Alpe d’Huez Sunday hill climb race
3rd visit this week
Just over an hour 12 mins with sprint finish
8 mins pb compared to Thursday’s ride (which was a 6 min PB
approx 8.5Km longer and 300m or so more elevation that alpe d’zwift (from Google tells me
12 Comments
race begins 8:14
mid race checkpoint at 48:02
42:50 currently 5th. Eddy is the closest chaser (we will battle for the next 10Km and finish with a sprint
1:02:05 that is 1000m of climbing done in 53 mins and 50 secs (remember the first 1.2Km was flat too). Very pleased with that because 1000m in an hour is always a good effort for me
1:02:27 currently in the tourist village. Just passing the red cow statue
1:08:05 on to the gravel section now. Look out for the Megavalanche sign to your right .
1:11:55 finally get passed by Andy. Eddy is still chasing me and is now only 23m behind. I know that if he passes me and gets too far ahead (15m or so) then I will have difficulty regaining my position. Currently 1164m climbing done and 2.7Km of the route left.
This is where pre route knowledge comes in handy. Currently on a climb section which I know will flatten out a little at approx 16.30Km and that there will be 2 descents after the next 1Km or so
1:16:14 I notice that Eddy has been passed by Jon and that Jon is quickly gaining on me
1:16:27 Jon is a few metres ahead now and 30 seconds later Eddy is in camera view at 4m behind me. Jon has increased is lead on me by 20m now. I know that the first descent is very close so I launch a short range attack to get away from Eddy and to also get to the start of the descent before Jon (or at the very least get close enough to benefit from his slipstream)
1:18:26 have still failed to catch Jon. The first descent is over. Just one more hill (37m) followed by a finish line descent. Jon is now 26m ahead. If I don't attack now on the hill I will have no chance of regaining the race position I lost a few minutes ago
1:18:50 managed to regain my race position with 26m left to climb
1:20:17 just turned the corner in to the final straight. Only 100m to go. Jon has almost caught up again and is only 4m behind. I just want to recover but he won't let me.
Eddy had dropped back by around 130m. tbh if Jon hadn't passed me a few minutes earlier and forced my to go in to the red zone again – I probably would have been around 100m back and a minute or 2 slower