Etape 2008
Comments
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well, just got back from france, so a very brief summary.
got a nice place at the front of pen 7000's. had a great early ride to the foot of tourmalet. was really flying, jumping from group to group. met a few nice chaps enroute. hi to the dublin boy with the shamrock jersey. rode a lot up the tourmalet with one of the rapha chaps. hi to both.
on the final hairpin at the summit of the tourmalet i hear a pop, so stopped. had broken a spoke on the rear wheel. didn't think it would be to much of a problem. so checked the wobble and loosened the brakes of to avoid rubbing. rode over the top and started to descend. got probably about 8km and another pop. puncture this time. unfortunately my tyre had been just rubbing against the frame and the speed of descent had cause it to overheat and break up so i had a new tyre with a 10mm hole in it.
Race over.
stopped at an organiser who infromed me the broom wagon was 2 hours away. i had made it to the top of tourmalet in about 5h30mins. decided to try and get to the finishing town. managed to bend the wheel into some sort of straightness and patch up the tyre and get a enough air into it to ride slowly back to the foot of hautcam.
Very mixed emotions on the day. will definetly avoid factory wheels in future. i could have got hand made wheels repaired. and since i bought them for this event, was well peeved. What ever happened to mavic support. only seen them at the finish.
Felt like an alien at the finish, felt very odd. i could have cried on seeing the big screen at the finish line. i missed not having the elation of finishing and crossing the line.
I'm not a great climber, but i do enjoy it, if only for the satisfaction of the descent. i didn't even get to enjoy that.
i spent 3 weeks in france, with the event bang in the middle. had a few great rides before. col de marie blanc, col du soulor, col d'ablique, among others. unfortunatley my broken wheel left my bike out of order for the rest of my holiday. couldn't find a shop with a reasonably priced replacement.0 -
Sorry about the bad news Rendo, it was quite a day wasn't it!
I got a hole in the tyre as well about 7km from the feed stop on the Tourmalet but managed to patch it up until I got to Mavic stand at La Mongie for a new tyre, the stand was on the other side of the feed point if you could call it that, looked more like all hell had broke lose with me getting hit over the head with a water bottle a genuine mistake by someone aiming for the bin lol
Anyway after another flat and walking back down the Tourmalet I managed to get to the finish before the broomwagon just in time. I did the col du soulor, and col d'ablique on the Tuesday after the Etape quite a good day out from Lourdes, the Etape sure did make it look like a ride in the park tho.
The bealach na ba wont be holding any fears for me this year after doing the Tourmalet that’s for sure 0 -
Have enjoyed reading about everyone's experiences! This was my first etape. Funny, when I finished I said "never again" but somehow the experience gets better in retrospect with every day that passes! I loved the atmosphere at the start - loved the fact that spectators were out supporting us even in pouring rain - and I got lots of attention being female, everyone shouted "Allez, une fille!" and "Courage!" as I went past which was brilliant motivation. I have done a few sportives this year and had lots of miles in my legs but fairly slow miles, and I only manage to ride at the weekend, so my primary ambition was to stay ahead of the broom wagon. I did fine until the top of the Tourmalet - rode with some fast groups to and beyond Lourdes (well fast for me) and really enjoyed the atmosphere and the odd chat. Mudguards (for everyone else not me!) would have been appreciated though. Up the Tourmalet I did just fine - definitely hare and tortoise here, I have very easy gears (30/27) and just kept turning my wheels steadily, around me were scenes of devastation with people getting off, walking, giving up etc., I just kept going at < 4mph but knew I'd make it to the top. However I had been getting stomach cramps all day (don't know why this was, it's never happened to me before) and tried to ignore them (can't be worse than childbirth I told myself) but this meant I hadn't been eating and drinking properly, I then got incredibly cold towards the top and made the decision to miss the stop at La Mongie in order to avoid hypothermia. At the top of the Tourmalet it all went wrong as I lost feeling in my fingers and then couldn't descend properly as I couldn't pull on my back brake so I teetered down really slowly on my front brake, kept having to stop every few bends to try (unsuccessfully) to warm up my fingers so basically blew it. I'm incredibly jealous of all those people who swooped past me as I normally love descents like that and would have enjoyed the closed road. Anyway by the time I hit the gorge at the bottom I was on my own into the headwind and had got into negative mode and persuaded myself that I had better pull out at the bottom of the Hautacam - as it happened I missed the cut off by ten minutes anyway. Might have made it with an earlier start number (I was in the 6,000s and had to walk for about ten minutes at that first left turn). At the time I was relieved, but now I wish I'd tried harder - although it would have meant I would have been out for 10 hours and with that cold at the top of the Hautacam that probably wouldn't have been safe or sensible. At the bottom I met my husband who'd done brilliantly and made it up the Hautacam despite a bad fall on the Tourmalet descent - he'd done 7 hrs 7 mins - he was v. cold by then and we were both a bit emotional, and then faced the total chaos of trying to find some food at the event centre (no signage) - he couldn't get any food for me because I didn't have a ticket as I hadn't finished, so I had to share his - then an equally difficult attempt to find our tour operator's bus, eventually having put bikes back into bike boxes and warmed up we could finally relax and really enjoyed listening to everyone else's tales.
Sporting Tours were fine and we enjoyed the whole crack and the relaxed couple of days in the hotel - but then we got our bikes off the plane OK, we felt v. sorry for those that didn't, esp the 2 guys in our group who had to wait till 3 am of the morning of the ride to get theirs, they then both did really good times, goodness knows how, given the stress and lack of sleep they must have suffered. They also stayed amazingly good humoured throughout - respect to them. Our guide from Sporting Tours was v. helpful and seemed to spend most of his weekend driving around collecting bikes - but I do think they need to come up with a better way of getting bikes out to the event - can't they freight them out the week before, for example? Nobody can expect the airlines to be able to cope with that many bikes on one day and the stress this causes for everyone seems crazy - I know I won't risk it next time, we'll drive over.0 -
eunderhill wrote:and then faced the total chaos of trying to find some food at the event centre (no signage) - he couldn't get any food for me because I didn't have a ticket as I hadn't finished, so I had to share his.
that really pissed me off... that was why i didn't get to feel part off it. because i had ridden to the finish town. i still had my chip. finally found where to hand it in, and the girl just took it from me and that was it, nothing. i clocked loads of folk with bags of food and stuff, but nobody offered me anything. fortunately my family were there.
also dissappointed that the times are listed, i'm sure to the top of the tourmalet was timed. but no mention of it.
i feel like doing it next year, for pure spite.0 -
rendo wrote:eunderhill wrote:and then faced the total chaos of trying to find some food at the event centre (no signage) - he couldn't get any food for me because I didn't have a ticket as I hadn't finished, so I had to share his.
that really pissed me off... that was why i didn't get to feel part off it. because i had ridden to the finish town. i still had my chip. finally found where to hand it in, and the girl just took it from me and that was it, nothing. i clocked loads of folk with bags of food and stuff, but nobody offered me anything. fortunately my family were there.
also dissappointed that the times are listed, i'm sure to the top of the tourmalet was timed. but no mention of it.
i feel like doing it next year, for pure spite.
chill out. doing an event like that out of spite is strange and more likely to result in an accident.
i agree with you about food for those who didn't finish - that is unfair.
the mats along the way are 1) to ensure no cheating 2) to keep track of where people are in case of accident etc.
they could be used to time sections and publish results, though that is not what the etape organisers intend them for.0 -
Between finishing and getting to the village I lost my meal ticket. All I did was ask the first official I saw where the food was and then tell the guy on the tent " Mon billet perdu" and I was in. I did wheel my bike up to the tent though. Family went and got me a hot drink and I scoffed the grub, it was even OK for veggies.
eunderhil - we saw a woman who'd stayed at Etap hotel we were in at finish, sitting on her own and in tears. My friend was concerned and went to find out if all was OK. She came back and reported it was a case of cold and husband had gone in search of coffee and disappeared. Anyway it all ended OK after a chat and hubbies return. Wasn't you was it?Where the neon madmen climb0 -
Hello Pedylan, no you'll be reassured to know that wasn't me - although I can sympathise, I think I know how she felt!
I'm sure we could have argued the toss and got some food if we'd tried a bit harder- it's just that I'd been left looking after the bikes so presumably they thought my husband was just trying it on, and we didn't have much spare energy left to do problem solving!
Seriously though, given the conditions, a more accessible provision of space blankets and hot drinks would have helped. (e.g. as after the Welsh Gran Fondo, but I accept numbers were smaller). By the time we worked out where to go and battled our way through the cars/bikes/pedestrians/gendarmes with their whistles it must have been a good half hour between finishing and eating anything, and then it took another half hour to find our coach and get into dry clothes. Still we'll know what to expect next time so will be better prepared.0 -
Good advice. The Etape is not about touring. Too many people get fixated by the distance involved and train themselves to ride for 170km and don't realise that for the Etape and other rides, the distance is irrelevant. It's the time and the proportion of this spent at high intensities. You might take 8 or 10 hours to do the course and of this, maybe 3 hours will be spent around your threshold, the kind of pace where you're in pain, sweating, breathing hard and unable to talk much. Are you training like this? You should be...Toks wrote:You've essentially got two choices to make you a fitter rider for Etape type/hilly sportives. Raise your sustainable power output generally - hence become a much fitter (stronger) rider. Or loose weight which will mean your much lighter so can climb better. A combination of both is would be the best option. I'll ask again, during your training how have you tested your fitness levels? Have you seen times improve on a dedicated training loop, sportiv times, threshold power etc.
Once you can ride for 4 or 5 hours, you can probably ride for 6,7 and 8 hours. So the point is then to be able to cope with the long climbs and the intensity, you need to do what Toks says and work on shorter, more intense efforts, like doing an hour's riding as hard as you can, maybe twice a week, with a sharp 2-3 hour ride on Saturday and then a 4-5 hour ride on Sunday.0 -
Toks wrote:
You've essentially got two choices to make you a fitter rider for Etape type/hilly sportives. Raise your sustainable power output generally - hence become a much fitter (stronger) rider. Or loose weight which will mean your much lighter so can climb better. A combination of both is would be the best option. I'll ask again, during your training how have you tested your fitness levels? Have you seen times improve on a dedicated training loop, sportiv times, threshold power etc.chainer wrote:Thanks for the really great advice everyone and the sympathy! Much appreciated.
Toks - I think you may have hit the nail on the head. I do lots of sportives and long rides, but I guess I don't exactly push myself. I thought - wrongly - that if my objective was only to finish the Etape, I wouldn't need to. How wrong I was.
I am not overweight. I weigh 83kgs and I am 6' 3". I think that's ok. Could probably be lighter tho.
Lots of you have mentioned the HR, but I am not sure what to do about that. How does that help me? Sorry if it's a dumb question. I have a HRM and a Garmin and when I come back from a ride it's all in there, but I don't know how to interpret it. How can knowing my heart rate on rides help me prepare for climbs like the Tourmalet?
Plodding along 'simply getting the miles in' without even moderate efforts of intensity will after a few months result in zero improvement for time constrained amateurs and is a complete waste of time in most cases. In fact I'd argue that you can sometimes get so used to this type of training that mentally you can't motivate yourself to do anything else. In general fast friendly efforts in the 1-2 hour range will serve your needs a lot better then throw in a long ride once a week. If you can comfortably average 15mph for your long rides then your friendly fast efforts should be a less comfortable 17/18mph. Don't get too hung up on the heart rate thing either, use it as a reference but don't let it have overall control of your efforts. In my opinion Perceived exertion (feel) is a much better guide and PM's even better. Good luck with your training - AND WHEN YOU ARE TRAINING MAKE SURE YOU ARE TRAINING. STOP PLODDING OR YOU'LL JUST BE A PLODDER!!!
Commiserations on not finishing Chainer.
Iwon't add to what Toks has said as he's put it spot on. You have to up your intensity and avoid "junk miles".
Search this forum - there's lots of good stuff in training. I found this thread quite inspiring
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... =300+watts
Also why not think about a trainer? There's a couple of posters here who offer on line programmes that would mean your investment in time and effort was rewarded by improved capability - and a finish next year! I did finish, but the 100 miles of the Etape took me 2 hours longer than my time on a hilly UK sportive - so I'm considering the trainer route myself as there's plenty room for improvement.Where the neon madmen climb0 -
I second the Toks-Kleber thesis. The only counter to this is that doing lots of miles, over a long period gets the weight down and increases efficiency.
I'd say use your time to build power first and foremost, and if you have the time, also do some long rides to lower weight and increase efficiency.
If you keep riding, you will notice cumulative improvements year on year.0 -
anyone purchased the photos online from Maindru. seems online payment only through credit mutuel. i assume it should all be fairly safe.
anyone received them yet.0 -
rendo wrote:anyone purchased the photos online from Maindru. seems online payment only through credit mutuel. i assume it should all be fairly safe.
anyone received them yet.
Ordered online with normal credit card. Pictures were well taken, but we know what the weather and views were like. I also look grey and very ill in all of mine.
Hopefully finish the blog and add a view of them in tonight.0 -
kmahony wrote:rendo wrote:anyone purchased the photos online from Maindru. seems online payment only through credit mutuel. i assume it should all be fairly safe.
anyone received them yet.
Ordered online with normal credit card. Pictures were well taken, but we know what the weather and views were like. I also look grey and very ill in all of mine.
Hopefully finish the blog and add a view of them in tonight.
i'm so knackered in one of mine i look like i've been 10 rounds with calzaghe (which what i suspect ilook like when i'm drunk)pm0
