La Marmotte: A grand day out in the Alps

La Marmotte is billed as the toughest one-day cyclosportive, and this race had been tickling my fancy for some time. In addition, I had been meaning to do some road biking in the high Alps for a few years; I’ve done a fair bit of mountain biking over there but nothing on a bike with skinny wheels. La Marmotte is an opportunity to ride a few of the classic alpine road climbs in one day. 174km in length with 5000m of climbing, the race covers some beautiful cols which include the Col du Galibier and Col de Croix de Fer, with a finish up the Alpe d’Huez.

The Alpe d’Huez is perhaps the most famous road climb in cycling. The Tour de France frequently uses it as the finishing climb of a stage or for a short but intense mountain time trial. When the Tour comes to town, thousands upon thousands of people line the 21 hairpin bends of l’Alpe, screaming encouragement (and often abuse) at their favoured (and most disliked) riders.

The race starts in Bourg d’Oisans, situated at the bottom of Alpe d’Huez. It returns approximately 100 miles and 4000m of climbing later to the foot of the Alpe for a fitting climax to a challenging ride.

Le Mont Ventoux - nice warm up

I travelled out to France with mountain biker, fell runner and adventure racer extraordinaire, Helen Jackson. We flew to Nice and hired a car. The race was on Saturday, we flew out on Thursday evening and broke up our drive to Bourg with a quick spin up the Mont Ventoux in Provence early on the Friday morning. This is the other most renowned climb in cycling.

Famously very windy with a sort of limestone boulder moonscape towards the top, the Mont Ventoux rises up to 2000m from the relative flatland surrounding it. It has been the site of some gruelling Tour battles over the years and one of the Tour’s greatest tragedies; in 1967 englishman Tom Simpson died on the climb in intense heat whilst racing for the stage and Tour win. He was loaded up on speed, his legendary last words were ‘Put me back on my bike’. There is a memorial to him just below the summit.

The closest Helen and I came to doping for this climb was an extra pain au chocolat from the boulangerie in Bedoin, a small town at the bottom of the Ventoux. We had a steady ride up, it was cloudy and very windy up top so we didn’t hang around. We were back in Bedoin in time for elevenses of chocolat chaud and fresh apricots. Then off we headed to Bourg d’Oisans. It was a good job we paid for extra insurance on the hire car as we almost had a few incidents whilst negotiating ourselves around Grenoble.

"approximately 6000 riders enter
La Marmotte each year"

Helen had come up trumps on the accommodation front. Being not particularly organised, we’d left booking until this late on the basis that we could camp if we couldn’t get anything else. She had managed to hire a very nice static caravan in Bourg just next to the start. The guy we hired it from was a cyclist and was riding the race. He had the build of a typical grimpeur and had a very impressive personal best for the Marmotte of six and a half hours (it’s won in around six hours).

Early starts and dayglow lycra

Approximately 6000 riders enter La Marmotte each year. As I had entered the event relatively early, I had a starting number of 806 which put me well up the starting grid. Helen entered late and got number 5507. Starting a race like this high up the field makes a pretty significant difference as you don’t have to negotiate thousands of riders slower than you in a bid to move up the field and ride with competitors more suited to your pace.

The race started at 7:15 in the morning. This meant a wake up at around 5am to eat as much breakfast as possible and try to psyche up for a long day out. At half six, I left Helen at the caravan faffing around with a tyre to find my place in the starting pen.

"an impressive array of
bright euro-lycra and
lots of bike bling"

Lining up with thousands of foreign roadies is not too much fun, lots of posing goes on. There was however an impressive array of bright euro-lycra and lots of bike bling to pass the time looking at. My bike is modestly swish but some of these boys were riding around on £4K machines!

The start time soon came and off we went, trying to avoid those wobbling and swerving around me. I find these sort of starts quite difficult, it’s much easier once you’ve started, you then need only to concentrate on riding within your own little peleton until the first climb.

The first climb came around all too soon. As you can see from the profile of the race below, there isn’t very much flat, about 20km until the start of the Col de Croix de Fer and that’s about it. When the climbing began I set my pace and tried not to think about how far I was riding as the idea of hours and hours of climbing was a bit intimidating. Some guys were going very fast, maybe too fast. Some of them would finish well ahead of me, others would blow somewhere along the way and struggle. It was still early, nice and cool. The forecast was for a hot day - into the thirties.

The top of the col came with the unwelcome and surprising sight of a row of gendarmes blocking the road, only letting small groups of ten or so riders through intermittently to start the descent. I found this frustrating and initially a bit patronising until I got down the road and saw the problem; a nasty crash. The ambulance was just arriving. I heard later that, a while after I passed through, the road was closed for over an hour. Loads of riders (Helen included) were held up at the top.

Alpine descents take some getting used to. In racing mode with plenty of other riders breathing down your neck you have to hold your line. It’s important to let faster descenders pass but also important not to let yourself be bullied into being too submissive and therefore slower. I tried to stay smooth and relaxed, and we were back down in the valley at St Jean de Maurienne pretty quickly.

The roof of the Tour

A little more flattish ground followed to link us to the start of the next climb. A real peleton formed and we headed to the foot of the Col de Télégraphe at a fair old speed. The climb up to this col is really just the first half of the true beast of the day, the Col du Galibier. Known as ‘the roof of the Tour’, the Galibier is often the highest point of the Tour de France and has been the site of a fair few triumphs and complete blow-ups over the years.

As with the Croix de Fer, I got to a speed and cadence I felt comfortable with, something I could maintain for a couple of hours. I got chatting to a friendly cycling fell runner, David from Dark Peak. David had ridden parts of the course before. He told me the Télégraphe was steady away but that the Galibier had a sting in its tail at the top. Something to look forward to!

The scenery was getting better and better, classic alpine terrain, beautiful. It was hot, and I was mindful of getting enough fluid and electrolytes on board. I’ve cramped badly when racing in the Alps before, not a pleasant experience.

"people were beginning to
suffer in the heat"

Onwards and upwards, there were signs every kilometre to let us know how far we had to go from the top. I wasn’t particularly appreciative of these as they didn’t come by fast enough! People were beginning to suffer in the heat and with the gradient. The road steepened with about 8km to go, just past a false summit. Eventually we got to see the true summit, some distance and hundreds of upwards metres away. I was pleased I’d got the beta from David and so wasn’t surprised by the steepness of the climbing at the top. I squeezed down a gel to try and ward off the feeling of cramp in my hands and hamstring.

After the col came the descent. This one went on forever, over 25 miles and around 2000 metres of descent. After about 20km I got into a little grupetto. As the incline decreased we got more of a headwind so it was great to work in a bunch. There were a few long dark tunnels which were interesting to negotiate whilst travelling at speed, with other cyclists only centimetres off my front and back wheel.

Counting down the hairpins

It wasn’t very long before we headed back into Bourg d’Oisans. For the majority of races, returning to the start marks the finish of the event and (hopefully) feelings of satisfaction and maybe relief. This one was different and felt a bit perverse. We had the Alpe d’Huez to go, over 1000 metres of climbing in just over 20km before the finish. There was a feed station at the start of the climb. I drank some coke and had some cheese with salty crackers to try and avoid the dreaded cramp.

The bottom of the Alpe d’Huez lets you know what you are in for - it’s steep right from the start. It was very hot, the low thirties and I was tired having already ridden for 100 miles. Looking around me at other riders it was clear we all felt pretty similar; some guys were suffering badly and were off and walking. I started to count down the 21 hairpins. This got progressively less depressing as I got further up the hill. It got a little cooler as we got higher; there were a couple of much needed water stations along the way.

People were lining the climb, there were shouts of ‘Allez’ and ‘Up, up’. The road was plastered in the pro rider’s names, along with encouraging slogans, reading them helped pass the time. Eventually the chalets and hotels of the ski town that is Alpe d’Huez got closer, just a few more hairpins to go. The finish was bustling, I tried to put on a sprint finish. I’m not very good at these at the best of times, this one was pretty slow!

"Allez!" "Up, up!"

I got off my bike, avoiding a couple of blokes flat out on the ground and another being sick. I didn’t feel too bad, which was nice but maybe I should have tried a bit harder! I got a very cold can of coke and sat down in a shady spot.

The results were coming through, I’d finished in just over eight and a half hours and 3rd in my category. This meant getting up on a stage and receiving a trophy from the mayor. The first thing he said when he realised I was English was ‘I’m sorry about the football’. This was the day before the world cup final, I bet he was a bit more sorry on the Sunday night!

Helen finished a while later after her enforced stop on the first col. There were a few other familiar Brits around, Lynn Bland from Dark Peak had a good ride. We were all very pleased to have finished and were looking forward to a relaxing evening. We rolled back down to Bourg, stopping at the supermarché for those two well known recovery aids, beer and crisps.

The following morning, after a leisurely breakfast and nursing a slight hangover, we drove south. We’d planned on driving for a few hours and stopping somewhere overnight. Our return flight was leaving Nice the day after, on Monday evening. After a bit of prevaricating we decided on the Verdon Gorge. I’d previously been here on a climbing trip 10 years ago, a fantastic place. After a little spin on our bikes and a swim in a lake, we settled down in a bar to watch France lose the World Cup final.

Early the following morning we had an awesome four hour ride, the tour of the Verdon Gorge. Flying back home that evening, I certainly felt satisfied with the long weekend away, some cracking riding and tired legs!

***

Is La Marmotte the toughest one-day cyclosportive? Perhaps. The Fred Whitton Challenge over here in the Lake District comes pretty close I think. The hills are longer in the Alps but no way as steep. It was certainly a cracking day out, the Galibier is an amazing place with brilliant scenery and it was good to ride up the Alpe d’Huez. Both me and Helen had a great time riding some of the classic alpine climbs, with the added incentive of a race atmosphere.