Marmotte 2013

chill123

lucky paddy wrote:

The article by chill123 is very good this will be my fifth marmotte and I am always on the look out for hints and tips.

thanks! i've got a funny feeling i'm going to sign up again for 2014. i've got unfinished business with that final part of galibier!

Red_Pooley

Guys maybe i am being particularly stupid...but i cant see where the Registration information leads you to check on the Dossard number etc and place to load your certificate.

Can someone please post exactly where i need to go on the Registration page and the following steps.

Thanks

Ps I have tried Check Registration - that just gives the alphabetical list, which i am on.

BlueScot

The company I'm using for the ride are dropping two of us off at Lyon airport on July 7th. Like a few others who have posted, we intend to spend a day or two in Lyon for a few "recovery" drinks Does anyone have any experience of getting into central Lyon with a couple of bike boxes? I'm told the taxis aren't really that big at the airport. I know there is a concierge service at the airport, but I'm not sure if I like the idea of leaving all that carbon for a day or two! (And they also threaten to close up once they get too busy - i.e. full of bikes boxes.)
I know that using an airport hotel is an option, but any other suggestions would be appreciated - cheers!

bernithebiker

French taxis are all shapes and sizes, so just wait for a big one, like a Touran or a Galaxy to move up the queue. They'll probably stitch you up for a supplement though.

Oh and be careful, they're all on strike blocking the roads today............

TeamHammond

Hi Guys - I've registered early and secured a place - now my training buddy fancies joining me - any idea how he can get a spare 'registration only' place now the ride is officially full pls?

Fogliettaz

Blue Scot, if you are at Lyon airport and want to get to the centre of Lyon try this, http://www.rhonexpress.fr/
Lots of good restuarants and bars in Old Lyon.

willy b

Race number and extra information has come out today via email.

7318, not sure how the numbers have been allocated.

ju5t1n

7288

mpd62

just recieved a refund after entering twice in the 1st day mix up.

janogorzalek

Happy days. Start number 1529 and the gold medal time seems to have been increased to 9h27.

I thought in previous years it was 8h50 or thereabouts?

caledonian1

mpd62 wrote:

just recieved a refund after entering twice in the 1st day mix up.

Ah that is good news...i also entered twice and wondered how to get a refund.

Incidentally i am doing the Snow Roads in May....how aptly named...The Lecht, Cairn O' Mount, Gairnsheil and Cabrach have all been blocked for the majority of this week.......so much snow that i only hope they that thaw in time for the event.........

janogorzalek

Does anyone have the split times for Gold medal pace?

I've seen several threads about people pacing themselves for Gold / Silver, but no mention of the intervals.

ded

janogorzalek wrote:

Does anyone have the split times for Gold medal pace?

Gold medal pace depends on your age, so would be different for everyone. I've done it twice and got gold each time - times were:

Col du Glandon: 1:52 and 2:00
Valloire: 4:07 and 4:25
Col de Galibier: 5:52 and 5:52 (yes I had a small fade the 2nd time I did it!)
Foot of l'Alpe: 7:06 and 7:11
Alpe d'Huez: 8:20 and 8:30

All times "raw" none of that neutralised nonsense. I was fitter the 2nd time (8:20) but probably paced it better the 1st time. Dunno if that helps or not!

daverow

I'll be travelling from the North of England and, having done the drive before, am not relishing it again this year. Does anyone have any better plans for getting down to Bourg D'Oisan for the week ethat don't include hauling ass all the way from Blighty? It's pricey too these days with the tolls/petrol etc..

janogorzalek

Thanks ded.

By 'neutralised' do you mean not including the descent on the Col du Glandon? If that's the case, I guess your neutralised times would be about 20 minutes quicker?

This year the gold time for my category is 9h27 which I presume is a neutralised time... so there's a big margin between the gold cut-off and your splits!

I'll try to flex your times which should give me an idea if I'm on target or not..

ded

janogorzalek wrote:

By 'neutralised' do you mean not including the descent on the Col du Glandon? If that's the case, I guess your neutralised times would be about 20 minutes quicker?

Not been on here in a while! But yes, those times include the Glandon descent. Without it my time was about 29mins quicker (7:51). The mats are quite a long way down in the village and I had a quick "comfort break" on the way down. I'm not a slow descender but there are some "mixed" descending skills in the Marmotte. The comfort break was also a strategic ploy to get away from the group I'd caught up with....

As I'm an old git those times were indeed well within the gold times for my age, but I didn't have any radically fast or radically slow sections so you could "scale" them I suppose. I don't believe there aren't any other bike nerds on here who don't have very precise GPS'ed tracks/times of their Marmottes....

janogorzalek

Thanks, that's a big help.

If you know someone who came in with a neutralised time around 9h - 9h15, please post up their splits.

The Sooper

There's lots of data on Strava. If you search for segments named "La Marmotte" then select a rider with the time you're looking for, click on the date of their ride and then the "performance" tab, you can then hover over the elevation profile and note any split you like (times include the neutralised section of course).

mikey_748

Morning - due to various injuries this year I'm not going to be able to make this years Marmotte - means there's a spare place available if someone can work out how to transfer the entry into their name or alternatively can ghost ride as me if they're happy to do that.

mattpage

For those getting yourself ready for La Marmotte this year, this could be the perfect preparation and training. A Sportive training weekend with La Marmotte and other tough UK and overseas sportives in mind.

brucey72

So how is everyone's training progressing?

With the awful weather we are having and a new job taking up a lot of my time my training has mostly been done on the turbo trainer so far this year. I was looking at my cycling diary and last year at this stage I had managed nearly 1500 outdoor miles whereas this year it is less than half that! I do have a week in Mallorca in May to look forward to and surely with the lighter nights approaching the weather can't continue like this can it? I know people always say MTFU and just get out there, but having lost 3 months cycling to an injury sustained as a result of falling due to slush/ice a couple of years ago I'm just not prepared to risk it so the turbo it is!

daverow

I suspect the majority of people are in the same boat from the UK. Fear not, however, there are still 3 months to go and whatever base you have now will stand you in good stead for increasing your mileage in the coming weeks .

I've been restricted to the turbo too for an assortment of reasons but have been doing 3 x 20min intervals at my climbing threshold (appx 166bpm) and find these excellent for building both leg strength and the capcity to work continuously at the workload encountered on the Marmotte (lots of continuous climbing efforts).

What i'm going to struggle with, unless I start to get the century rides under the belt, is the endurance overall to complete in a gold time. (was outside gold by about 20 mins last time with a mechanical in Valloire!)

barrybridges

Hi All,

I'm training for the marmotte this year. I attempted it in 2008 (I think, might have been 2009) and didn't complete it, having horribly horribly underestimated how difficult it would be.

Over the past 20 years I've drifted in and out of cycling (seriously) like a boat sailing in and out of port. This time, I've made it my mission to take training seriously, lose weight and (hopefully) beat my two friends who are doing it with me (both of whom have got silver times previously).

My training is going well, I would say. To be honest, my biggest focus has been losing weight. On 1st January I weight 15 stone 7 lbs and this morning I weight in at 13 stone 4, so I'm pretty much on target (trying to get down to the low 12 stone range).

I've been upping my long rides by 10 miles each month - and I'm comfortably riding a hard 80 miles at pace now.

That said, I'm fed up of the cold weather and suffering from some pretty numb rollocks as a result of too much time on the turbo and not enough fresh air. Better numb than frozen though.

Leroy42

@barrybridges,
That's really great, way to go on the weight loss. Quick calculation is that the weight loss already will potentially save you+10 mins on Aple D'Huez, you can add to that the other climbs as well.

One thing you need to be prepared for is the constant effort required when climbing these mountains, and you need to train for that. There are many opinions about the best way to train, but one thing for certain is you need to be able to maintain your efforts for 90 mins or more. So you need to find the level at which you can maintain this effort as you cannot afford to go into the red on these climbs as it is very difficult to recover.

Another part of the course that many people ignore (from a time point of view) is the descents. Just looking at some of the splits from prior years there is a huge amount of time to be gained (or lost) from the descents, so while it is an area to get some recovery it is also an area where time can be gained, for much less effort than climbing would take.

Avoid taking too much time at the food stops. Get your food, stretch etc, but don't hang around too long as A) it counts towards your time and it is hard to get going again. It is very easy to spend ages especially at the Valloire stop, but unfortunately no matter how long you spend the Galibier isn't getting any easier.

On other tip I was given was that many people focus on doing the climb and then resting at the top. This guy reckons it is far better to stop during the climb, recover, and go again, and avoid the stop at the top (save for water/food). His thinking being that you don't need a rest at the top as the descent will give you the time to recover while taking a rest during the climb means you can get recovery in and tackle the rest of the climb with a bit more gusto.

kfinlay

I'm mostly stuck on my turbo too and have been doing 2x20 threshold intervals and base and aerobic power sessions but for the last two Sundays I've done 3.5 hr turbo sessions recreating a sort of mini marmotte as follows
20min warmup
40min interval up to 78% MHR
20min spin 65-70%MHR
25min interval up to 78%MHR
5min spin 65-70%MHR
25min interval up to 78%MHR
20min spin 65-70%MHR
40min interval up to 78% MHR
20min spin 65-70%MHR (no MTF :oops: )

Found that I could finish but boy my legs new they had been worked. Think this will help with the long sustained efforts needed and with pacing. Any comments on whether this is good or not would be welcome as I've not specifically for anything this big (I have managed a 100 miler in Feb and was every bit as tired doing this TT session).

Was out with a local group a few weeks back and one guy had a slow crash (approx 10mph) and cracked his carbon frame so while my alu winter bike would be unlikely to suffer that fate, I just won't risk the cost of replacing parts that could be damaged or not being able to cycle due to injury.

Keep those legs turning and hope you have a great Marmotte

Tom Butcher

Leroy42 wrote:

@barrybridges,

Another part of the course that many people ignore (from a time point of view) is the descents. Just looking at some of the splits from prior years there is a huge amount of time to be gained (or lost) from the descents, so while it is an area to get some recovery it is also an area where time can be gained, for much less effort than climbing would take.
.

This is probably true on most mountainous sportives but not so much on the Marmotte - the Glandon descent is neutralised and isn't timed, the Telegraphe descent is short and not at all technical and you don't descend Alpe D'Huez. The only point you can make time on the descent without effort is the top section off the Galibier - the first 5k or so down to the Lauteret - it'll make some difference but even the best descender in the world will only make a handful of minutes over anyone with reasonable competence.

barrybridges

When I did it previously it was the year where there was a real nasty crash on the Glandon descent (before the organisers neutralised it), but having ridden out there before (both unsuccesfully on the marmotte and successfully for 'pleasure') I'd agree with the post above. The Telegraphe descent into Valloire is really quite short with very shallow bends - there's hardly any time to be gained there.

The bit between the end of the Glandon descent and the Telegraphe is quite a drag though and I imagine could be a bit of a time saving for some - it's an every-so-slightly-uphill grind but if you treat it as recovery from the Glandon you'll be wasting time; if you treat it as 'push on to the telegraphe' you're probably already recouping 5 - 10 minutes on others.

barrybridges

kfinlay wrote:

I'm mostly stuck on my turbo too and have been doing 2x20 threshold intervals and base and aerobic power sessions but for the last two Sundays I've done 3.5 hr turbo sessions recreating a sort of mini marmotte as follows
20min warmup
40min interval up to 78% MHR
20min spin 65-70%MHR
25min interval up to 78%MHR
5min spin 65-70%MHR
25min interval up to 78%MHR
20min spin 65-70%MHR
40min interval up to 78% MHR
20min spin 65-70%MHR (no MTF :oops: )

Any comments on whether this is good or not would be welcome as I've not specifically for anything this big (I have managed a 100 miler in Feb and was every bit as tired doing this TT session).

I'm not the best-qualified person to answer this, but my opinion is that it's an awful lot of time to spend on a turbo trainer in one go!

Someone said that really the Marmotte is just 4 blocks of 60 minutes climbing, which I think is a really good way to view it. Of course, there's descending between - and I know you can practice that - but good descending is a mental skill and you can't do much to train your body for it, if you know what I mean.

With that in mind, I would have thought the best use of the turbo trainer at this time would be solid hour blocks to replicate the climbs, at a HR comparable to your climbing rate. I don't think you'll get much for the spinning/recovery bits of your workout, other than making your turbo sessions longer than you need them to be.

If you really want to spend that much time on the TT I would think back-to-back hour blocks with a brief rest in between would work.

Other than that, when it warms up, hill repeats.

itboffin

I've been training hard on the turbo and as many long weekend rides as the weather has allowed but this week I'm.in mallorca the weather is amazing.and the climbs epic, 50-85 miles everday and 5-7000ft

I'm shagged out but hopefully this is going to help

Marik

Reading all this is scary! Although I've cycled all the Marmotte climbs (usually one at a time tho) I just don't do - or understand - the technical training stuff. What are the chances for a non-competitive, laid back, not young, not skinny, can't descend, hates the turbo, type of person to get round this? How long do they give you to finish? Was hoping the 100 mile Mon to Fri commute, and the odd 60 miler at weekends would do it, but all this talk of intervals and blocks and percentages is very off-putting. Anyone doing it who's just a keen cyclist? And perhaps worse - any women??