T-Bob Posted May 22, 2012 Posted May 22, 2012 A buddy of mine is doing this years Etape and despite being a decent rider hasn't ever really tackled anything over a 2 mile long climb. So last weekend the guys he's riding with decided to head to france and do some training for 3 days. They made up this hand book (PDF download here) briefing each day with the profile of all the climbs and some info / history. He sent me this email and pics... Great work and just makes you want to book a ticket. Making up my list for next year and am deffo doing the Tour Etape in 2013 & hopefully a Roubaix as well. Their schedule Day 0: Leave work at 4pm, airport, fly, drive to Les CarrozDay 1: Col de la Colombiere / Col des Aravis / up to Les CarrozDay 2: Col de Ramaz / Plateux des Saix / Col de Joux Plain / Les CarrozDay 3: Les Carroz / Col de Pierre CarreeDay 4: back to work in London. --------------- FWD MSG ----------------- Struggling to concentrate on work… so a bit of a summary… I've got a compact on the front and 11-27 on the back, most people that have done it a lot before where running 11-28 on the back. It was a completely different type of riding, to what i'm used, 10+ miles of 8 or 9% is whole different bag to 2 miles london slopes. Above 7% most of the climbs are in 27, drop a couple to get out of the saddle for a bit round the hair pins and then back to 27 again. The wheels were great, who says you cant use carbon in the snow… Charlie has a place in Les Carroz, we we based all the trip around his apartment, and started and finished there every day. http://www.hellocolour.co.za/upload_etape/day1.jpg Day 1: 73 milesRainy in the morning, but sunny in the afternoon, col de columbiere was great, probably pushed a bit hard in retrospect, but had nice fresh legs. The last 3k were just far too rude... Seeing all the riders names in the road is awesome, puts a massive grin on your face when your really suffering. Got to the top just before the weather moved in. - 3rd Up… The pass was technically shut but we managed to get through carrying the bikes down some rocks! Col de aravis was long, but the sun came out! - 3rd Up… Had a bit of a sense of humour failure about climbing back up into les carroz after doing a chain gang all the way to the bottom of the mountain. - Second to last up http://www.hellocolour.co.za/upload_etape/day2.jpg Day 2: 93 milesAbsolutely pouring all morning, i was laughing out loud to myself it was raining so hard. Day 2 was about the same length as the etape but with slightly more climbing, apparently we did 4800m climbing (the etape is 4300). I forget to restart my garmin after lunch until half way up the joux plain, so i dont have all the data!!! Col de ramaz was great, it backed off in a few places so you felt like you have a chance, It turns evil through a tunnel about 1.5 from the top, my garmin saw 15%. - 3rd up Descending through the hairpins is great, but a bit hairy in the wet. Plateau des saix was just wrong! A third of it had fine loose gravel on it, so everytime you put the power down, you lost it all to the gravel. It doesn't let up for a minute… baby gear just riding on heart rate, especially knowing the Joux plain is next up. - 5th Up The sun was out by the time we reached the top.The descent was equally treacherous, the damp and gravel made it really hairy, so we just pottered down. Joux Plain was my favourite. It was still tough, but after plateau de saix it was a 'tiny bit' more manageable. The sun stayed out and the temps went up to the mid 20's. Charlie went off trying to keep up with Niall (who was first to the top and bottom of every climb… an absolute monster).He had been dropped by NialI and I caught up with him about a third of the way from the top, and he was struggling a bit so I stayed with him for moral support until the top. About 400metres to go… the cheeky f€cker goes for the sprint finish, being cheered on by the four already at the top. Obviously not being competitive or anything I couldn't have that (and probably aided by the fact I had backed off a bit to stay with him) I put it in the big ring and got him just before the line. The other highlight was cycling up past someones spag bol that we had had for lunch! nice. Then we hit a bit of a problemThe pass was also shut, but this time we had to walk 1.5k through the snow… I tried to ride through a bit and obviously ended up on my arse. Quite a lot of debris on the roads, but once we got through it the the descent down into Morzine was amazing. Fast and flowing with some beautiful hairpins. http://www.hellocolour.co.za/upload_etape/day3.jpg Day 3: 45 milesStarted chilly but became sunny and a slightly kinder ride… that finished with the best descent ever, going back down from Flaine into Les Carroz 15 minutes of descending at full pelt, beautiful switch backs, and great tarmac. We split the climb with a stop for a coke in the middle… - 4th to the middle and third to the top. Then it was pack up, in the car, fly home and back to work less than 24hrs latter... Don't think I actually stretched at all!
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