European Cycling 2008 Friday, June 20th

Courmayeur-Passo St. Bernard (2188m)-Seez-Val d' Isere-Col de Iseran (2770m)-St. Jean Maurienne

84.33 miles Climbing 10942 ft

After a good breakfast and loading the car, I swung a leg over my bike and prepared to descend the very steep driveway from the hotel down to the village road. Luckily for me, there was about five feet of flat cobblestone before the drop. Lucky because I had no brakes! Obviously plummeting brakeless down the steep pitch would have been an embarrassing way for my big European riding adventure to come to a close.

Tim and I had adjusted cable tension on my Zero Gravity Brakes, and we both had failed to notice that our adjustment was preventing the cam arm from retracting far enough to squeeze the brake pads onto the rim. It was an inauspicious start to what would prove to be a phenomenal first day in the Haute French Alps.

First we had to get to the French Alps, and that involved riding from Courmayeur over the St. Bernard Pass. At the top of this col, the Italian Alps miraculously become the French Alps, and the view is panoramically stupendous. The ride up wasn’t too bad either, as the early morning air was cool, and most of the light traffic we encountered was a collection of Ferraris, both vintage and new, as a club must have been on a rally. The climb was about 12 miles in length with 3600’ of climbing, but it was never really steep.

The descent into the French valley below was to be the first of many remarkable pieces of smooth and exhilarating roads we would be riding in the Alps. We paused for a quick bite at the bottom in the village of Seez, and then almost immediately we started up the longest climb in France.

At over 31 miles, the climb up to the famous ski town of Val d’Isere, and then on up to the HC rated Col du Iseran, well, it really does seem to go on forever. Despite the heat making it difficult even when the grade would ease, climbing to the second highest col in France was a delight. Considering that we did roughly the same amount of total climbing (6000’) over the 16 miles of the Stelvio in the Italian Alps, in comparison this climb really wasn’t that hard until the final steep slopes high on the Col du Iseran.

The Iseran used to be the highest col in France at 2770 meters (9088’), but more on that when I report on the Bonnette (June 26th) in the Maritime Alps. Hint—the Iseran has not shrunk in height, and no new cols have recently been discovered!

Val d’Isere looked to be a very cool town, and with lifts operating above 9000’ in elevation, taking in the views of the surrounding mountains would be relaxing, if we didn’t have to grind up through the heat. Right before town, I passed two riders, who then went by me when I stopped by the car for water. I caught one of the riders, but the other one must have felt a much stronger second wind than I did, as I never saw him again.

The skies were deep blue, and the temperature was close to 90 degrees at lower elevations, but miraculously we had a helping tailwind for much of the big climb. The subsequent headwind on the descent just gave us a little bit of an air brake, and made it a little easier to look over the edge of the road to the valley thousands of feet below our wheels. Down in the valley we could swivel our heads and trace the ribbon of tarmac that we had just descended, and I thought back to the Pyrenees trip I had taken the year before. Cycling in the Pyrenees is spectacular, but the views in the Alps were so much more dramatic.

Down in the valley, the hot headwinds continued, and after 84 miles of riding, we called it a day and jumped in the car for the final somewhat boring route into the town of St Jean de Maurienne, where we would spend Friday night. We would return to the same hotel on Sunday night after riding Alp du Huez.

Besides very friendly hotel staff and an excellent big serving of pasta for dinner, we had the additional pleasure of air conditioning in the hotel. This was to be something I would look forward to on Sunday…and reminisce about over the ensuing days.

Difficulty 9
Quality 10
Route 10
Scenery 9

European Cycling 2008 Tuesday June 10th-Friday June 13th

From Seattle to London, I had as good a flight as you can have in coach, having scored a bulkhead aisle seat on the big daddy of all planes, a British Airways 747-400. My connecting flight was held on the runway at Heathrow due to thunderstorms in Munich, but even that worked to my advantage. It allowed the next scheduled flight to play catch up and land only 35 minutes after my flight. This was fortunate since my bicycle made it onto that aircraft, but not the one I was sitting in. BA must be the last airline that treats passengers well, and they even gave me a 45 euro debit card for the inconvenience.

Flying to Munich to spend a few days at the new home of my Seattle friends Tim and Laura was a good way to kick off my Euro adventure. Tim is a patent attorney, and he and his wife Laura are spending 3-5 years in Germany. Tim works for one of his former clients that he advised while at his Seattle law firm. They live in Sauerlach, about 12 miles south of Munich, and right on the S5 rail line to downtown. Laura is not working at the present time, and she volunteered to drive their car in support of Tim and me as we cycled our way across the mountains of Italy and France. Perfect!!!

After assembling my bike the next morning, I embarked on a ride to lay down the first of 686 miles and 96134’ of climbing I would do while in Europe. I headed south through rolling hills, riding toward the true foothills of the Bavarian Alps hovering in the distance. Despite, or maybe because of, having the benefit of using Tim’s handlebar mounted GPS, I managed to turn a planned 35 mile ride into a 59 mile ride! When I spied the same mountain from the same exact angle, I became just a little suspicious, and struggled to orient myself and fight my way home through the fog of jet lag. Worth noting is that this is not the first, nor will it be the last, time I have been led astray by a supposedly infallible GPS unit. As with a lot of technology devices, there is still a lot of room for improvement…to reduce the chance of operator error!

I enjoyed superb, almost traffic free riding on little country roads. Tim and Laura do live in a cycling paradise.

On Friday the 12th, I took the train to downtown Munich for a little exploration and tour. The first price shock of the Tour hit home at Karstadt Sports. At 2 Euros a piece, Power Bars cost $3.15, and I walked away with 12 Power Bars and 3 jugs of Power Bar Sports Drink for a cool $144. From that point forward, I figured it was best just not to think about it, relax, and focus on the riding.

I had the "traditional" lunch of bratwurst on semmel bread at a market vaguely reminiscent of Pike Place Market in Seattle. The real obvious difference was that a lot of traditional Germans seem to prefer to drink beer for their lunch.

Our major goal for the trip was to ride as many of the classic hard climbs of Italy and France as possible. I'll list them as I do a day by day review, but we called the trip the "10k/Day" tour because our goal was an average of 10,000' of climbing for every day we spent in the high mountains. To do this would require riding just about every HC climb in the French Haute and Maritime Alps, as well as some incredible climbs in the Italian Alps and the Dolomites.

Shortly I’ll be posting photos here, as well as a link to many more.

Fantasyland?

Since I have returned from Europe, I have felt absolutely fantastic on the bike. Following a week of low mileage rides to recover, I endeavored to enter one of my favorite phases of my cycling “season”. After all of the winter base building, and then the spring focus on climbing to get ready for my big trip of the year, I always try to make summer the time when I ride for just pure fun. No agenda…no big focus…no real strategy or plan. Just go out and get on the bike.

On last Sunday’s Hills of the West Coast ride, I felt great, and was both physically and mentally ready to ride hard, and all of us did. I actually felt really strong climbing at a high pace, and I’m not totally sure I understand why, but I like it!

While in Europe, day to day sustainability was my primary goal, in order to successfully complete a really aggressive plan that Tim and I had laid out. In other words, I had to survive today in order to ride tomorrow. I never rode harder than an endurance pace, except when the climbs were so steep that I had no choice. I really couldn’t have ridden any harder even if I wanted to—the day to day buildup of fatigue would not have permitted it.

I’m not a physiologist, so it’s hard for me to understand how endurance type riding, albeit a huge volume of this kind of riding, translates into more strength at the “upper end”, i.e., the Vo2 max system that needs to be developed in order to maintain a hard effort for 3-10 minutes.

Feeling the need to quantify if for myself, I headed out to Cougar Mountain yesterday to put in a few hard efforts on some climbs I am very familiar with. First off, I headed up Horizon View/Summit, the steep road just to the east of Eastgate Elementary school. We use this climb frequently on the HOWC, and I think my best time has been 10:18. That pace normally puts me in pretty decent standing with the rest of the Sunday crew. Much to my shock, I went 9:15 today! I then proceeded to take 11 seconds off of my PR on the shorter climb up to Newcastle Golf Club.

I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming or fantasizing, and then I started to think about the obvious. How can I keep this fitness and form as long as possible?

The bicycle can be a great fountain of youth, and I know we all strive to maintain, or even improve our fitness as we age. Forget about racing and competition, it’s simply very satisfying to feel better than when you were younger.

So I welcome comments, suggestions, and advice, and if you ARE a Physiologist, an explanation!

Welcome!

Those of you who know me know that I'm a bit of a late adopter when it comes to technology. That's why it's taken me so long to finally put together a blog.

I've been leading the weekly Hills of the West Coast ride in Seattle, Washington, for the last five years. That ride has connected me to great people and has helped to broaden Cascade Bicycle Club's support of high performance cycling in the area. I thought it would be fun to take the time to share about the HOWC ride, about the High Performance Cycling Powered by Cycle U program at Cascade, and about cycling in general.

I welcome input to this blog and its contents. If you have ridden with us on the HOWC or on the Team HPC rides and have comments on a day's ride or on a particular event, please email me at tmeloy@ureach.com.