Performance Tour du Jour: Rainy day on Alpe d’Huez

Today dawned cloudy, cold and rainy on top of Alpe d’Huez, but that wasn’t enough to deter us from a ride up the mountain! Since our original ride had to be changed because of the weather, some of the folks on our Europeds Tour Trip decided that a quick assault on the 21 hairpins would be enough for today. While some of us loaded our bikes and gear into the vans for a valet ride down the switchbacks, a few folks from our group braved the slick descent (difficult enough on a dry day). Below you can see our mechanic, Brad, prepping the bikes for the day, as Spencer and John get ready to load their bikes into the waiting vans.

After a few of our crew decided that discretion was the better part of valor, we set off with John for a wet ascent of Alpe d’Huez. Nothing like a constant cold drizzle to make the ride up even more challenging than it already is!

Over the course of the 8 plus mile climb, the road to Alpe d’Huez averages about an 8 percent grade (although it gets shallower at the corners, and steeper in other sections). If you’re having trouble picturing what this grade looks (and feels) like, just take a look at the picture below.  That’s a pretty big gap from one bend of the road to the other!

Up and up we climbed once again, to be rewarded with fog-shrouded vistas overlooking the snaking course of the lower switchbacks that we just finished climbing.

Here’s a shot of David powering his way up to turn 3, where barriers have already been laid out to protect the pros from the hordes of fans sure to descend on the mountain on Friday! But today we had the mountain pretty much to ourselves, except for the handful of other cyclists brave/crazy enough to attempt this climb today.

Once we reached the top, the weather and the view weren’t much improved. The drizzle got heavier and the temperature dropped down to 36 degrees Fahrenheit as we crested the climb! Nothing like summer in the French Alps!

After heading back to the hotel and warming up with a hot shower (and trying to dry out all of our wet gear), we headed out for a tasty lunch and a little shopping (after watching the exciting Tour stage finish, of course – Thor Hushovd is just amazing!) We found a great little bike shop called Cycles Huez, run by a friendly English/Australian couple, that sold cool Alpe d’Huez jerseys. Check them out if you make it up here one day!

Tonight it’s off to a dinner of traditional Alpine fondue, and then to sleep with dreams of better weather tomorrow!

To keep up-to-date on what we’re doing next, or to get in touch with us, be sure to follow Performance Bike on Twitter and Facebook. We want to hear from you as we head into the Alps!

Performance Tour du Jour: Arrive a l’Alpe d’Huez

Day two here in France began with a walking tour of Grenoble, as our Europeds Tour group wasn’t meeting up until the afternoon. As it turns out, Grenoble can be an incredibly pleasant place when it’s not raining and you’re not pulling bike cases 1.5km to your hotel! Nestled in an Alpine valley, Grenoble is filled with lovely cafes, quaint streets, and this peripherique (cable car) that went to an overlooking mountainside.

But soon enough it was time to head back to the train station to meet our tour group (luckily we discovered that Grenoble has a highly efficient tram system that ran right by our hotel, so we didn’t have to drag our bags this time).  We loaded up our gear and headed up to Alpe d’Huez with Charly, one of the guides.Once on the road, we finally saw our first sign for the Tour de France (OK, it was  a warning about road closures, but we knew we were getting close!):

Just about the moment we arrived on top of Alpe d’Huez, we tore open our bike cases and set to work getting our bikes ready to ride! It may have been late in the afternoon, but when you get a chance to ride Alpe d’Huez, you go for it! Here we are at the bottom of the climb, in matching Performance Ultra jerseys and shorts, with Chris on his Scattante Team bike and David on his Devinci Leo bike.

So what can we say about the climb up Alpe d’Huez?  Well, it’s pretty darn hard and unrelenting, but it’s definitely climbable.  You just find your rhythm and count off the 21 hairpins as you go up – the pitch of the road varies a bit, but really it’s a fairly constant (if steep) grade.  But don’t get us wrong, we were still maxing out our bike’s gearing range! Of course we felt a little less impressive when we passed this guy on the climb… towing his child in a trailer!

The payoff for all of your hard climbing work was the view – checking out the hairpin bends from above, after pedaling your way up, was a totally rewarding experience.  Plus there were already tons of folks camped out on the side of the road cheering you on – especially a Dutch contingent who even brought their own DJ (we hammered out a little sprint as we passed this crowd, just to give them something to cheer about)!

Finally, after a little over an hour, we crested the summit of Alpe d’Huez – although it turns out that this isn’t really the top of the climb for the Tour riders, which is really about 3km further up the mountain! But it does give you some sense of the crowds of folks already filling up this legendary climb, in anticipation of the big day!

Here we are after our little jaunt up Alpe d’Huez, with a pretty amazing vista in the background.  All in all, not a bad way to spend an afternoon. Tomorrow rain is in the forecast, but we’ve got our fingers crossed that we’ll get to share another epic ride in the Alps with you!

Performance Tour du Jour: On the ground in France

As should be expected when traveling from North Carolina to Grenoble, France, we spent most of the first day of our voyage on airplanes, in trains and trying to cram bike cases into tiny elevators! The flight to France was long but uneventful, with a few movies watched and not much sleep to be found. When we arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport, we ran in to many cyclists ready to ride and watch the Tour, much like ourselves.

We met a nice family on the train – we had met the dad at the Pisgah Mountain Bike Stage Race last year and were pleased to meet his family. We traveled through the airport with them and even competed to see who could fit the most people with bike cases in a tiny elevator:

As you can see, they won.  Eventually we made our way to the famous French high speed train, the TGV, for our high speed escape to the Alps. It was a pretty cool train ride flying through the French countryside, but we have to say that th TGV was not designed with hauling bike cases in mind! Our bikes ended up stacked right by the door of the train, in front of the bathroom – not exactly the best spot for storing some pretty sweet road bikes!

But eventually we made our way to Grenoble (with our bikes), our stopover spot for the night. The weather was wet and rainy when we arrived, but before the day was over (and we passed out from our exhausting day of travel), the clouds cleared and we were treated to our first view of the surrounding mountains where we will spend the next week.

Tomorrow (Monday), we’re off to meet up with our Europeds tour group and head up the Alpe d’Huez for the very first time. Yeah, you could say we’re excited! Or, as the sign says, we’re “fous du tour”:

To keep up-to-date on what we’re doing next, or to get in touch with us, be sure to follow Performance Bike on Twitter and Facebook. We want to hear from you as we head into the Alps!