Marmotte 2012

millster

Has anybody tried to book flights from the UK yet? Easyjet seem to cease all flights after April (possibly they assume it is a ski resort?) and i'm struggling to find an effective way of travelling that isn't going to break the bank.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it!) i'm only 23, so any hire cars incur around £150 "young driver" charge.

I am the god of hell fire

millster wrote:

Has anybody tried to book flights from the UK yet? Easyjet seem to cease all flights after April (possibly they assume it is a ski resort?) and i'm struggling to find an effective way of travelling that isn't going to break the bank.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it!) i'm only 23, so any hire cars incur around £150 "young driver" charge.

I thought I had this wrapped up last year with Air France but then they cancelled the direct flights to Lyon and didnt exactly play fair

twotyred

I booked with EasyJet out of Gatwick to Lyon ages ago.

malcolmfrost

Grenoble does seem to be considered as a ski resort as far as LoCo are concerned.
Try http://www.enjoyoisans.com/location.asp for some info from the tourist board in Bourg.
BA are doing flights from LHR to Lyon on the 4th and 9th for £151. That includes taxes etc. and baggage of 23kg which you can use for your bike.
I do work for BA but they can still be cheaper when you've got a bike.

sampras38

malcolmfrost wrote:

Grenoble does seem to be considered as a ski resort as far as LoCo are concerned.
Try http://www.enjoyoisans.com/location.asp for some info from the tourist board in Bourg.
BA are doing flights from LHR to Lyon on the 4th and 9th for £151. That includes taxes etc. and baggage of 23kg which you can use for your bike.
I do work for BA but they can still be cheaper when you've got a bike.

I'm also flying to Lyon from LHR with BA.

Full Merckx

100 days :shock: :idea:

sunburntknees

Full Merckx wrote:

100 days :shock: :idea:

Yikes! Better get on it!

flamite

Bu99er! that is a wake up call... 100 days!

How is everyone's training going? I am slightly concerned that Im not going to be fit enough... Managed the Spring onion in a bronze time and aiming for 50-90 mile (hilly) rides on Sundays with 4-5 hours midweek (some on a spinning bike - high intensity)... anyone with any advice on whether this is enough?

am planning on doing the wiggle "long one" in goodwood 130 miles and dragon in June as bench markers... managed a 77 mile ride with 6,000ft in the yorkshire moors last weekend, and that was a wake up call, despite the 20% gradients... also heading to Nice to ride the Madone to get a feel for an mini alpine climb over easter...

how is everyone else getting on?

Bon Courage!

speshsteve

currently nursing a sprained ankle, my training has gone to the dogs

twotyred

Was thinking the other day that I'm now half way through training. Its going OK. I'm ahead of where I was last year fitness wise so I just need to keep progressing over the next three months. Weight loss is a bit behind where I wanted to be but there's still time to correct that.

@ flamite. Sounds like you're doing enough but midweek try to do as much on road as possible and as little as poss on the spin bike. Don't worry too much about doing hilly rides. Short 20% hills aren't going to help you much in the Marmotte. Try to put in fast/hard 1 hr sections into your Sunday rides instead- this is best done on a flatter route. You'll be surprised how difficult that is especially if you do the last hour flat out and its better preparation for alpine climbs than muscling the bike up short steep stuff.

mattpage

twotyred wrote:

@ flamite. Sounds like you're doing enough but midweek try to do as much on road as possible and as little as poss on the spin bike. Don't worry too much about doing hilly rides. Short 20% hills aren't going to help you much in the Marmotte. Try to put in fast/hard 1 hr sections into your Sunday rides instead- this is best done on a flatter route. You'll be surprised how difficult that is especially if you do the last hour flat out and its better preparation for alpine climbs than muscling the bike up short steep stuff.

I'd disagree. Short, steep hills will improve your power which will benefit you regardless of the length of hill. The only time this won't be of benefit is if you are blasting up the hills in an anaerobic state every time.
Pick a hilly route wherever possible, watch your speed and try to improve/progress over the next few months.

Any hill longer than 5 minute will really help, but 10, 15 or 20+ minute climbs if you have any near you will really make a difference as the steady state when climbing is what you need during the long alpine climbs.

hatone

Try doing a 1.5hr ride on a empty stomach first thing in the morning... Not easy or pleasant especially if hills are involved.

Do this often enough will greatly aid you in the Marmotte.

mattpage

hatone wrote:

Try doing a 1.5hr ride on a empty stomach first thing in the morning... Not easy or pleasant especially if hills are involved.

Do this often enough will greatly aid you in the Marmotte.

How and why?
Nonsense advice I am afraid.

brucey72

mattpage wrote:

hatone wrote:

Try doing a 1.5hr ride on a empty stomach first thing in the morning... Not easy or pleasant especially if hills are involved.

Do this often enough will greatly aid you in the Marmotte.

How and why?
Nonsense advice I am afraid.

+1 - absolute rubbish. Cycling on an empty stomach as a trainining method for 10 hours in the saddle - where getting your nutrition correct will be vital - will not help you at all.

sampras38

hatone wrote:

Try doing a 1.5hr ride on a empty stomach first thing in the morning... Not easy or pleasant especially if hills are involved.

Do this often enough will greatly aid you in the Marmotte.

I always knew cycling was full of eccentrics but this ^?

Seen it all now...

wallace_and_gromit

sampras38 wrote:

hatone wrote:

Try doing a 1.5hr ride on a empty stomach first thing in the morning... Not easy or pleasant especially if hills are involved.

Do this often enough will greatly aid you in the Marmotte.

I always knew cycling was full of eccentrics but this ^?

Seen it all now...

I experimented with this during my Marmotte preparations. It has two benefits (see caveats below, though):

1 - It enhances your fat-burning capabilities ie your ability to supply your energy needs when your glycogen reserves are depleted.

2 - It enhances your ability to store glycogen.

Both of these are, on face value, useful for the Marmotte, as who wouldn't want enhanced stores of glycogen or fuel efforts when glycogen has run out?

The problem is that you won't do the Marmotte very quickly or enjoyably fat-burning, and however much you enhance your glycogen storage abilities, you'll not be able to store enough to get you round.

Thus, you need to train to be able to eat and metabolise the requisite volume of complex carbs, and the best way to do this is to undertake long rides and eat a lot on the way round. The Marmotte is no place to discover that you can't face solids 6 hours into a ride when just gels/powders give you gastric problems after 5 hours.

This is my understanding. If it's wrong, then I at least enjoy get to eat a lot whilst on the road! (And it works for me, so I'm sticking to it!)

twotyred

Wrong I'm afraid. As you point out you cannot store enough glycogen to get you round the Marmotte but neither can you digest and metabolize enough carbs. It's your fat that gets you round. Your body uses a mixture of carbs and fat and the long rides (with some eating) part of your training will adapt your body to use more fat and less carbs. You will still need carbs but think of them as kindling to allow the fat to burn. Stuff you face if you want but only about 1g per kg bodyweight of carbs per hour will be used. Rest is wasted or worse will give you a bad stomach

wallace_and_gromit

twotyred wrote:

Wrong I'm afraid. As you point out you cannot store enough glycogen to get you round the Marmotte but neither can you digest and metabolize enough carbs. It's your fat that gets you round. Your body uses a mixture of carbs and fat and the long rides (with some eating) part of your training will adapt your body to use more fat and less carbs. You will still need carbs but think of them as kindling to allow the fat to burn. Stuff you face if you want but only about 1g per kg bodyweight of carbs per hour will be used. Rest is wasted or worse will give you a bad stomach

I think it's a combination of factors, as with all things in life that gets you through.

Improved fat-burning, greater stores of glycogen and improved ability to consume and metabolise complex carbs "on the road" all play their part. For a 70kg rider, 70g of carbs per hour takes some consuming, so you still need to practice doing it. I would guess that most folk wouldn't consume enough going by what they felt like eating to have enough carbs to hit their 1g per kg per hour threshold. I'd be surprised if this threshold didn't improve by repeated long, calorie replete rides in any case. (Probably not by much, but Sky live and die by "marginal gains" so it must be good for us Weekend Warriors. ) The body adapts to pretty much everything new you throw at it so why not this?

Caffeine apparently improves the ability to metabolise complex carbs, or so the packet on High 5 "Extreme" claims...

Full Merckx

Anyone flying to Lyon via Amsterdam ?

I am the god of hell fire

Full Merckx wrote:

Anyone flying to Lyon via Amsterdam ?

The thought of flying anywhere via anywhere scares me
That just doubles your exposure to baggage handlers and general airport mischief
On last years Etape I heard of a number of people who had their bikes mislaid or damaged by intermediaries

Back on topic Id booked a perfectly timed direct flight with Air France to Lyon for this years Marmotte

Perfect until I phoned them relatively recently to see why they still hadnt given confirmation of my bike which fulfilled all of their criteria for carriage when I booked it last year, to be told theyd canned my direct flights and rerouted me by a connection at CDG out and the train back - which was nice that they hadnt actually volunteered this information themselves..............

whitehart

I have just heard that Guy and Helyn who run the King of the Mountains chalet at Alpe d'Huez may have up to 3 places available for the week of La Marmotte. How do I know? I have just had to cancel my place due to illness.
Have a look at their website here and if you get in touch tell them Jonty sent you.
http://www.kingofthemountains.co.uk
Good luck to everyone taking part, I should soon be in training for 2013...

cjcp

brucey72 wrote:

mattpage wrote:

hatone wrote:

Try doing a 1.5hr ride on a empty stomach first thing in the morning... Not easy or pleasant especially if hills are involved.

Do this often enough will greatly aid you in the Marmotte.

How and why?
Nonsense advice I am afraid.

+1 - absolute rubbish. Cycling on an empty stomach as a trainining method for 10 hours in the saddle - where getting your nutrition correct will be vital - will not help you at all.

Fwiw, my commutes were done on an empty stomach to keep the weight down, but I also did two-hour rides (7-9am) (with JG on here) on an undulating course near home on an empty stomach (coffee aside) as training for last year's Marmotte. They were intense rides, averaging around 22mph. I've done sportives before, and did the Marmotte in 2010 too, so just wanted to see how long I could last without food. I also only managed three rides over 50 miles between the two Marmottes, so not ideal training by any stretch, and I suffered on the Galibier, but it worked for me. I was able to stand after finishing last year, which was a welcome improvement on 2010.

lmrt

Have any riders from the last few years opted to "buy" the official video, which presumably includes footage of themselves? It's an option on the Sportcommunication website, 3Euros standard format or about 18Euros HD? Any recommendations, worth it?

SwissRetreat

Re: hill training vs turbo/rollers

Full Merckx -Think what would Eddy do?

He'd be on the hills.

Joe Friel (Cyclists training bible) has a good section on the benefits of specifity in training - to cut a long (but interesting) story short he reckons the body attempts to the specific fitness demands placed on it and there is little crossover from different sports, you can extend this to climbing I think, ascending cols puts your body in a different position and your mindset is very different from being in the garage with sufferfest on

Descending skills shouldn't be overlooked too - both to recover the legs on a long day like the Marmotte but also to make up easy time and feel more confident.

Finally your bike was born to be on the road not a roller - so if logistics allow always choose road over roller!

cjcp

And you are in Switzerland, not the UK, so you have access to slightly more appropriate hills

Hard turbo efforts are good. I did very little hill work, but I trained on an undulating circuit most of the time where the longest hill is a minute long, plus a flat commute. Turbo sessions supplemented this.

I did ok - not brilliantly - but ok enough for me to be well chuffed. JG on here did similar training to me and went a full 20 mins faster than me.

So, to those who aren't doing long hills or long rides every weekend, don't panic.

James F

Hi All

I am driving down to the Alps for the Marmotte and can offer a lift to anyone that needs it... details are as follows:

Driving down on Thursday 5th, leaving pretty early from Kent. Driving back on Monday 9th with 1 other guy.

Expected cost based on 2 yrs ago - £200 covers tunnel, petrol and tolls

So if you don't want your bike trashed by French luggage handlers and you can handle 8 hrs on the motorway with a bike bore then let me know...

Rules:
It's my car so it's my Ipod
No serial killers

Cheers
James

Alain Quay

This mid-50s cyclist would be grateful for some training advice. I'm aiming to finish, pedalling not walking.
Weight now 68 kg, down by 5 kg since Xmas . The main issue is I'm struggling to find the time to get out on bike. I've done about 20 hours' spinning which I will replace with an evening ride a week and I've done several weekend 40 milers plus 2 x 100 mile rides and aim to have done 6 x 100 milers, some as sportives and some on my own, by 7 July. But no more than this. Is this well below the 'norm' for an event like this?

polkadotcycling

If you want some information on what the climbs are like to actually ride, we've written some guides to help people prepare. There is a separate article for each of the climbs, Col du Glandon, Col du Telegraphe, Col du Galibier and Alpe d'huez. They are featured under the Tour climb's of the month articles...

http://www.polkadotcycling.com/latest-news/

wallace_and_gromit

SwissRetreat wrote:

Re: hill training vs turbo/rollers

Full Merckx -Think what would Eddy do?

He'd be on the hills.

Joe Friel (Cyclists training bible) has a good section on the benefits of specifity in training - to cut a long (but interesting) story short he reckons the body attempts to the specific fitness demands placed on it and there is little crossover from different sports, you can extend this to climbing I think, ascending cols puts your body in a different position and your mindset is very different from being in the garage with sufferfest on

Descending skills shouldn't be overlooked too - both to recover the legs on a long day like the Marmotte but also to make up easy time and feel more confident.

Finally your bike was born to be on the road not a roller - so if logistics allow always choose road over roller!

I think training knowledge has advanced somewhat since Eddie's day, so he would most likely train differently now.

In general, whilst I fully accept that training for a long, hilly ride must include a lot of hilly riding, I'd say to only do this might not be optimal. In lots of other sports, people train over different distances to their race event. eg in rowing, races are over 2000m, but the vast majority of training is done over 15k-20k steady state sessions at much lower levels of intensity than for a race. Similarly, track athletes do a lot of high rep weight sessions.

Why? Because although the impact of each type of training is specific, the best end results are achieved by combining a number of specific training benefits.

Anyway, each to their own and what's optimal for one person won't be optimal for another.

oldwelshman

brucey72 wrote:

mattpage wrote:

hatone wrote:

Try doing a 1.5hr ride on a empty stomach first thing in the morning... Not easy or pleasant especially if hills are involved.

Do this often enough will greatly aid you in the Marmotte.

How and why?
Nonsense advice I am afraid.

+1 - absolute rubbish. Cycling on an empty stomach as a trainining method for 10 hours in the saddle - where getting your nutrition correct will be vital - will not help you at all.

Not quite rall rubbish and it will help actually.
If you do this type of ride your body gets used to using body reserves rather than carbs you eat. It also raises metabolic rate for a while through the day.
When I start back training in winter I usually need a little food and energy drink for 45 nmileroute I do midweek.
Now even though I am only abut 90% fit I do same ride, more effort, and use anything from a couple of sips of squash to 1/3rd bottle, or if really push hard 500ml bottle.
When on hard ride like the marmotte if you have done such rides your lesslikely to bonk as easily as someone who eats dozens of bananas and gels od 45mile rides like some people on the forum see to do.
Some people may eat more than others anyway.
When I did marmotte only stopped once, used two of my own bottles and one refil, and had 3 bananasand two gels, for me that was enough, others may eat much more.
Anyway nutrition is more important for the two days prior to the ride, get this wrong and it is possible to bonk and you will end up eating loads in ride but its too late then.