Etape 2013 Route guide

bahzob

Been off touring France for a while. I rode the route of this year's etape while there and, since I had some time to kill on the coach back, I wrote up this guide to the course that may help those doing the event in a couple of weeks time.

http://mr-miff-on-tour.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/etape-2013-post-ride-guide.html

As mentioned here I'd be interested to hear from those who do the event with how it went, to help with future event preparation. So if you do it and are willing to share results please post here or on blog.

Simon_Rhino

thanks for that - I'll certainly take a copy with me for a bit of a pre-ride reccie ahead of riding it for real on the Sunday

cheers

spearmint_wino

This is great, really useful info.

56mph

This is excellent, thank you for posting, and I will ensure I post a write-up afterwards.

Boleynboy

Very helpful, thank you. After last years hellish experience I am hoping for a tough, but more enjoyable experience this year!
I stayed in the Annecy area after last years event and it is truly beautiful as you say. I also rode up the Semnov, but from the Annecy direction (the way we will descend back to Annecy once, hopefully, we have finished), it is a great climb as you say, but not quite as extreme as Alpe D'huez or Ventoux, for example?
Been training like mad because I am determined not to suffer as badly as I did last year, reading your report has definately got the juices flowing!

bahzob

" I also rode up the Semnov, but from the Annecy direction (the way we will descend back to Annecy once, hopefully, we have finished)"

Much of the final climb will be the one you have already done then. The road up from Quintal joins this with 7.5k to go. For this reason I don't think you will be descending that way unless you leave it til very late. My guess is rather that you will have one final little climb to the summit proper (the stage finishes by the restaurant about 250m before this.) Then you will descend the other side back to the Col Leschaux and back to Annecy via the D912.

In terms of difficulty as it happens I had ridden up both Ventoux and ADH several times each during the previous couple of weeks.

Ventoux is definitely harder, its longer, as steep or steeper and has harder tough sections from both main sides.

ADH is much closer I'd say. It's longer if you go all the way to the official finish. But parts of it at the top are dead easy, it road surface is much smoother and you have more hairpins to help pacing and get a breather. However its really hot you get much more shade on the Annecy climb. So all in all ADH is probably a just a smidgen harder.