Do you Ventoux?

Cycling over the Alps in 2006 (see below) was for me a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So naturally, I accepted an invitation to do it again. What is it about human beings and their desire to collect things? Now I want more Tour de France summits for my scrapbook, so that I can sit in front of my TV in my old(er) age and say "I've been there!". This year, the target was to be the Mont Ventoux and I have to say I was thrilled with equal measures of dread and determination.

In the run-up to this new challenge, I became utterly obsessed with gear ratios, having bought a lovely new bike with proper road mech, a compact double chainset and therefore nowhere to hide below 36x27. I mostly did the Galibier and the Alpe d'Huez on 26x32. The new bike is kilos lighter than the old one and I had the idea of making myself kilos lighter, too, but that never seems to happen quite as it should. Meantime, every time I went up anything over 10 percent, I asked myself "could you do this for two hours in 45 degree heat?" and the simple answer seemed to be "I won't know till I try."

My accomplice (6ft7ins, done them all before) texted me from the Vosges to say he was warming up on the Grand Ballon, Ballon d'Alsace and any other near vertical slope near his campsite. I therefore felt impelled to train. Already in Provence, where the dry heat was so hostile that the idea of forsaking the poolside for anything seemed ludicrous, I found that, by getting up at 6am, you could cheat the day of a couple of hours of furnace-like skies. I was even a bit cold as I set out one Sunday plastered in sun-cream from the village of La Cadiere d'Azur on what the Michelin map showed to be an innocuous little 80 kilometre training circuit. After a few fields of vines and a couple of quaint farmsteads, I turned onto a 12% slope 3km long. What!!? I crawled up it wheezing and grinding and got to the top in a state of some disquiet. Provence is serious cycling terrain. It's all hills, they are all long and some of them are bewilderingly steep. Ho, hum, I thought, as I enjoyed a swoop down the other side towards the town of Signes.

Sunday is club run day in France. There were dozens of packs of riders out on the roads. Oddly, they were all going in the opposite direction to me, but that at least gave me the chance to say "bonjour!" a few hundred times. After Signes, I turned into the hills and went through some isolated little villages; all plane trees, petanque squares and pastis (well, ok, not at 7am!). Thence a very long climb up onto the massif de la Sainte Baume to its very prow where I pitched up on a wide balcony overlooking the whole of Aubagne, Marseille, Cassis, Toulon etc.. Awesome and totally impossible to represent in a photograph, it was about 800metres above sea level (where I had come from). Setting out to descend, I then discovered why everyone else had been going in the opposite direction. My descent was the most thrilling hairpin-bendy affair that would have been huge fun to climb but was a knuckle-cramping terror to descend. I did eventually get some speed up (about 65kmh) only to welcome a bee into my face that became lodged between my helmet strap and my temple. We both panicked and I ended up with a lightening-bolt sting to the side of the head and nothing I could do about it. The ride home from the bottom of the mountain (Gemenos) was a real grind over two huge ridges in the heat of the day. I reckoned I'd had enough of a workout for the Ventoux.

Wrong! Meeting up with my lofty friend five days before the big push, I discovered we were on a preparation cycle that involved daily rides/climbs. We would meet bleary eyed and monosyllabic at about 6am, swallow coffee and set out around the beautiful Luberon landscape. Again, all hills, but stunningly attractive and a real pleasure to ride. We did a couple of lavender-fumed circuits and then took on the Montagne de Lure, a mere 1600metres, by way of acclimatisation. What was good was that I did all of these things without too much suffering, and that was reassuring. The insect theme continued, though: I swallowed four flies on the way up the Lure and was bitten by something that flew off a pile of horse-dung and into my unzipped jersey.

The Giant of Provence

"We need to warm up our legs." proposed the man of experience, "So we'll park at Sault, ride over the Col de Notre Dame des Abeilles (997m), down (yes!) to Bedoin and then take it from there." I agreed. We breakfasted on a terrace in Sault:

 

The first climb was fine, just long and hot. We then turned off down a poorly maintained winding forest road towards Bedoin, at the bottom of which my steering became erratic and I eventually realised I had a rear puncture. I hailed my companion and we set about fixing it. A passing rider checked that we had "tout-ce qu'il faut"; don't you just love cycling in France? I couldn't find anything obvious in the tyre but I was most annoyed to have lost the concrete pressure that you can only get with a track pump.

We stopped in Bedoin for a pre-climb drink. I was trying to get more into the tyre when a Dutch family stepped in and Marieke offered to lend me the track pump out of their car boot. Fantastic! I was effusively grateful. "See you at the top!" she said, which I took to be a form of words.

Then we climbed, an easy couple of kms to get started and then it just kicks up through the trees and you climb and climb and climb, focussing only on breathing, hydrating and keeping the psyche under control. It is mind over matter and you have to control the mind to let the matter do its stuff. We had agreed to find our own pace and it was not long before I was alone on the mountain. The other riders (loads of them) were just part of the mountain. I was alone. Climbing. And climbing. It is intense. It is extreme. It is also cosy and foetal.

I was glad when I reached Chalet Reynard to discover that my partner had chosen to make a halt to fill bottles and drink sugary fizzy drinks (plural). I stopped for the same and crammed in a flapjack for good measure. Sugared up, we set out across the world-famous moonscape for the summit. This last 6kms seem to be concave: like riding up a satellite dish angled from the ground. To begin with, it feels good and shallow and agreeable and then it just gets harder and harder, hotter and hotter, and you get more and more drained until the whole equation leaves you spent and writhing with only the sight of the summit keeping you going. It may sound glib, but by the time you reach Tommy Simpson's memorial, you sort of understand how it was: you can see the top, you can almost reach out and touch it but your body is shouting at you to stop. Meanwhile, mind wants to conquer matter, insists even and you urge yourself on.

A woman shouted encouragement at me as I passed the memorial. I turned my head and tried to smile at her (probably just grimaced). I then raised an arm to give both her and Tommy Simpson a victory salute. I then stood up on the pedals and powered determinedly for the summit. I must have managed about 20 feet before realising that there was nothing left in the tank. I quickly sat down again, wobbling and, as I re-established my previous pace, I was gasping for air and chiding myself for being such a twit. "Look at the front wheel, relax as much as you can, and keep pedalling smoothly, you idiot!"

The photographer, down on his haunches at a bend, yelled encouragement at me "Allez, monsieur, courage! C'est pas loin. Vous etes presque la!" and then gave me his business card. I was hardly aware of him photographing me and grimly silent in the face of his jollity. I pedalled on.

Almost at the summit, a voice called out ahead of me: "Is it you?". It was the Dutch family, there to greet me, taking photos. "Yes, it's me," I gasped "Well, half of me!" They ushered me up the last ramp to the finish, animated and clapping. I then just leaned over the handlebars and shook for a few minutes with exhaustion, dehydration, exhilaration, emotion and, finally, a little cold. I was, after all, at 1910metres.

We descended to the memorial and paid our respects. It was moving to be there, 40 years on. I left something meaningful among the offerings. We then set off back to Sault, down wide open and quite shallow bends. This is definitely the way to go up if you want an easier ride (except that you still have to do the moonscape section, however you get to the bottom of it). Then, suddenly, I was all over the road again on the bends, nearly crashing into an oncoming cyclist at one point. Punctured again. Same wheel and (it later turned out) same place. A small shard of stone had been in the tyre all day, all the way up the climb, but had decided to grant me my ambition to get up the mountain, and only chose to sting me on the way down.

STOP PRESS! Delusional creature that I am, believing in the poetry of fate and happy endings. I just downloaded my hi-resolution image that the jolly photographer took and it shows beyond all doubt that I cycled up the Mont Ventoux with a flat back tyre! No wonder it was so tough! I wonder when it started going down. Hmmmmm.

Crossing the Alps by bicycle

another mad cycling challenge

75 percent of long-distance cyclists who drink at the Ceres Inn in Fife, when offered the chance to cross the high alps by bicycle, exhibit their camaraderie by declaring it a fine idea and exercise their common sense by finding a decent excuse to get out of it. I write this from the perspective of the remaining 25 percent.

It was an enticing prospect. Geneva to Grenoble, via 6 Grands Cols, all of them used by the Tour de France, some of them world famous icons of cycling achievement. I bought glossy books from amazon.fr with large colour pictures of the peloton frozen cheefully against piercingly beautiful landscapes. Also in the books were grainy black and white images of iron heroes with grimly determined faces balancing on stony tracks with muddied (or bloodied) knees. I looked up websites where you could find neat little coloured charts of the rate of ascent to each summit. I scanned the internet for accounts of those who had gone before, all blithely cheerful about what they had done. It all seemed pretty straightforward. Cultivate the vision, measure the distances (vertical and horizontal), do some training, get out there and do it.

This is what happened:

Day 1: 4th September 2006

I must be mad. Sitting in Edinburgh Airport, my dismantled bike being loaded in its ungainly holdall into the plane. I face five days in the saddle, alone except for those I might meet, crossing seven alpine passes and ending up on the world's most celebrated mountain (for cyclists), famous only because it is an ordeal. I face 9410 metres of vertical ascent (that's more than Everest from sea level) and, of course, the same again going down. This is my alpine adventure. I must be mad.

Others were invited to come but were unable. My task, apart from doing it, is to bring back a record of the event that will make them wish they had joined me.

I am nervous about what I have left behind, professional and domestic commitments of gathering urgency. I feel a little guilty about leaving everything and everybody for such a self-indulgent trip. I feel mildly ashamed.

There are also practical hurdles to overcome before I am alone with my mountains. I have to rebuild my bike. I have to find somewhere to leave the bag and the bits I will not take. I have to negotiate my way out of Geneva. I have to get to the hotel by nightfall.

So this is me and my challenge. My self-indulgent journey. I must be mad.

I slept on the plane for as long as I could and then sat in solitary concern about what was to come.

Geneva airport was magnificent. Bike came off quickly, as did rucksack. I trolleyed it all down to the adjacent station with its left luggage office. Negotiated safe haven for bike bags. Rebuilt bike. Got very messy untangling the chain, smudged my only pair of clean trousers on the frame. Bike assembled, I realised I had no clue how to get out of the place but the information desk pointed me straight to a cycle path and promised me safe passage to France. On the way out I spied a disabled toilet big enough for me and the bike so I shamelessly went in and changed into my cycling gear. Out and onto the cycle path, which I lost quite quickly in a residential area, went down a steep hill to a factory, asked directions of a startled old couple, went back up the hill and finally reached the city centre just in time for rush hour. I took on water at a petrol station and eventually completed my 16th kilometre about an hour after having set out. Once over the border into France, however, I swept across the plain to Bonneville. I had done that route many times in a car on visits to a friend's house. It all felt familiar.

The closer I got to Bonneville, the more the mountains loomed up in front of me, a seemingly impenetrable wall of rock, topped with pine trees and scrub. However, I knew from experience that somewhere in that smooth cliff face was a Tolkeinesk cleft marking the entry to a gorge that would split the mountains all the way to Le Grand Bornand. I found it and entered in. Great flint-axe rocks loomed over me on either side of the road, a great dark gulf opened up to my right, at the bottom of which I could hear but not see a gushing torrent.

The road climbed gently for miles, pressure on my legs draining me slowly of all my energy. I was thirsty and light headed when I got to le Petit Bornand, deceived by a descent that I thought would take me all the way but soon turned back into a climb. I teetered around the last sweeping bend and rolled exhausted into le Grand Bornand, moving alone down its long single street as darkness fell.

J......... greeted me at the door of her hotel. I was too drained to make any more than basic conversation, but it was good to be greeted by a friendly face. The hotel was clean, neat and alpine. There was a painted blackbird on the door of my room. The town was silent. By the time I had taken a hot deep bath and rinsed through the lycras, it was pitch dark outside. I wandered along to the only eating place open, the pizzeria, comfortably served by just one man. I had tried to rehydrate by drinking litres of water at the hotel, so I wasn't hungry but I knew I should eat. Tomato salad, spaghetti a la bornandaise (i.e. with an unctuous helping of melted reblochon and smoked ham), a quarter of rouge and a coffee. Alpine food is barely digestible unless you are doing outrageous amounts of aerobic exercise and even then it can be a challenge. So it was back to the hotel to sleep soundly with the balcony door open to let in the mild mountain air and the sound of the rushing stream across the road.

Day 2: Le Grand Bornand

Up feeling refreshed. Much more sociable over breakfast. Chatted to J........ in my tumbling French, mind well ahead of tongue as usual these days. I was wondering how to contact other friends in the village when S.......... walked in, surprised to see me and full of reproach that I had not gone up to the house last night for a tartiflette. I explain that I was very tired (and privately recall that the house is at the top of a 1 in 5 hairpin-bendy road). She tells me that A....... is in France and when I get back to the room I phone her. She is having breakfast in Provence and her tone of voice tells me that she thinks me quite insane to be attempting my little voyage. This from a woman who was born and bred in the Alps and who has the credibility of a Sherpa when it comes to judging what is possible and what unwise.

Social pleasures over, I take my leave, saddle up and head for La Clusaz and the Col d'Aravis, a long slow climb that has me dreading what lies ahead (this is supposed to be the easiest col of the lot - a bucolic pleasure, according to the cyclists guide book.) The climb brings me to the summit where there is a scattering of buildings and a classic view of Mont Blanc, shimmering against the pale blue sky. I stop for a diabolo cassis and half a litre of water and have my bottles filled. Why so much liquid? It is very hot and the sweat pours off me as soon as I turn the pedals, running down my back, streaming down my face, springing from the roots of my hair.

The descent was thrilling. I set off down the hill, sweeping around bends, through villages and forests, under paravalanches, the great concrete lean-to's that deflect landslides and avalanches over the road, and down into the gorge below. I sped along, falling through the landscape, wind rushing in my ears, all the time my average speed for the day creeping upwards. Eventually, I fell into the village of Flumet, applied the brakes, pulled into a boulangerie to buy a picnic for later - a whole camembert and half a baguette which I stuffed without ceremony into my bar bag. Sweat was pouring off me, even as I stood still.

Then back on the bike and immediately onto a relentless slope out of the village that got the better of me after a few kilometres, causing me to wobble to a halt and sit down by the road. I ate half of my picnic, panting heavily, my heart beating. When I had calmed down, I set off again but needed at least one more shameless rest before I reached the Col de Saisies, an empty closed ski resort, idly waiting for the arrival of snow. I overtook a truck on the way down, and a car pulled over to let me past; you just can't help it - it is harder to stop than to go; the roads are well maintained, kindly cambered and the views ahead clear and enticing. Down I swept until suddenly Mont Blanc loomed into view majestically and I did the hard thing and came to a halt to photograph it. Past me went my truck and my car. A little further down, there was a short and unwelcome rise and then down again to the main road into Beaufort, a charming alpine town where I bought 1.5 litres of water and a can of orange juice.

The dilemma was thus: it was 3.30. Too early to stop but my destination was a good 50k away, too far to travel before dusk unless the hills were kind. The drink and the rest of my picnic fuelled my desire to give it a try, there was always an escape lever: turn back and freewheel back to Beaufort. I set out and was soon suffering on the climb up to the Barrage de Roselend. It was hard and my tank was nearly empty, only my head kept me going. I began to imagine the sense of despair from turning back, I began to contemplate sleeping rough, I began to hope that there would be a guest house up there. I kept going up long punishing slopes. I stopped in shady corners to recover. I pressed on. Then I came to a place where I realised that the vehicles that had recently passed me were hundreds of metres above me, still climbing, their engines still whining with the strain. I ground to a halt. I put my hand on the escape lever. Happily, I walked on further enough to see a magnificent view of where I had come from. It was quite terrifying. Miles below me was a ribbon of road, easily recognisable as the one I had been on on the way up. And I was already knackered then! I rested for a while, drank my bottles dry and turned around.

In only a few minutes, I was back in Beaufort, looking for a hotel and a cold beer. I found both, and a shower, and a good meal and wine and coffee and water. Then I sat, wondering what to do next day, escape or plough on. It would be 100k by the main road to the foot of the Col du Telegraphe; 160 over the mountains. Was there a choice? I had been right about one thing, pulling the escape lever half way up the Cormet de Roselend had been very bad for morale. I felt as though I had over-reached myself and failed and wasn't sure where I was going to find the courage to press on.

Day 3: Beaufort

10 hours in bed and feeling rougher than ever. Legs like jelly, only aching constantly, dry throat, nauseous stomach. It had to be the main road for me. Turning away from Beaufort and any further thought of the Cormet de Roselend, not to mention the Iseran, I took the wide road down the valley to Albertville on which it was barely necessary to turn the pedals. After that, I took a long straight minor road through small villages and past orchards of pear trees. The mountains reared up on either side of me but I was not on them. I was on the valley floor and soon I was on the main road to Modane. Happily, a motorway has lifted most of the traffic from it (and caused every amenity alongside it to wither and die). It was long and dull and dusty. After a while, I climbed off it into St Jean de Maurienne, hoping for a pleasant place to relax. I bought fruit juice and a taboulet salad and some mixed nuts and found a park bench to eat them on. I then snoozed for a while sitting up. I didn't want to carry on. I'd had enough. But to keep my options open, I continued to St Michel de Maurienne, through cement works and aluminium factories, spliced between the railway and the motorway, the mountains closing in above.

At St Michel, the nicest looking hotel was fully booked, another was closed up and the only other one sported a sign on the door saying "back at 17h30". It was still only 15h30. I installed myself on the terrace by the main road and went to sleep. Between naps, I drank water and apple juice and ate my mixed nuts. I felt better for that, being dehydrated and underfueled but still having no appetite. I may be ill. I am certainly weaker than I expected to be. It is disappointing, even though I didn't know what to expect. I am still tempted by the Galibier but it is going to be total hell if I do it in this condition. I need a trophy. I have two days left to win one. Or I need to have a word with myself and just accept that I am past it for good.

Sat at the table in the hotel restaurant. Still feeling sick, throat tender. Either I have brought this on by my exertions or it followed me here. Either way, I should have expected to recover more easily from today's ride. It may all be over already. Tomorrow will tell. This hotel/road house is a dismal 70's throwback. A curiosity. Dingy. It seems to be mainly used by truckers despite advertising itself for cyclists, as I am the only one. It has not improved my morale. The bar is furnished with heavy wooden red formica-topped tables, the bar, wreathed in smoke, has yellow formica drawers and cupboards. The tablecloths have splashes of yesterday's wine , the bathroom, like something out of an asylum, had no soap and two scratchy towels barely big enough to dry a teacup.

What a difference food makes. A couple of lengths of country ham with bread, butter, lettuce and cornichons and I begin to revive. Clearly my fuel strategy on this trip has been totally wrong. But how do you get enough into your system when it burns so fast and you have no appetite? Lamb chops cleared off the plate, water jug empty, cheese to come and dessert. Maybe it'll help; maybe I'll just throw it all up. My nose is running, probably because it is the first time this week that enough moisture has got that high. Now we're going for creme caramel. Must be mad. Must be crazy.

Back in the room, put the football on but slept through most of it. Another fitful night, glad of the very large and firm bed to throw my crampy legs about in. Woke periodically and drank water. At one point, I convinced myself that it was raining and that I could hear cars passing through wet puddles outside. Got up to see, hopeful that it might mean I couldn't go up the mountain after all. However, the sky was dawning clear and the road was dry as a bone. I ignored the alarm and slept on another 40 minutes, during which I had a familiar but disturbing dream about turning up to work with only a towel round me.

Day 4: St Michel de Maurienne

Over breakfast, which I forced down, I read the local paper. Unfortunately, the last thing I found in it was the news that two people had died pursuing sports in the Alps; one a 40 year old climber and the other a 37 year old canyoner. What was disturbing was that they had both died of "malaises"; something to do with the heat. That set me right back from the fragile optimism I had built up for the day and, to add to the chagrin, confirmation that the worst hotels are always the dearest.

So to the Col du Telegraphe, horrible to start with until I got my breath and my rhythm, then surprisingly good to climb, clicking around one wooded hairpin, then another, the industrial valley far, far below me. I reached the floral summit in 1h45, having been overtaken by other cyclists. But today was never going to be about speed, it's about getting there. And I had got to 1566 metres, higher than I have ever been on a bike before this week.

I sweep down into Valloire where I stop for more indigestible food - a ham, cheese, egg and mushroom crepe and a litre of water. The sun beats down on the restaurant terrace. The Galibier beckons 17km away, no distance at all, but half as much again as I have already done and steeper.

Well what an ordeal that was! Indescribable torture. Low gears ensure that there is no sharp pain in the legs but cumulatively, over nearly five hours of climbing over the day, it makes the legs scream to carry on. But it is not the legs that matter, it is the dry throat from sucking in mountain air, the constant sweat, unending droplets of self falling onto the tarmac or soaking into the clothes. And worse than any of these is the mind, keen to give up, conscious of all the reasons why that is not possible, determined therefore to carry on regardless up to the top, but wafting notions of impossibility across the enterprise, thoughts of being asleep in bed so real and so tempting that the eyes start to droop, even as the legs turn. The worst thing to do is to look up and see what is coming next. That kills the morale like nothing else. In the end, I resolved to look only a foot in front of the wheel, concentrating on my breathing and the drip of sweat. That was the only way to carry on. But who can resist a quick glance up the road ahead, in a moment of weakness or curiosity? I couldn't and that seemed to be my undoing. Front wheel would wobble in despair and I would crunch into the verge, hastily unclipping my pedals and heaving hot sighs of relief at having stopped and despair at having to start up again. The mountain simply waited for me to get back on. I took photos. I drank from my water bottles. The mountain waited patiently as it has done for the last so many million years. So I got back on and wobbled on up the hill. One of these grindings to a halt put me down 100metres below a stone refuge selling cheese. It also sold fizzy drinks. I didn't care about the price, I'd have paid anything. Three Dutch guys in identical kit that I had previously thought to be the same person overtaking me over and over again, were there sipping coke. I stopped and tried to sell them my bike. That didn't work so I asked them when the bus was. That didn't work either. Their good humour, as mine, was of the manic type. The break there was welcome and I got to fill my bottles at a tap beside a pigsty.

The Cheese Shop Oasis

Eventually, I had to get back on the bike and the road continued up for ever. I could have cried at the next stop when what I thought MUST be the last hairpin, revealed the flash of a white van hundreds of feet above me, running up a shale cliff that should have been home to marmottes and deer, certainly no human. After this point I kept my resolve not to look up, not even to look sideways to find the shale cliff. I just watched the road and pedalled. Eventually, I did just glance up because the sky seemed lighter over my sweaty eyebrows. Sure enough, there was the ridge, scattered with motorbikes and a couple of camper vans. But the road to it was obscenely steep and I was only half way up it. This time I kept my head up and watched the metres reel slowly towards me. When I reached the top, I had nothing left for joy or celebration. I just slumped over the bars and a torrent of chilled sweat ran out of the crevices of my lowered helmet and splashed onto the front wheel. It was over. I had climbed my mountain.

I wandered about aimlessly for a while. Everybody up there seemed to be ignoring one another. I took some photos of the barren wilderness. I ate an oat bar. I put on a warm top. Eventually, I decided to leave and set off down the other side of the hill, an open ribbon of tarmac curling down the sheer slope into the valley below. I stopped at the monument to Henri Desgranges, progenitor of the Tour de France, and put on some arm and leg warmers before making a little film of myself knackered in front of the monument. I was in a kind of trance. Then off down the mountain until I came suddenly upon the classic view of La Meije and squeezed my brakes on to take photos. It was such a captivating sight that I stopped twice more, once to persuade a motorist in a classic car to take my photo in front of it, the second time just to gaze at it in sheer wonder. This is the view I have in poster form on my office wall. The most complete Alp of them all. Then down the open bends of the mountain and onto the Col de Lauteret. By now I was beginning to realise what I had achieved and I felt heady with it all. I sang outloud on my bike as I flew down the valley all the way to La Grave on long, open, well-surfaced roads weaving through the narrow spaces between huge mountain outcrops.

The Perfect Alp

La Grave is a favourite place of mine, simply because it sits under the glory of La Meije. From the hotel terrace, I sat and stared up at the glaciers, the rocks, the cows grazing on a wide grassy shelf two kilometres high, at the clouds scraping the summit. In the evening sun, it was truly magnificent. The hotel was one that I had checked out on the internet and it was as warm and friendly as advertised. Run by a Scot and a Dutch woman, staffed by a waitress from Quebec, it had a distinctly un-French air to it. There was an informality that gave warmth, even if the service was somewhat unpredictable compared to the crisp and formulaic routines of small French hotels where you are strongly aware that there is a way of doing things and everyone should know the script.

I had a shower and changed into my now quite grubby off-bike uniform and headed down to the terrace for a beer. People gathered for the evening meal which was very good indeed, vegetable soup warmed and rehydrated my parched throat. Porc, lentils and a vegetable souffle nourished me. More beer refreshed me (I was not offered wine), cheese followed and rice pudding with syrup rounded off. I repaired to the bar and fell in with the patron and some Germans drinking whisky. I had more beer and heard a little of the life and politics of running a small hotel in a small town in which you are not a native. I heard how the glaciers are melting at 100 metres a year; many of them have now gone for good. It will change the microclimate of the valley as the snow fields are currently chilled to perfection by air descending from the glacier. Maybe it will not be long before La Grave, such a jewel of an Alpine town, will be just another grimy place that dusty trucks pass through.

La Grave

Day 5: La Grave

After breakfast, I joked with my host that I was off to Grenoble and that I would take in the Alpe d'Huez on the way. It is easy to make extravagant promises in those circumstances. I bought a cycling top off him and set out. The road down to Bourg d'Oisans was utterly spectacular. High mountains and clefts in the rock through which the road ran. Waterfalls hundreds of metres high, a dam, tunnels and the whole thing downhill. I flew through this enchanted landscape, leaning this way and that on the open curves, touching the brakes only on the tight ones.

Just as I was starting to really relax and enjoy myself, I arrived at Bourg d'Oisans and the turn off for the Alpe. I began to sink with anxiety. I rode along to the bend in the road after the start line. There before me was an absurd ramp of a road shimmering in the heat and disappearing around a cliff face hundreds of feet higher than I was. That was the first few metres of L'Alpe. My heart sank. I told myself it couldn't be done. Not with luggage; that would be my excuse. I sat for a while at the carpark at the road junction. I ate an energy bar. I looked at the other cyclists coming and going. No fat bastards. No middle aged dellusionists. Thin blokes. Thin bikes. Fat chance, I thought. I pedalled into town and wandered about a bit, trying to decide what to do. I found the tourist office. I asked if there was anywhere to leave bags. I hoped she would say no. She said yes, but I had to be back by 6pm. She knew where I was going then. I said if I wasn't back by six, I probably wouldn't ever come back. Thin joke, in the circumstances. Now I had to give it a try. I went to the bike shop and bought two sachets of energy drink, one for each bidon. Overstrength brew for this overambitious exploit.

L'Alpe

I went back out of the town to the starting point. I reset my odometer and set off, crossing myself as I rode under the banner that marks the start. After 200 metres, I was on the ramp. I plunged down the gears to the one I had used on the Galibier. I put my head down and I started to pedal. I refused to look up, I didn't dare. It was the most extreme thing I had ever done on a bike. I just kept pedalling, kept my head down and kept talking to myself. I fell into a breathing chant of me-di-tat-ion, me-di-ta-tion and tried to empty my head of everything else. Anxiety about next week's work crept in and made my front wheel wobble. I banished it and carried on. The 21 hairpins are numbered down to one, being the highest. If I had seen the view up the hill from 19, I would have turned back but I wasn't looking. The left hand bends, where I went round the outside of the curve, were flat and in the shade so I took a drink at each before settling back to my rhythm. I was soaked in sweat, my padded gusset was squelching like a bath sponge, my back like a wet towel. I pedalled on. I didn't dare look at the stats on the computer but when I realised that I was at bend 13 already, I began to believe I might do it. When I got to number 11, I began to hope I could do it without putting a foot down on the ground.

I overtook people who were resting and a mountain biker thrashing away in a tiny gear. Otherwise, other people passed me with steadily turning pedals, saying bonjour as they moved by. An Irishman passed a few words of enthusiasm for the exploit. I continued upwards. I don't know which were the steep bits and which not. I just stayed in a gear that could cope with the lot. I stood out of the saddle periodically to ease the pressure and realised that I could probably go up a couple of gears. But I didn't. I just wanted to get there.

Towards what looked like the top, I remembered from what I had read that it was not. However, the bends counted down, 5, 4, 3, and at hairpin number 2 the resident photographer did his stuff. Such was my rate of travel that he had an absurd amount of time to compose a shot. I told him to make it a good one because I wouldn't be coming back. I had the breath to do that as I climbed. By this point I was more or less in a kind of physical trance. The legs turned of their own accord, the lungs filled and emptied, the heart pumped fuel around the body but nothing was under strain. Even the sweat just flowed and fell. At turn 1, I felt like a hero. I laughed at the slope of the ramp up to the ski resort, it was absurdly steep but it held no fear. Ridiculous. But I carried on.

Turn One

I hit the first finish line in 2hrs 07 (three times my age in minutes). I say the first finish line because there are two, the second one higher up the resort in a car park wide enough to accommodate the Tour de France circus. I had my photo taken by some Dutch guys, I drank a bottle of water and then, jauntily, I climbed back on the bike and rode up to the other finish, by this time so not tired that I could ride playfully over the line. The Irishmen were there; I congratulated them. They were waiting for one they had left behind lower down. "Well, that's it," I said to them. "That is my mid-life crisis over. I am going home to drink beer and grow old gracefully."

I went to a ski bar for the first beer; she had no beer. I failed to disguise my shock. "C'est une catastrophe!", I said and we had a laugh about it. I had a bitter lemon instead. Eventually, I rolled off to do the descent. Only on the way down did I take in the sheer obscenity of what I had just done. It is truly insane. I am so glad that I never looked at it on the way up. I stopped occasionally to take photos but I knew that they could never do it justice. Back in Bourg d'Oisans, I looked up and saw, on the crest of a stupidly vertiginous ridge, the beginnings of the village of Alpe d'Huez. I still could not really take in what I had done.

Postscript.

Later that night, in Grenoble, I lay in a deep hot bath, feeling like every kind of champion. I had just come off the phone to my family, to whom I had proudly broken the news of my triumph. The phone rang. It was S........ from Le Grand Bornand. She wanted to know if I has still alive. "Oh yes!" I said in bold and unhesitant French, "Alive and well! Very well!"

Last updated November 13th 2006