Alps Epic

This is going to be huge.

In just under 3 weeks time, Ross and I will be embarking on something of a pretty fun challenge – which we’re conveniently terming the #AlpsEpic. Should be cool.

Thought I’d summarise some of the particular features of this. I’m blaming Ross for some of the more demanding bits – I was happy to park up next to Lake Como for a week and drink expressos. Will be aiming to update the blog (a touch more regularly than usual) as we go along, so here’s what to expect…

Saturday 12th July

Salzkammergut Trophy – a fairly brutal 211km MTB race in Austria, involving an eye-watering 7,000m of ascent. This should be a pretty tough opener for the week, but that’s all it is…

Sunday 13th July 

By way of recovery, we will be pottering over to Kitzbuhel, famous (and small) medieval town in the Austrian Alps, and ski-haunt of the rich and famous. But we’re just passing through, so will be hopping onto our road bikes and making our (steady, and potentially painful) way up the KitzbuhelerHorn, which happens to include 1,250m of climbing squeezed into just under 10km of riding. So a quick spin up and down (just so we don’t let our legs get stiff after the day before’s exertions, you understand) and then we’ll be pushing on to prepare for Monday.

Monday 14th July 

Our last day in Austria. I expect we’ll have some strudel at some point to celebrate. This is the day to tackle the Grossglockner. For those who don’t know (shame on you) it’s Austria’s highest mountain – and the road which runs up it is fairly scenic, and long, and involves over 1,750m of climbing. So that’ll be fun.

Tuesday 15th July

A beast of a day. Only someone with a particularly cruel sense of humour could have designed this (Ross). Because climbing each of the Gavia (1,400m of climbing over 25km), the Mortirolo (1,300m over 12km) and the Stelvio (1,800m over 24km) wouldn’t be hard enough, we thought we’d do all of them on the same day. And do the Stelvio twice (once from each side, just so we’ve really ticked it off). I have my doubts about this day. It’s only just over 200km in total, but has almost 7,500m of ascent. More specifically I have my doubts about Ross, and our ability to move much the following day. Anyhow, onwards…

Wednesday 16th July

A ‘rest’ day. And finally I get to visit Lake Como. And by ‘visit’ I of course mean ride all the way around it. You’d think, or hope (certainly I did), that if you’re riding by a lake it must be quite flat. These Italian lakes however seem to defy the laws of normal lake-hood, and instead over the course of 160km our little lap of the lake takes in almost 4,000m of ascent. Of course we’re fitting in a climb of the Ghisallo, for obligatory photos of us at the church at the top with all the bikes hanging in it. Whether we’ll be able to see/breathe/think/take a photo at this point is yet to be determined.

Thursday 17th July

Having been truly ‘done-over’ by Italy, it’s France’s turn. Our first day in France sees us take on a special little collection of high-mountain cols. In turn, we will be riding up (and down) the Col de Vars (1,100m over 19km), the Col de la Bonette (1,650m over 26km and excitingly the Alps’ highest permanent road – there’s apparently an access road to an Austrian glacier which is 20m higher, but it’s a dead end), the Col du Parpaillon (almost 1,800m over 28km) and then just to put a cherry on the top of this glorious day, the Col de l’Izoard (just a piffling 1,100m over 20km). In total, this day’s another whopper, clocking in at 6,500m climbed and 220km ridden. But we’re not done quite yet.

Friday 18th July

Because we love the Marmotte, we thought, why don’t we do it ourselves, on a random day in July at the end of a long week of alpine riding? The Galibier is epic, the Glandon is cruel, and Alpe d’Huez is immortal. But hang on we (Ross) then thought, what is it the Marmotte is missing? That’s right! The Madeleine… So, just because the week wasn’t silly enough already, Friday includes the Glandon via the Croix de Fer (1,470m over 21km), the Col de la Madeleine (1,540m over 24km), the mighty Col du Galibier via the Col du Telegraphe (a monstrous 1,900km over 35km), and then the day wraps up with Alpe d’Huez (a puny 1,000m of climb over 13km – we’ll probably race that). I had hoped that we could leave Alpe d’Huez as a ‘maybe’ climb, sort of see how we feel at that point in the day/week, but then we booked a hotel at the top, so in order to get back to our Skoda estate we’re going to have to ride back up to the top. Darn.

Saturday 19th July

A day to reflect upon quite who should take the blame for coming up with the previous week’s itinerary. And probably to carry out remedial surgery on any outstanding blisters, sores, chaffage etc. Or to sleep. Or both.

Sunday 20th July

You might call this the Queen Stage I suppose. Although when it comes to it, we may find it’s the haystack that breaks the camel’s back. We’ll be bringing up our hat-trick of Tour du Mont Blanc appearances. And hopefully of successful completions, although we’ve certainly made that difficult by cramming in quite as much leg punishment in the previous week as this. For those that don’t know, the Tour du Mont Blanc does exactly what it says on the tin – and circumnavigates the entire Mont Blanc massif – passing through 3 countries (name them – go on,  you know you can), and over 8 cols (des Saisies, de Montet, du Forclaz, Champex Lac, du Grand Bernard, du Petit Bernard and finally du Roseland). It tips the scales at a whopping 330km of riding, and just over 8,000m of climbing. Quite extraordinary. As mentioned, we’ve done it a couple of times before, and it’s superb. But this might be a good way of making an already tiring ride truly exhausting.. Either way, there it is.

So then on Monday 21st July we’ll be trying to extricate ourselves from bed, encourage some bloodflow around tired limbs, and haul ourselves back into the waiting Skoda for the drive to Calais and the ferry back to Blighty.

Totals for the week? Quite frightening really. 1,300km of total distance, 20 cols, and 45,000m of ascent (that’s like riding up Everest from sea level roughly 5 times in a week).

We have a Facebook page (who doesn’t?) which you can access here: https://www.facebook.com/acceleracechallenge. This might be particularly useful given Ross’s far greater tech-savviness and higher likelihood of remembering to post updates than me..

You can also follow both Ross and I on:

Twitter – @RossLovell and @ChrisGrundberg

Instagram – rosslovell and grundbch

Strava – athletes/1226751 and athletes/580435 (this one I’d really recommend, since I figure there’ll be some monstrous stats coming out of this week..)

Would like to sincerely thank both Skoda and Craft cycle wear in advance for their support for this challenge.