Alpe d' Huez

Two days of work - the upper loop is the Alpe d' Huez and Col du Sarenne, the lower loop the climb to Villard Notre Dame via its 3 dark tunnels and returning down the Col d' Ornon. 

The Tour's ascent of the Alpe d' Huez is almost an event on its own. People arrive in their camper vans a week ahead of the tour to secure and occupy a piece of the verge in Bourg d' Oissans, or perhaps half way up the climb, just to see the peleton sweep past them in an instant on the day of the stage. We were keen to trace this year's route up through the village and over the Col du Sarenne (a first time col included in this edition of the tour), as well as having a look a the descent of the col that would bring the peleton full circle again to make their second ascent of the famous climb.

This stage we rode 2 days ahead of the arrival of the Tour, and with hindsight we could not have left it any later. The road was as busy as it could be without yet being dangerous or unpleasant (the day before the race was an entirely different story, with a smooth ride up being almost impossible at that stage).

Bourg d' Oissans (valley floor), the 21 bends of Alpe d' Huez (centre), the reservoir at Oz and the ski lift station (top left), and hints of Col du ... in the foreground

Alpe d' Huez features much more in the way of modern comforts that Ventoux had offered, amongst which is Rapha's newest signature store, and having climbed at least this far the kommandant decided that he must have in fact summitted the climb and it would be an opportune moment to pop in for a complementary coffee. The summit of the climb is in fact well past this point, and there are no prizes for getting most of the way up any climb in first place as we were at pains to point out.

5 guys on a Col

This inopportune stop was not entirely in vain however as the Rapha boys had decided we were sufficiently fit or fast or laid back or something to join them on their planned afternoon tour, and we had the pleasure of climbing the rest of the way up over the Col du Sarenne with them, returning back along the lower slopes of the Col du Lauterat to find lunch in Bourg d' Oissans.   The one poor Brit almost fell off his bike laughing when he heard that our riding party consisted of a 'Sugar' and a 'G-Spot', amongst others. G-Spot also earning himself the moniker of 'le Chou-Chou' (anyone remember the cabbage patch kids?) - for refusing to look his age, like his namesake, and for riding with the same bob-and-weave style that Tommy Voeckler has made famous.

Ventoux was always going to be hard to beat, but this had beaten it.

Team Rapha had also put us onto doing the climb up to Villard Notre Dame to traverse the ridge that faces Alpe d' Huez and then ultimately connect to and descend the Col d'Ornon (albeit with a few jibes

The climb to Villard Notre Dame

about eating carrots and seeing in the dark) and so on Wednesday we ventured up over the shoulder of the Alpe d' Huez (there is more than one road to Huez it turns out), descended the Alpe into Bourg, and then continued up this little known climb through 3 very unlit tunnels nervously feeling our way along the uneven tunnel floors. The weather turned stormy and denied us the view back onto Alpe d' Huez, forcing an unplanned retreat back through the same unlit caverns, this time in the rain.

The day of the stage on Alpe d' Huez we had chosen (quite wisely) to leave our bikes securely tucked away in Oz and rather make use of the resorts ski lifts to access the finish town. This mountain draws crowds like no other - it was reported, perhaps ambitiously, that there were over a million people on the mountain in 2008 - I suspect 2013 saw close to 200 000 people lining the edges of the climb.