Words by NeilPryde Epic Rider Alan Grant, Photos by Alan Grant, Tim Marsh and Maindru Photos


Wrapped up and ready

"Pah, not challenging enough," was my initial reaction when I first looked at the route for 2011 Etape du Tour. Sure it involved climbing the Col du Telegraph and the twin legends that are the Col d'Galibier and Alpe d'Huez, but the stage was only 109km long. I'd completed two previous Etapes featuring equally legendary mountains (the Col du Tourmalet and Mont Ventoux) but both courses had also been much longer.

But as luck would have it, ASO, the organizers of both the Tour and the Etape (Etape du Tour translates as Stage of the Tour) had taken advantage of the latter’s phenomenal success and expanded the programme to feature two stages this year. Acte 2, from Issoire to Saint Flour, crossed the Massif Central, featured seven categorised cols and was a mammoth 220km from start to finish. That was more like it and so I signed up for that. The July 17 date meant I'd be staying on solo for a few days after our usual family holiday in France as my son Jack was due to start back school on July 18.


The route

The cycling gods had other ideas, though. The family holiday evolved a bit from its usual pattern of two weeks in a rented villa in a picturesque spot in France, as a grandparental plot was hatched in April that would see Jack fly up to Scotland with my parents for the final week of the vacation. This left my wife Ruth and I free to do whatever we wanted. Just the previous week I'd read that ASO had reopened registration for the sold out July 11th Acte 1 of the Etape so I came up with the bright idea of asking Ruth if she fancied having a go at it.


Ruth, my Queen of the Mountains


Ruth took to cycling and triathlon with gusto five years ago and has had some success in local and regional age-group events but she doesn't really like it when the road goes up. So I don't know what I was doing by suggesting this drastic course of action. I actually tried to dissuade her several times but it was too late, the seed had been planted and so I registered us both.

At this stage I intended to do both Etapes but family circumstances ended up decreeing that I would have to give Acte 2 a miss so it was quite fortuitous that I entered the “easy” Acte 1.

For our French family sojourn this year, we were based in the beautiful seaside town of Biarritz, in the Basque region bordering Spain. We woke up to spectacular views of the Pyrenees each morning and while the cols in this section of the famous mountain range aren't the highest, the riding was still better preparation for the Alps than doing endless repeats of Singapore's 109m-tall Mt Faber.


With Neil Pryde rep Harald at the event expo the day before the Etape

So when we arrived in the picturesque French Alps town of Lanslevillard (elevation 1,480 metres) on July 9, we had a few days of climbing in our legs. I’d done my first two Etapes as an independent traveler but this time I’d signed up with Singapore-based JFT Cycling, run by the legendary Jean-Francois Torrelle. The package included airport transfers, hotels, breakfasts and dinners, and a bunch of like-minded individuals to share the experience with.

The big day arrived and with the event kicking off at 7am, we were up at the obscene time of 4:15 to stuff some breakfast down our throats with day-old bread and cake before leaving as a big group at 5:15 for the thrilling 25km ride to the start village of Modane – in the dark with no lights! It wasn't too bad in terms of visibility as dawn was trying to break through the mountains but with a net elevation loss of over 400 metres it was fast.


The Etape is an international affair. Some of my group, from left: a Mexican, a Frenchman, a Singaporean, a Bruneian, an Aussie, a Scotsman, an American and another Aussie

It was also bloody freezing. Arm warmers and a gillet weren't doing too much to keep the cold out but there was no point in wearing more layers or full gloves as things would heat up later on the climbs and I would just have had to carry it all with me.

The group split up in town and I bid farewell and good luck to Ruth as she was in pen seven of 12. I was lucky enough to be in Pen 2 which meant there were only 650 people ahead so the road wouldn't be too crowded. Hanging out at the breakfast station (coffee and mini Madelines, but why is there never tea at these things?), I was approached by a couple of English blokes who wanted to know about my bike, a Neil Pryde Alize. One of them had just bought the exact same model as mine and was awaiting delivery. The good word on the Alize is spreading fast and far.


The back of Pen 2; check out the thousands behind

After stuffing yet more cake into my system I made my way to the pen and shivered some more. I should have lined up a bit earlier as I was right at the back of my wave of more than 1,000 riders.

Eventually we were off and the first 15km were straight downhill to the foot of the Telegraphe. It was stupidly fast but my speed topped out at 66kph. With my choice of 50-34 compact cranks I couldn't go much faster as I was spinning out in the 11-tooth cog. Then it was on to the mountain, a Cat 1 climb 12 kilometres in length taking us form 732 metres to 1,566 metres, which meant that at last my body would have a chance to warm up. I quickly settled into a rhythm in the 34-22 combo and initially kept to my plan of keeping my heart rate at or around 140 bpm. My thinking was that there was no point in killing myself on the appetizer before the main course (the Galibier) and the dessert (Alpe d'Huez). I like to think I'm a climber so my strategy was to pick targets ahead and pick them off one by one. After a few clicks off this I heard an Aussie voice say "how are ya?" from the side. Turns out he guessed I spoke English from my Neil Pryde kit. His name was Tim Marsh from Melbourne and we rode the rest of the Telegraphe together. Amazingly we had a couple of common cycling acquaintances and he'd heard about Team Neil Pryde's exploits at the Tour of Friendship a few months earlier. We chatted non-stop, which made the time fly by. When you're feeling at one with the bike and effortlessly pedalling, it's easy to forget that you're actually tackling a Cat 1 climb. But one French monsieur let us know that our easy conversation was probably demoralising to the reams of people we were passing already on the limit and politely told us to shut up. We ignored him, politely of course.


On the Telegraphe

What stops the Telegraphe and Galibier being one super-long climb is a 4km downhill section. Descending isn't really my forte but I've come along leaps and bounds since I first came down the Tourmalet in 2008 terrified by the freezing cold and wet conditions and the streams of fearless Frenchmen whizzing by me on hairpins. A head-on crash with a car coming down Genting Highlands in Malaysia in 2009 hadn’t exactly endeared me to the downhill discipline but a solid two years of racing had improved my skills.

Still, I bid Tim farewell as I expected to get dropped pretty quickly. But I managed to stay with him until about halfway down where one overzealous pull of the brakes led to another and another.

So I was probably one of the few who were happy when the road went up again. I caught Tim just before the first feed zone where he decided he was going to stop. I bid him farewell once again as I had plenty of water left and my pockets were bulging with cake, gels and various bars. He said he’d see me at the finish, I predicted he’d pass me on the descent.


I was surprised to come across this tandem on the Galibier

The Col du Galibier deserves its legendary status. The climb itself isn’t particularly brutal but it’s very long at 17km long and the views are just stunning. When I’d climbed the Tourmalet the visibility was about two metres but this day featured a deep blue sky patterned with white fluffy clouds and peak after peak of solid rock. Pockets of snow among the grey and green slopes added to the beauty. I was in heaven. Cyclists who haven’t ridden in the high mountains of Europe really haven’t lived and it’s easy to see why those who do come get hooked and return year after year.

The mighty Galibier was posing no major problems for me. I was still keeping to my heart rate plan although I was probably averaging 145. Not many people passed me on the climb to the sky although occasionally some nutter would zoom by in full race mode. I’m asthmatic and was told to expect some breathing difficulties as we got higher, although that hadn’t been the case on any of my previous adventures on the big stuff. But at 2,645m rather than my previous high of 2,100m I was realistic enough to expect it. I needn’t have worried. Maybe I slowed a bit but I think my mind was just more stunned by the surroundings. The road snaking up the mountain sprinkled with distant cyclists that eventually turned into little black dots showed me where we were going and the endless hairpins provided a similarly spectacular view of the thousands more below following in my tracks.


Giving my back a breather on the Galibier

I must admit as I approached the summit to having mixed feelings. Sure it would be good to give the legs and aching back a rest but I wanted to keep going higher and higher. There was also the little matter of the descent, all 40km of it! Part of me was looking forward to it but I also knew I’d lose lots of places. I stopped at the top momentarily to zip up my gillet and to take a picture of the 2,645-metre high sign only to discover that some moisture had seeped inside my cheap pocket camera. Not that I’d be taking many shots on the way down. The descent starts fast and stays that way. The road surface was freshly laid at the steepest section at the top so there were no worries there. I felt I was doing pretty well but when bunches started whizzing by me while I was doing 60 kph with sheer drops to my side then my confidence took a hit and I touched the brakes more than I would have liked to. But my approach was the right one for me, especially when I heard the post-race tales of people going over the edge. Still, I found the descent exhilarating, the hairpins were quite far apart and so I could let go completely for long sections.

Then there were the tunnels. The first one was very scary as the combination of dim lights and dark sunglasses meant it was difficult to see and remember the road is still at a steep pitch downwards so any potholes or other obstacles could have proved hazardous.

But nothing prepared me for the third or fourth tunnel. I guess the sight of a policeman waving his hands outside was a kind of warning but as I approached at 50 kph there wasn’t much time to do anything before I was enclosed in complete darkness. There were no lights! And as this was a particularly long tunnel there wasn’t even the proverbial light at the end to lead the way. You could sense the panic around and thankfully everybody slowed down a bit but something terrible could have happened in there. We were lucky as I found out post-race that there were a few bad accidents in there before the police eventually neutralized the tunnel forcing thousands, including Ruth, to get off their bikes and walk through.

Soon after and with empty bottles I was glad to see that a feed zone was coming up about 20km into the descent so I decided to give my nerves a quick break.

My previous experience of Etape feed zones was of chaotic, every-man-for-himself melees, but being relatively near the front of the field I was pleasantly surprised to find the well-stocked tables easy to negotiate. Indeed a helpful lady poured the water into my bottles and after scoffing a few bits of cake and some jellies I was on my way, having probably spent no longer than two or three minutes.


The long decent had its moments

The remainder of the descent into the valley wasn’t as steep yet there were still a hell of a lot of people passing me. This was a bit demoralizing as I thought I was doing OK but what could I do but just get on with the task. Not long after the feed zone I caught a glimpse of the familiar figure of Singapore-based Bergtor Hauga in his Revsin kit. He’s a great rider but he’s a big fella and so I’m sure I put many minutes into him on the climb of the Galibier yet here he was zooming by me. Hopefully I’d catch him on the Alpe.

The access to the Alpe d’Huez is quite strange in that you don’t actually see the fabled climb until just before you’re on it due to the valley road constantly twisting and turning. Surrounded by huge walls of rock, there was nothing to distinguish one mountain from the other.

But the crowds of people that line the entry to the Alpe are unmistakable. I was with a group but let them go right before the official chrono start point as I stopped to whip my gillet off and into my back pocket.

Alpe d’Huez is known for its particularly brutal start but I fairly shot up the opening ramps and quickly caught and passed most of the bunch I’d been with. The slopes were lined with people, obviously not the hundreds of thousands who flock here for the Tour, but there were no empty sections. My conservative climbing approach was now out of the window. I was on Alpe d’Huez which I’d known since I was a lad watching Hinault, Millar, Fignon and Zoetemelk race up, and I was going to attack it like them.

I was on fire and not a single rider passed me for the first few of the 21 famous hairpins. The hairpins themselves weren’t as constantly brutal as I’d expected. Some did pitch up fiercely but others seemed to flatten out and allow a few shifts down and a spurt of speed. I was doing mental calculations and reckoned at this early stage I’d get to the top in just over an hour. But as I left the steepest lower sections behind I realized my pace was slowing. Nothing dramatic but noticeable. I was having none of that and so upped the pace again for the next kilometre … which probably was the wrong thing to do. I was still in a rhythm and still passing people but the odd rider would now ease by me effortlessly. About halfway up I came across Tim who must have got me going down the Galibier as predicted. A quick hello and I kept going. But my pace was definitely dropping and I was now looking at 1:08 perhaps for the climb. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been setting myself ever-changing targets, I should have just got on with the climb as I’m sure every time I got out of the saddle and went harder, all I did was drain some energy from my ever-dwindling reserves.


Suffering on Alpe d’Huez

I eventually passed Bergtor, maybe with about 4km to go. But I was struggling. There was no danger of me not making it but instead of attacking the finale as I had envisioned many times, I was grinding my way up. Plus my back was killing me, which meant I had to spend as much time out of the saddle as in it, but each time I rose, the speed dropped off. Luckily, the crowds were thicker on the higher slopes and the constant cheers and shouts of encouragement were tremendous for the soul. I just wish I could have gone harder. My heart rate wasn’t soaring, so maybe I just didn’t eat enough.

At last the hairpins were done and I knew from watching many Tour finishes that the final few kilometres includes some flat or even downhill sections so this provided a great mental stimulus to get me over the line. The actual finishing stretch of 200 metres or so is up another vicious slope but when I swept round the left-hander that leads into it and saw see the gantry ahead and the hundreds of cheering people lining the road then my body tapped its final store of energy and I miraculously mustered a hard dig to the line.

So that was another Etape done and dusted. My initial thoughts of “not challenging enough” were certainly off the mark and I can only imagine how tough La Marmotte is. That annual sportive covers the same 113km of this Etape stage but also includes the climb up the Col du Glandon beforehand, adding another 60km of riding and 2,000 metres of climbing.

It turns out I dodged a bullet by not riding Acte 2 a week later as it was a cold and wet day and less than 2,000 people finished. By contrast, over 6,400 got to the summit of the Alpe before the cut off … including Ruth


Nice to wake up to; the view from our Alpe d’Huez hotel

The top of Alpe d’Huez is quite a strange place. At 1,800m you’re certainly high up in the mountains, but it’s a ski resort and so a sea of chalets and restaurants is the dominant feature. Other iconic climbs such as the Galibier, the Tourmalet and the Ventoux have nothing much to look at but what Mother Earth put there. I wasn’t complajning about this relative civilization, though, as thanks to JFT Cycling, we were staying near the finish line at Hotel Les Gentianes Not having to descend the mountain then drive back to a distant hotel/holiday home made this a unique Etape experience for me and I would recommend this approach.

My official time for the sportive was 5 hours, 14 minutes and 51 seconds, which put me in 1,191st place and was good enough for a silver medal, the first time I had achieved this mark. A look at my Garmin data and the wonderful app that is Strava shows that I climbed the Alpe in 1:15:42 and that I did the first seven hairpins at an average speed of 11.9kph, the second seven at 10.8kph and the final seven at 9.9kph. That tells the story perfectly of my time on the mountain.
See my ride on Strava: http://app.strava.com/rides/935842#

I’ll be back, that’s for certain, to both the Etape and to Alpe D’Huez. I eagerly await the announcement of the 2012 Etape routes on October 19, the day after the unveiling of the Tour de France itinerary. If you haven’t ridden an Etape then I suggest you mark that date in your calendar.

	Alans's bike: Alize Ultegra
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