Alright, I'm off to meet my group. Hopefully I'll have internet connection at my next hotel so I can update you guys on what Modane/Valfrejus looks like. Till then.
- Why is it that if you speak French, you automatically sound more sophisticated? I could be talking to the most uneducated person in France... but if he/she is speaking French (or even French-accented English), I feel like they're far more cosmopolitan than I am. For that matter, it works with the British accent as well. When I was in London a couple of years ago, I was asking some man for directions and I automatically thought he was an intelligent person because he had that fancy British accent. It took me a few minutes to realize that he was neither intelligent nor helpful. (I blame Robin Leach for making me think that all things British were high-class.)
- Being 6 hours ahead of NYC is a little discombobulating. I constantly feel like I'm "waiting" for things to catch up to me. For instance, this morning I opened up my beloved NY Times homepage and... it was still showing yesterday's news. I mean, c'mon! So now I have to wait until early afternoon before I can get the "morning" news. I tried reading the French newspaper but that's kind of hard to do if one doesn't actually know French.
- The NH Hotel that I'm at right now is very nice. And the breakfast that they served puts a lot of American hotels to shame. A lot of hotels say they serve breakfast... which is true in that breakfast is something that you put in your mouth in the morning. But more often than not, a breakfast at many hotels would be stale corn muffins and bad coffee. The breakfast here? Well, let's see: crepes (with Nutella), sautéed mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, eggs, bacon, a variety of cheeses, fruits, yogurts, and fresh (very fresh... as in just baked) pastries. The croissants are unbelievable. And even the coffee machine is awesome. It's this giant thing that has something like 10 options on the front, ranging from straight up Americano coffee to cappuccinos. Just hit the button and the coffee beans are ground up RIGHT THERE and the coffee is made fresh. It is awesome. I want one. Except it would fill up my entire kitchen and would probably cost me a month's rent.
Alright, I'm off to meet my group. Hopefully I'll have internet connection at my next hotel so I can update you guys on what Modane/Valfrejus looks like. Till then.
Location:Aéroport Lyon Saint-Exupéry,Colombier-Saugnieu,France
Friday, July 8, 2011
Arrived at Lyon
I've arrived in Lyon! I'm actually here... in France... surrounded by French people.
So my flight out from NYC wasn't particularly eventful. We were a bit delayed because the flight crew apparently got stuck in a traffic jam... and then some weather issues kept us on the ground for a bit longer. In any case, the flight wasn't bad. I managed to get about 4 hours of sleep during the ~7.5 hour flight. Not exactly the most restful sleep but enough to keep me going to Lyon.
Once I arrived in Geneva, I had to make my way to the main train station to catch my train to Lyon. (Oh, and forgive the different formatting. The Blogpress app won't let me size them correctly... but if you click on the picture, you should get a larger version.)
The train ride itself was amazing. I mean, in contrast to what we have in the US, the train was fast, quiet, and extremely comfortable. For those who have taken the Acela train in the Boston/NYC/Washington corridor, it's something like that. But better. And cheaper. The views were quite impressive too, though all the pictures I took didn't really come out that well (mainly because the sunlight was reflecting off the glass).
Anyways, so that brought me to Lyon. I've found my hotel and I need to take a shower, get something to eat, and crawl into bed. The 4 hours on the plane really weren't enough. In any case, I've arrived safely and despite being a little tired, I'm extremely excited about getting this thing started tomorrow. Tomorrow morning, I meet with my group and we'll transfer to Modane/Valfrejus. If the weather is as nice tomorrow as it is today, I'm hoping to get a ride in to just loosen the legs up. Oh, and one other thing of note... I used the Pika Packworks bike bag for this trip and it's performed exactly as advertised. Light, protective, easy to move with. I'll probably write a full review of it eventually when I get back to the States.
So my flight out from NYC wasn't particularly eventful. We were a bit delayed because the flight crew apparently got stuck in a traffic jam... and then some weather issues kept us on the ground for a bit longer. In any case, the flight wasn't bad. I managed to get about 4 hours of sleep during the ~7.5 hour flight. Not exactly the most restful sleep but enough to keep me going to Lyon.
Once I arrived in Geneva, I had to make my way to the main train station to catch my train to Lyon. (Oh, and forgive the different formatting. The Blogpress app won't let me size them correctly... but if you click on the picture, you should get a larger version.)
The train ride itself was amazing. I mean, in contrast to what we have in the US, the train was fast, quiet, and extremely comfortable. For those who have taken the Acela train in the Boston/NYC/Washington corridor, it's something like that. But better. And cheaper. The views were quite impressive too, though all the pictures I took didn't really come out that well (mainly because the sunlight was reflecting off the glass).
Anyways, so that brought me to Lyon. I've found my hotel and I need to take a shower, get something to eat, and crawl into bed. The 4 hours on the plane really weren't enough. In any case, I've arrived safely and despite being a little tired, I'm extremely excited about getting this thing started tomorrow. Tomorrow morning, I meet with my group and we'll transfer to Modane/Valfrejus. If the weather is as nice tomorrow as it is today, I'm hoping to get a ride in to just loosen the legs up. Oh, and one other thing of note... I used the Pika Packworks bike bag for this trip and it's performed exactly as advertised. Light, protective, easy to move with. I'll probably write a full review of it eventually when I get back to the States.
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