Marmotte 2017

bendertherobot

narbs wrote:

bendertherobot wrote:

I'm in next year, having wimped out this year.

Be careful who you go with, some shady tour organisers out there.

It's the SBS I'm more worried about.

roubaixmb

SBS?

narbs

RoubaixMB wrote:

SBS?

You don't want to know.

rpherts

bendertherobot wrote:

I'm in next year, having wimped out this year.

You won't be the worst in the group, I can assure you.

norvernrob

Well done all, I'm very jealous. I have to do this at some point, but I'm struggling for training time with 2 young kids and as pointed out above you can't really blag it! I've only done 400 miles on the bike this year and am still getting some fitness back after 5 months off after a car accident. The only good thing is that I'm relatively light (67kg fighting weight) and climbing is my thing, if anything is anyway!

kaiserpc

Finished this time! After stopping at Bourg last time in 40c heat. The lower temps certainly helped this time, but I was defo much fitter this year. Really annoyed they ran out of medals, and I lost my certificate on the descent off the Alpe!!! But at least it's on Strava.

The next day I said I would never do it again, but now, I'd jump at the chance again! Love it!

rc856

NorvernRob wrote:

Well done all, I'm very jealous. I have to do this at some point, but I'm struggling for training time with 2 young kids and as pointed out above you can't really blag it! I've only done 400 miles on the bike this year and am still getting some fitness back after 5 months off after a car accident. The only good thing is that I'm relatively light (67kg fighting weight) and climbing is my thing, if anything is anyway!

It is doable if you just want to finish.
After doing Flanders in April 2016 I had my usual 2 month lay off then we decided on the Marmotte for this year.
Between Aug and Oct 2016 I only did 240 miles on the road then I wasn't back on the road until March
this year!

Hardly did anything until Dec when I did nearly 300 Zwift miles from Dec to March.

Between March and June this year, I did just over 400 miles on the road.

My youngest is nearly 2 so had trouble with training.

I rode the Marmotte with a friend who had done less than me so we just wanted to finish.
Started at 0715hrs, made the cut off by 10 mins and finished up the Alpe in 12hrs 20 min.

It was mentally hard but my legs were never really in the red because I was just pedalling the climbs rather than pushing on.
Maybe we were a bit lucky making the cut off after waiting for my mate but it worked out in the end

I emailed the organisers about the lack of medals but I'm guessing I won't hear anything.

itboffin

in previous years medals were only for gold & silver times not just for completing, has that changed?

cougie

No they ran out of medals in the silver bracket certainly.

itboffin

that's lame but also perhaps they should make it clear to people there's no finishers medal you need to be within the gold/silver times and as it would seem one of the early finishers, i guess with it being colder more people made it to the end.

still something to aim for next time folks

cougie

They need to bloody deliver what they promise. If you're in within the silver time you get the medal. Hopefully they'll send them on to those who missed out.

norvernrob

RC856 wrote:

NorvernRob wrote:

Well done all, I'm very jealous. I have to do this at some point, but I'm struggling for training time with 2 young kids and as pointed out above you can't really blag it! I've only done 400 miles on the bike this year and am still getting some fitness back after 5 months off after a car accident. The only good thing is that I'm relatively light (67kg fighting weight) and climbing is my thing, if anything is anyway!

It is doable if you just want to finish.
After doing Flanders in April 2016 I had my usual 2 month lay off then we decided on the Marmotte for this year.
Between Aug and Oct 2016 I only did 240 miles on the road then I wasn't back on the road until March
this year!

Hardly did anything until Dec when I did nearly 300 Zwift miles from Dec to March.

Between March and June this year, I did just over 400 miles on the road.

My youngest is nearly 2 so had trouble with training.

I rode the Marmotte with a friend who had done less than me so we just wanted to finish.
Started at 0715hrs, made the cut off by 10 mins and finished up the Alpe in 12hrs 20 min.

It was mentally hard but my legs were never really in the red because I was just pedalling the climbs rather than pushing on.
Maybe we were a bit lucky making the cut off after waiting for my mate but it worked out in the end

I emailed the organisers about the lack of medals but I'm guessing I won't hear anything.

Thanks for the post! The trouble is, I'm competitive, even if it's just with myself. It's good to know it's doable without massive amounts of training, the good thing is most of my riding is in the Peak District so whilst I can't prepare for 2 hour climbs (other than on the turbo), I can do 100 mile rides with 10-12k of elevation.

ALawson

They offered us a gold or bronze in lieu of a silver. Obviously took the gold! It's a crappy £1 medal, who cares what colour it is. Will try and get a gold through merit next time.

rc856

[/quote]

Thanks for the post! The trouble is, I'm competitive, even if it's just with myself. It's good to know it's doable without massive amounts of training, the good thing is most of my riding is in the Peak District so whilst I can't prepare for 2 hour climbs (other than on the turbo), I can do 100 mile rides with 10-12k of elevation.[/quote]

I think I'm always a bit scared of how far I have to go/what climbs are coming to push on!

One of my group went off with the masses at the start but I caught up with him in the valley before the Telegraphe.

Out of all my rides, the furthest I went before the event was 75miles with about 4000ft of climbing!

ai_1

DeVlaeminck wrote:

How did Ai-1 get on in the end after all the discussion on here ?

I did have a look at the results and someone of the same name is listed with a respectable finish of about 10:30ish - assume that is you/him ?

Hi there,

I spent a week in Chamonix after the Marmotte so haven't really been online, thus no update!
I'm impressed you managed to identify me in the results. Yes, I did it in 10:36 which was massively better than I expected. I can honestly say that's my worst ever time prediction for an event!

I think I got my last couple of weeks before the event just right for a change and was feeling very good on the day. I took it relatively conservatively, just as I planned, basing my effort on heart rate and perceived effort. However, the resulting pace on the climbs was quite a lot faster than I anticipated. Not having local long steep climbs available to use as a point of reference I'd erred a little on the pessimistic side, but I really didn't think there was much chance I'd have time to spare. I was wrong. I got up Glandon a half hour ahead of my worst case "make the cut-off" schedule.

The descent was slower than I'd expected. It's a bit technical but the main problem was that there were just so many other bikes on the road (many of them descending very slowly and taking unpredictable lines). I found it impossible to safely make a fast descent as I'd intended.The valley was not ideal.

The Valley
Despite my intentions of getting into a group, I spent most of the valley solo. In the first half of the valley I rode onto 3 large groups but they were all going too slow for my liking and I ended up going off the front of each. I wasn't flying but they were really taking it leisurely! I debated sticking with them, losing a few minutes and having a nice rest before Telegraphe, but I prefered to maintain my rhythm so kicked on. There was a shortage of faster groups coming from behind that I could latch onto but eventually a small one showed up well into the second half of the valley. It was only a few guys (4 I think) and they were going pretty quick. I latched on as they went by but was getting dropped each time we hit an incline. I rode back on twice but with only a few kilometers of the valley remaining I saved my legs the 3rd time and let them go.

Telegraphe
Telegraphe started well. I got back into a comfortable rhythm fairly quickly and was climbing at a similar rate to Glandon. I was feeling comfortable and optimistic. Then after a few kilometers my right knee started getting sore. It had been bothering me a little since my 200km ride 3 weeks before Marmotte but seemed to be okay again until Telegraphe. Then my biggest problem of the day cropped up. Nutrition. I'd had a couple of bananas and 2 or 3 energy bars at this stage. Something that usually doesn't cause me any problems. My plan was to transition to mostly gels for the second half. I had enough food in my pockets to get to the end so I could avoid any slow stops for food at the refreshment stations - just water refill and go. However somewhere around half way up Telegraphe my stomach started knotting up. That was a surprise since I thought I knew where I stood with nutrition. I backed off on food and just drank a little for the next while and hoped it would pass before I bonked. I kept the pace steady over Telegraphe but my stomach was still very uncomfortable by Valloire and I knew I'd be in trouble if I couldn't take on food. So, I took a break at the refreshments just after Valloire and lay flat on a wall for a short while and tried to ignore the time ticking by. Thankfully this did the trick, at least temporarily. After 15mins my stomach was feeling normal again. I filled a bottle, mounted up and resumed the climb up Galibier.

Galibier
My legs were still strong and with my stomach sorted for now, I was feeling good. The scenery on Galibier is fantastic. There were vultures circling low over the road as I approached the peak. I found the drop in air density noticeable but not problematic. I haven't ridden at that altitude before. My highest previous ride was Mt Teide in Tenerife which tops out a little over 2100m if I remember correctly. I was certainly breathing hard approaching the top of Galibier but it was sustainable and I was passing more riders than were passing me which always helps with the mental side of it.
I stopped for under a minute at the peak to put on a windjacket and started straight into the descent. The traffic had thinned out considerably and it's a less technical descent than Glandon. I really enjoyed it.
I'd lost some time with my stop after Valloir but nevertheless my pace had remained better than I expected on the climbs and by the time I was back down below 1000m and heading for Bourg I was way ahead of schedule to make the cut-off. Unfortunately my stomach had knotted up again a bit before the peak on Galibier despite the fact I'd been eating very, very little since Telegraphe. My knee and back were also both rather sore. I kept the pace up on the way to Bourg D'Oisans but I was getting less and less comfortable.

Cut-Off
I got to Bourg D'Oisans with over 1hr to spare before the cut-off. I was absolutely delighted with that.
Unfortunately while my legs, amazingly, still felt strong, I was getting really hungry and my stomach and back were a bundle of knots. I knew I wouldn't manage to digest anything if I didn't stop so instead of continuing on up Alpe D'Huez, I decided to take another break and then try and enjoy the final climb. So, I pulled into the Bourg D'Oisans refreshments stop and had reasonable amount to eat and drink, then lay on the grass in the sunshine for a while to digest it and relax my back. I'm not sure exactly how long I was stopped but it was around 35-40mins. I know some of you probably think I should have carried on and got the best time I could, but I was delighted with my performance so far and decided I was more interested in my time in the saddle than my official race time. I knew, the cutoff was safe and I knew I'd make it. I wanted to climb Alpe D'Huez with some gusto instead of slogging up it in misery that had nothing to do with my legs.

Alpe D'Huez
I absolutely loved that last climb up Alpe D'Huez!
I'd spent most of the day at a mid to high endurance effort, occasionally tipping into tempo intensity for the final kilometer or two of the climbs, etc. However, on Alpe D'Huez I got into a good tempo effort between the first two turns and never looked back. Psychologically, I was probably helped by the fact that some of the slightly slower riders than me had passed me while I was stopped plus I was now fresher. That meant I was passing riders all the way up and spent most of the last half hour pretty close to a threshold effort. It hurt, but it was that satisfying, self inflicted pain of a hard effort. Not the misery of just trying to keep moving. I'll need to go and check my Garmin data but I think I went up Alpe D'Huez as far as the point it levels out in the town in just about 90mins. That may not be very impressive to some, but I never expected to do it in under 105mins and thought 120+ was more likely.
The effort up the climb obviously had an impact on my concentration, because I mistook the "end of timing" line as you come into town (I think it was there from the hill climb event the previous day?) for the finish line and I sprinted to this and then backed off to easy pedalling most of the way to the actual finish line! I came into town with my heart rate at 168bpm and it had dropped to 132bpm by the time I crossed the line a few minutes later.
Ah well, that didn't cost me more than a couple of minutes....

Time
My offical time was 10:36
I spent 10:03 in the saddle, including the neutralised Glandon descent. The Glandon descent took me a bit over 30mins so I spent about 9:31 in the saddle out of the 10:36 of non-neutralised race time. That's a lot of time spent stopped! It mostly consisted of about 35-40mins in Bourg and 15-20 after Valloire. The rest is just a couple of minutes here and there for water refills and a toilet break - around 10mins total.

Sorry, that turned into a long, rambling, navel gazing post!
I was accused of over-thinking it earlier in the thread. What do you make of this monster?

Summary:
Great event. I loved it and will be recommending it to others.
I was very happy with my performance. I either overestimated the difficulty of Marmotte, underestimated myself or a bit of both. My legs were certainly having a good day.
Nutrition, which I have managed successfully in the past, didn't work out for me this time and without that issue it seems I was very likely on for a silver time, something I hadn't even contemplated before the event. In fact, I hadn't even checked what the silver time for my AG was. If I'd known I might have left Bourg sooner. Of course without time to digest some food I may have bonked on the climb. I have no regrets!

P.S. I was very glad I went with an 11-32 cassette. I didn't spend all day on that 32T sprocket by any means but it really helped to have the option of raising the cadence when I felt the need on those long, long climbs.
P.P.S I went back and added some section headings. that's too much drivel for one big lump of text!

fenix

Nice work. Nobody ever regretted having a large sprocket on the back....

PhilPub

^^ Great write-up, well done. I'm doing L'Etape this Sunday, but at some point over a long weekend we're also fitting in Alpe D'Huez, Glandon, Telegraphe and Galibier so this is getting me right in the mood.

itboffin

Great effort folks but to anyone reading this thread thinking of attempting this event please do train as much as possible this is NOT ride London or similar and despite the odd comment about riding it untrained its not wise to attempt an ultra endurance event without as much prep as you can, this is a hard ride for 99.9% of entrants, for the rest of us you could get seriously hurt.

bendertherobot

itboffin wrote:

Great effort folks but to anyone reading this thread thinking of attempting this event please do train as much as possible this is NOT ride London or similar and despite the odd comment about riding it untrained its not wise to attempt an ultra endurance event without as much prep as you can, this is a hard ride for 99.9% of entrants, for the rest of us you could get seriously hurt.

https://roubaixcycling.cc/2017/07/19/th ... ary-day-1/

Word, I've made a start. I am planning on a strategy but I will be doing a minimum 100 mile ride each month between now and Xmas, then upping it after that. And getting Zwift.

ugo.santalucia

bendertherobot wrote:

itboffin wrote:

Great effort folks but to anyone reading this thread thinking of attempting this event please do train as much as possible this is NOT ride London or similar and despite the odd comment about riding it untrained its not wise to attempt an ultra endurance event without as much prep as you can, this is a hard ride for 99.9% of entrants, for the rest of us you could get seriously hurt.

https://roubaixcycling.cc/2017/07/19/th ... ary-day-1/

Word, I've made a start. I am planning on a strategy but I will be doing a minimum 100 mile ride each month between now and Xmas, then upping it after that. And getting Zwift.

It's nice to have a target, but for a 1 year project, the Marmotte is a bit small... at the end of the day it's an 8-9 hour ride... how about the Tour du Mont Blanc... or you could do the Bryan Chapman memorial 600 ride with me...

bendertherobot

Steady....

DeVlaeminck

Depends on your starting point I guess. One of my targets for 2018 is the Fred Whitton (if I get in) which is a marginally easier ride to complete than the Marmotte but I'm hoping to get inside 7 hours which for me will require the best form I've had in the last 5 years, the least weight I've carried and a decent day weather wise.

ugo.santalucia

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Depends on your starting point I guess. One of my targets for 2018 is the Fred Whitton (if I get in) which is a marginally easier ride to complete than the Marmotte but I'm hoping to get inside 7 hours which for me will require the best form I've had in the last 5 years, the least weight I've carried and a decent day weather wise.

And the attitute to cut people going down Honister and Wrynose... :?

bendertherobot

I have a similar desire for the Marmotte, smash the climbs, get gold. I'll be careful descending mind.

DeVlaeminck

ugo.santalucia wrote:

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Depends on your starting point I guess. One of my targets for 2018 is the Fred Whitton (if I get in) which is a marginally easier ride to complete than the Marmotte but I'm hoping to get inside 7 hours which for me will require the best form I've had in the last 5 years, the least weight I've carried and a decent day weather wise.

And the attitute to cut people going down Honister and Wrynose... :?

Is that an issue? I can't save I've ever been worried by a cyclist cutting me up, I think I'm reasonably considerate though.

ugo.santalucia

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Is that an issue? I can't save I've ever been worried by a cyclist cutting me up, I think I'm reasonably considerate though.

It is an issue at the Fred. Given the nature of the descents, it is difficult to keep a clean line and a steady speed... having people passing you at close distance and twice the speed is a problem. Marshalls do their best to warn people to slow down, but some folks (clearly after some fast finish time) don't give a toss. I had a guy passing me at one metre on the right, whilst I had to swerve to avoid a car that had come to a halt going down Wrynose. We came close to crash into each other, but he was the one who had to slow down and/or pass a lot wider, I couldn't see behind my back... an idiot clearly, unsurprisingly wearing the jersey of a local club

rpherts

ugo.santalucia wrote:

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Is that an issue? I can't save I've ever been worried by a cyclist cutting me up, I think I'm reasonably considerate though.

It is an issue at the Fred. Given the nature of the descents, it is difficult to keep a clean line and a steady speed... having people passing you at close distance and twice the speed is a problem. Marshalls do their best to warn people to slow down, but some folks (clearly after some fast finish time) don't give a toss. I had a guy passing me at one metre on the right, whilst I had to swerve to avoid a car that had come to a halt going down Wrynose. We came close to crash into each other, but he was the one who had to slow down and/or pass a lot wider, I couldn't see behind my back... an idiot clearly, unsurprisingly wearing the jersey of a local club

A one metre gap is quite generous by the usual standard of cyclists overtaking cyclists. In Regent's Park it is about nine inches when the chain gang sweeps past.

DeVlaeminck

Can't comment on your incident but I suppose it's possible that riders who are used to racing maybe give less room than some of those they are overtaking than they are used to. The only really crazy overtaking I've experienced has been on the Marmotte - I went down the Glandon pretty fast and pass far more tan pass me but I tend to pass people safely and then get on the power - there are some lads on that who really commit to a pass and just trust the other rider doesn't change line - in a way I wish I had their bottle! Still you just have to think the chances of being hit are small and you can't be worrying as it takes away from your descending.

itboffin

ugo.santalucia wrote:

bendertherobot wrote:

itboffin wrote:

Great effort folks but to anyone reading this thread thinking of attempting this event please do train as much as possible this is NOT ride London or similar and despite the odd comment about riding it untrained its not wise to attempt an ultra endurance event without as much prep as you can, this is a hard ride for 99.9% of entrants, for the rest of us you could get seriously hurt.

https://roubaixcycling.cc/2017/07/19/th ... ary-day-1/

Word, I've made a start. I am planning on a strategy but I will be doing a minimum 100 mile ride each month between now and Xmas, then upping it after that. And getting Zwift.

It's nice to have a target, but for a 1 year project, the Marmotte is a bit small... at the end of the day it's an 8-9 hour ride... how about the Tour du Mont Blanc... or you could do the Bryan Chapman memorial 600 ride with me...

ha! that Mont Blanc ride is insane, for me next year its Cingles which i missed out on this year due to injury and a new job

itboffin

bendertherobot wrote:

I have a similar desire for the Marmotte, smash the climbs, get gold. I'll be careful descending mind.

dude smash the climbs ?!? :shock: wow!

they're harder than I remembered esp the first Glandon which for some reason in my mind was the Galibier, nope! went to hard to soon and spent the rest of the day getting slower and slower, still beat my 2013 times by over 30 mins and bagged a gold but it hurt