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La Marmotte, July 2005

"Probably the best and worst day of my life on a bike"

On 9 July 2005, Ian Collins and Ian Beston from the club rode La Marmotte. The event is gruelling, worthy of the hardest stage you could find in the Tour de France and the event is not without incident. In the same edition, several riders had terrible accidents and one rider from Holland died on the descent of the Col du Glandon. For anyone considering the ride, they need to respect the mountains and make sure they are very well prepared: mentally, technically and physically. Ian Collins describes his ride here.

La Marmotte is famous for being one of the original and toughest cyclosportives in France – 174km long with over 5,000m of climbing, finishing on the mythical Alpe d’Huez. It had long been one of my cycling ambitions to compete in it and I’d been preparing physically and mentally for doing it in 2005 for well over a year. Even in the depths of the coldest Geneva winter for years, I always thought about climbing the Alpe to motivate me to do a few more kms despite the fact that I’d lost all feeling in my fingers and toes. By July, I had done five cyclos this season, all of over 135km and 3,000m of climbing, including the gruelling 216km of the Ardéchoise with several other Wheelers.

However, in the back of my mind, I always suspected that the Marmotte was going to be an altogether tougher challenge. I’d also set my mind on getting a gold medal for finishing within my age category in under 8 hours 49 minutes – why I needed to add to the pressure I’m not sure but simply just finishing wasn’t quite enough, I needed to feel I had performed well (to clarify, “well” meaning within the parameters of my limited athletic ability).

I’d arrived at Alpe d’Huez on the Friday and met up with Kingston Wheeler Ian Beston. He was concerned that he’d never ridden in proper mountains before and was also nursing a leg injury which threatened to make his day very miserable indeed. We had a light cruise over the early part of the route and he conceded that he was feeling pretty rubbish even after just a couple of kilometres into the first proper climb of the course. I suggested we do the first 3 or 4 ramps of the Alpe since they were the steepest and it may be a good idea if he already knew what was coming by race day. I think this may have been a mistake as he felt even worse after that! I left him feeling that he would perhaps decide not to start at all which would have been a real shame (the next day I discovered he had started and had made it all the way to the bottom of the Alpe before climbing off – a fantastic performance considering his injury gave him major trouble from about 2 hours in).

James Beaumont from the Wheelers had also planned to race but had experienced a transport disaster and had been unable to make it. Rather more effeminately, a team-mate from my Geneva club had dropped out because he said it was going to be cold on the Galibier. So I woke up on the Saturday morning knowing that I was probably in this on my own.

The race started from the village at the foot of the Alpe, Bourg d’Oisans at 7.15 am. I therefore had to ride down from the Alpe at just after 6.00 am and nearly froze to death despite having silk socks, windproof socks, windproof shoe covers and a rain jacket on with full finger gloves over thermal inserts…. We had been warned the weather was not going to be good and I was seriously worried by this. Many of the Brits appeared to be hoping that the temperatures were going to be well under 30 degrees – not me – I love the high temperatures and cold or wet conditions always affect my performances badly. As it was, the temperature on the Alpe hovered around 3-4 degrees and it looked like rain. On the Galibier, this could easily be snow.

The flag dropped at around 7.20 am and I rolled off with over 6,000 other riders. I quickly found a decent group and in fact we were averaging over 40km/h as we approached the foothills of the first climb of the day, the col du Glandon. Distressingly, I found the first few kilometres of this 25km climb really quite hard which was ominous for the rest of the day. Thankfully we did have a section of downhill and a flatter part to come and for the last 10km I span my legs quite well to keep up with those of about my ability. Eventually I started to warm up and despite the warnings, the sky looked reasonably clear.

I went over the Glandon with the thought that the first col was down, only three to go. The descent was extremely technical and, being the first climb, was littered with riders all over it. Some of these were going completely mad to get themselves a handful of seconds and I counted at least six serious crashes as I went down. At times I was doing 60km/h yet still other riders were flying past as though I was in reverse.

There followed a quite lengthy flat section in which a peloton of around 100 riders had developed. I tagged along in the middle right up to St Michel de Maurienne and the start of the Col du Télégraphe, a 12km grind up to 1570m before a short 4km descent into the village of Valloire, which marks the start of the climb up the Col du Galibier.

Again, I found the first part of the climb really tough. Not a lot of riders were passing me but suddenly even a 6% gradient seemed hard and I had to dig in for several kilometres while I found a rhythm. There wasn’t much to see as most of the climb goes up through a forest and I could feel the air temperature dropping as I ascended. I also sensed a few spots of rain and prayed that it would hold off until I’d managed to descend a decent way from the Galibier – the thought of a 40km high speed descent from 2600m in temperatures around zero while soaking wet was not in any way amusing.

Eventually, I found some form half way up the Télégraphe and at the col felt quite good. We then had a quick 4km descent into Valloire before the start of the Galibier. I was seriously scared of this climb – it hadn’t helped that at the bottom of the Télégraphe had been signs to the Galibier indicating 32km. I stopped for the first time for 30 seconds to fill up my bottle at the feed station and had a brief comtemplation of the climb ahead.

I now had 16km of climbing higher than I had ever gone before into a barren alpine scene full of rock faces and hairpins. Strangely, compared to the day’s other climbs, the Galibier wasn’t nearly as bad as I had imagined. I made sure I didn’t go too much into the red, kept my legs spinning and just latched onto groups of other riders and concentrated staying with them. There were already thousands of camper vans parked at the side of the road waiting for the Tour stage which would pass through 4 days later and the occupants provided a somewhat bemused audience to our sufferings. Some riders were seriously struggling by this point and weaving all over the road. A few sections were pretty brutal and as we got higher I had the sensation of both my tires being flat and riding through treacle. I think this must have been the effect of the altitude because although I didn’t feel especially breathless, all of a sudden I had no power whatsoever and it all became a really big effort. Nevertheless, at no point did I feel really miserable or doubt that I would get to the top – it was just a slog. To be honest, I had no sense of the history of the climb or which great riders had suffered on the slopes with me. I saw little of the surroundings and concentrated solely on getting to the top. However, at the col a large crowd of supporters cheered us through and the relief was quite overwhelming. I now had only one climb to go and my watch said that as long as I descended without dawdling, a gold medal was going to be well within reach.

I stopped and ate a couple of small energy bars and prepared for the descent – I wasn’t too keen on eating and riding down such a downhill section in the weather conditions. At around zero degrees, it was truly arctic on top of the Galibier, which stands 2645m over sea level. My arms and legs were literally shaking with cold as I went down, my fingers numbly pulled the brake levers and my eyes streamed behind my glasses. I was with a group of reasonable descenders and we hit speeds of 70-75km/h as we desperately rode to warmer pockets of air at lower altitudes. I completely missed the memorial to Henri Desgranges, the founder of the Tour which you apparently pass near the Col du Lauteret at 2000m. Soon after, however, I noticed a rise in the temperature and as the gradient slackened, a very effective pace-line got organised and we shot down through tunnels and switchbacks, most taking a pull on the front.

Within what seemed like a few minutes we were nearing the outskirts of Bourg d’Oisans and knew we had just Alpe d’Huez to conquer before the finish line. At this point I realised I was seriously hungry and that I simply had not eaten enough during the ride. This was despite having got through around 7 or 8 50g energy bars and a litre of energy drink. My mind was already a bit befuddled by then and so I made the error of thinking that there was not much point in eating before the Alpe as I wouldn’t get the benefits. I had forgotten that I was going to be climbing for at least an hour…

At last the sun was out and I took my third brief stop of the day to fill my bottle and take off my rain jacket and gloves before swinging onto the first ramp of Alpe d’Huez. I had bags of time in hand to get the gold medal by then so I knew I could take my time. However, I have never been so exhausted and lacking in energy on a bike. Although I managed not to snake around the road, riders started passing me continually and I wasn’t doing much passing myself. At times I was struggling to ride at 8km/h on the steeper sections. I reminded myself that the climb gets a little less steep after hairpin 17 but by the time I got there I did not notice this at all – it seemed steep right to the end and all I could do was to focus on getting my legs round. The cumulative fatigue, lack of food and changing weather conditions, as well as the altitude factor meant that even my 39/27 gear felt tough to spin. But as I didn’t have anything lower, I just had to grit my teeth and count off the 14km to the finish. By around hairpin 4 or 5, you can see the ski station above you and this gave me a psychological boost to complete the last 4km or so. As I rolled into the village, I started to feel the beginnings of a full-scale bonk and coming over the finish line I knew that I probably didn’t have more than a km left in my legs. It had taken me an hour and a quarter to climb to the top. I felt disorientated, starving and rubbery-legged and quickly exchanged my vouchers for the post-race pasta. I have never eaten anything so quickly in my life but it took a good 30 minutes or so before I could consider riding back to the chalet.

I showered and then drove back to the finish to collect my certificate. I had completed the ride in 8 hours 8 minutes (which was my personal time on the certificate indicating the time from when I crossed the electronic start mat). But for the purposes of the scratch race, the time starts from when the flag goes down and so my “race” time was 8 hrs 12 minutes (ie it took me 4 minutes to cross the start mat). I was satisfied with this albeit a little frustrated that I had felt so bad during the last climb. All in all, it was probably the best and worst day of my life on a bike! I would certainly recommend it to anyone – after all, having finished it, you can legitimately claim to be able to complete what would be one of the toughest mountain stages of the Tour. However, I don’t think you could “blag” your way through this one unless you had incredible natural fitness or were happy to take long breaks and treat it like a touring ride. To anyone considering it, I would strongly advise you to train exceptionally hard specifically for it – including if at all possible visiting the high mountains to experience what they are like. It is an event that truly deserves respect.

But the feeling of crossing the finishing line is indescribable and I’m already planning next year’s trip.

The Marmotte is probably the ultimate cyclosportif, writes James Beaumont. It's got the massive mountains, a summit finish and takes the roads made famous by the legends of the Tour de France. It's also the original cyclosportif. Yet the course is not a "Velo Marathon" and it's only 174km, a distance that seems possible for many club cyclists.

But don't be fooled, it's probably the hardest day you could spend on your bike. Here are some tips designed to help any entrants:
Food: eat plenty. You can use up 600 calories an hour on the bike and if you're going to be riding for eight hours, that's a lot of energy. Add in cold temperatures and the vertical height gained from climbing and some riders will be burning up 1000 calories an hour.
Diet: whilst you have to eat plenty in the race, in the months before the ride, pay attention to your diet and try to shed any weight in a sensible way. All that climbing means excess body fat is dead weight and those fatty cells need precious oxygen too.
Concentrate: it's easy to lose concentration during the ride. Fatigue sets in and you can forget to eat properly or maybe your bike handling will get sluggish. This isn't what you want when you're rolling off the Galibier at speeds that would see you overtaking traffic on a motorway back in the UK.
Know the roads: local knowledge helps. If you can, try to ride some of the climbs before hand so you know what's coming up. And watch out for those numbered bends on the final road up to Alpe d'Huez, they only countdown the number of hairpins until the town of Alpe d'Huez itself - there are more hairpins to tackle on your way through the town to the finish line!