Climbing and Descending

When we made our reservations at Hotel Milan in Bourg d’Oisan (pronounced boorg dwa-zone), we were a bit unsure of the decision. It was a town we’d never heard of and there was no train and little information about it on the web. The hotel owner reassured us when he wrote “Don’t worry, Bourg d’Oisan is all about cycling in the summer.” He was right, we were not disappointed.

First off, the hotel itself was a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere. We walked in and they had lost seemingly lost our reservation. While Liz and I were exchanging nervous looks, one of the owners walked in and quickly asked what the problem was and said that she remembered our names (“You are from Florida, right?” “Uhh. Wisconsin.”) and just handed us our room key. No form to fill out, no credit card, no nothing except a warm welcome. In fact, not once during our entire stay did we actually write our names or provide any identification at all, since we paid cash. I’m sure this violates all sorts of French laws, since even using a WiFi hotspot always requires clicking through a license agreement longer than a mortgage application. That night we hit the sack early in preparation for a big day of cycling.

First job in the morning is always to find a cafe and and get some pain au chocolate (literally chocolate bread, but really a croissant-like pastry with chocolate ganache inside) and espresso. Mission accomplished on both counts, but the place we chose was a sizeable establishment with great outside people-watching seating, but no bakery of their own. We were advised to walk across the street and get our baked goods there and bring them back over. Nice!

Next stop, the bike shop, where we had to spend some serious €’s. We were going to rent bikes for at least two days, and also fully outfit ourselves with new bike kit (shorts, jersey, gloves). This was no problem because the shop had a huge selection of pro cycling team kit; Liz opted for Movistar and I opted for Europcar. If there was anything wrong with them it was that we wished we were each a bit more trim… cycling gear is almost never flattering though.

We got our bikes and checked the weather — two solid days of cycling. However, the one stage we wanted to do most of all, Alpe d’Huez, was closed for the day because it turned out that on this rest day for the Tour de France, they brought the entire entourage over to Alpe d’Huez and allowed 14,000 amateur riders to ride the complete stage, closed off like a TdF stage. Cool, but we had to go a different direction, which was no problem. We chose a route that brought us to the top of two cols (passes), including Col du Glandon and Col de la Croix de Fer (Pass of the Iron Cross).

So, first a bit about the bikes. They weren’t the greatest bikes but good enough. Mostly carbon with some aluminum joints. Pretty aggressive riding positions for both of us, more aggressive than our bikes at home. The only real problem was the gearing on Liz’s bike — what’s called a compact double. This is fine for WI and our hills and is what she rides at home, but in the mountains a triple crank in the front would have been desired. What this meant is that coupled with an oversized cassette in back she was going to be at a disadvantage to me on the climbs, needing to use a very low cadence compared to me on my triple. If we could have switched, I would have, because that suits my strengths better and Liz has a great high-cadence pedaling style and she spent most of the time doing about 40rpm (half her normal rate). But c’est la vie, we made it work and Liz did great.

Put simply, we climbed for about four hours straight that day. Over 1500m of climbing at constant grades of 8-12%. Safe to say that we had never experienced anything like it and it’s pretty hard to describe except to say that it was flippin’ steep. What made this particular climb worse was that there were several descents on the way to the top, which were fun but demoralizing because we knew two things: that meant more climbing on the way up and also that we’d have climb those climbs on our way back DOWN the mountain. Even these descents on our way up the mountain were longer and steeper than anything Wisconsin has to offer.

During the climbs we were constantly seeing other cyclists; some of them locals and others were tourists like us. We passed bunches of them — definitely not the slowest on the roads that day. Also, let me say that I found a gear that matches Liz’s lowest gear and never dropped lower than that so that I would experience the same pain as her. What a guy.

One highlight during the ascent was as we were within 1km of the col de la croix de fer.  The entire Team Skil and their support teamcar came the other direction over the climb and headed down the mountain behind us. This team is a professional cycling team that was in the TdF last year but this year was not given one of those elusive wildcard spots. So apparently they decided to do some training in the alps while they were watching the TdF too.

Here are pictures from the top. Angry Liz at her limit in the middle of shouting “Just take the picture!”:

Ben, striking a pose:

and then we just went back down. For about 1 1/2 hours straight. Fun! Total climbing was well over 1600m and distance was 82km.

Needless to say we were sore and tired and I’d promised Liz the best dinner of the trip so we went to a great Italian restaurant and ordered everything vegetarian on the menu.

I can’t tell you how proud I was of Liz during and after that ride. She was amazing!

Day two of cycling tomorrow…