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Sunday, October 14, 2012

Personal project: Alpe d'Huez on bicycle

My new personal project is to climb this up the following weekend on bicycle. [update: The day I ascended Alpe d'Huez]


"La mythique montée de l’Alpe-d’Huez" (The mythic ascending to Alpe d'Huez) that's how are known the 11.9km on 21 bends at an average slope of 8.6%*. The segment starts at 720m.o.s.l. and climbs up to 1750meters.
It is the ending part of the Grande Boucle stage at the tour de France. The best time is held by Marco  Pantani "The Pirate" (37'35'') and second one is Lance Amstrong (39'41'' at an average speed of 23.4km/h).

 I have been biking for some days since summer, and without being an expert I think I can make it. Following is a chart comparing some of the climbing I've accomplished and the Alpe d'Huez (being the top-right corner the toughest).


As it can be seen, indeed Alpe d'Huez would be the hardest climbing I've ever done, but I've accomplished some others that are not far from it, specially Saint Nizier and Lans en Vercors (which I did the last two weekends without any inconvenient), those might not be as steep as Alpe d'Huez but are for sure larger and steep-enough.

I feel I am in shape for it, I estimate I can finish it between 1 hour and a half and two hours, but time doesn't really matter to me. Moreover I am planning to rent a proper bike for this. Because I have been biking all these days with a mountain bike, which is heavier and has thicker tires. So a racing bike should in theory ease the challenge.

I still have some logistics problems regarding the bike I have to rent and the way to get there (it's about 50km away from Grenoble) additionally I am kind of under pressure by the weather, it's getting colder and colder and up in the mountains snow is already appearing. So the sooner I make it, the better it is.

This ascending has a personal meaning and I will share it once I accomplish it (even if I don't ;-) ). Still, Alpe d'Huez has meaning for Colombians, because it was there where the first and the only time an amateur won a stage of the Tour de France, beating all the professionals. That amateur was a humble guy from Colombia, Lucho Herrera.


I'll keep updating about fixing the details, bike, transport there, weather. Stay tuned ;-)

*Those are the values of the climbing part, when including the flat part at the top the values are 13.8km at 7.9%
References: La montée de l’Alpe-d’Huez « La mythique »

2 comments:

  1. you seem very hardcore on it, you made a chart, well done bro!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good job mate! i admire your passion for biking and your ambition to go above and beyond the obstacles ahead. This post shows your engineering skills; time to unleash the Hulk within ;)

    See you at the top!

    ReplyDelete

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