Despite the fact I'm writing this from a doctor's waiting room, and formulated most of the core of the text in a French A&E department late on Saturday night through clenched teeth, I should open by saying that La Marmotte is a great race. At 175km, with 4 Alpine cols to climb, it's probably also fair to say that it's a pretty tough race as well. Although signing up for it some months before (and even booking flights well in advance - out of keeping with the usual level of event preparation), I hadn't really paid too much attention to the precise course, taking the view that it would be a long day in the saddle, good training for a couple of ironman plans later in the season, and that after all, if I'd dragged myself plus 50kg touring bike up similar cols before, it couldn't be any worse on a road bike.
A note on the organisation of the race - it's quite simply excellent - register in advance online, or turn up the day before and sign-up there and then. It's very good value at around 30Eur (even at the current exchange rate you're getting an awful lot of race + certificate + food stops and rolling road closures for that), there are a variety of airports to choose from if you're coming from further afield (we chose some cheap flights with BA to Lyon, about 2 and a half hrs drive away), and once there you can select from a good number of hotels, hostels, or, as we did a great campsite in the form of Camping La Piscine (complete with very pleasant swimming pool, as the name suggests).
The event starts in Bourg d'Oisans, which sits at the foot of the infamous Alpe d'Huez climb and its 21 switchbacks, which, through a stroke of course-setting genius, is also the final challenge of the race. So participants have to opt either to stay at the top of the climb (meaning the finish line really is the finish line, albeit that you have to roll down the 15km or so from the top of Alpe d'Huez to the start at around 6:30am to get to the start - this can be pretty chilly), or at the bottom (a short scoot to the start line in the morning, but after the event you've still got to cycle down the climb you just came up). We opted for the latter.
I counted a good 15 or so bike boxes in the baggage collection hall at Lyon Airport. I was doing the event with Emily, and we picked up our respective bikes and luggage without incident, and headed for Hertz, who presented us with a very swish Volvo saloon - apparently an upgrade for the infinitely more practical Renault Scenic I'd booked - after a brief attempt to wedge a hard-cased bike box into a boot that was obviously too small, Hertz generously gave us an additional upgrade to a frankly enormous Ford Mondeo estate.
An hour and a half of driving and a quick dash around the ubiquitous French road-side hypermarche later and we were at Grenoble, and turned onto the smaller road heading into the mountains towards Bourg d'Oisans. This road was a lot more congested, seemingly with a lot of cyclists amongst the throngs (a lot of bikes on roof racks in evidence).
Upon arrival in Bourg (the last few miles of jams characterised by increasing numbers of cyclists out on the road rather than in their cars), we decided to head straight up Alpe d'Huez, both to register for the event and to give Emily a picture of quite what an Alpine climb was going to be like. I say Emily as if I was so familiar with cycling in the Alps as to be blasé about the prospect. In truth, despite having been up and down a few notable cols in the past, mostly on one particular touring expedition with the unfeasibly heavy bikes noted above, I hadn't been anywhere near an incline of this scale for some time, so whilst making appropriately optimistic noises for Emily’s sake, I was starting to seriously wonder whether the 42-24 easiest gear I was running might prove a bit optimistic (the 42 was the result of some internet bargain hunting - I got the chainset I wanted, but the small chainring is anything but small, whilst the 24 was at least a concession from the 23 I had on there before).
Up we drove, and up, and up. For those that haven't been up Alpe d'Huez, it's neither the steepest of climbs, nor the longest, but the fact that each of the 21 switchbacks is numbered serves to really emphasise how much there is still to go, as they count down from the bottom. After initial squeaks of shock, Emily was left largely speechless from about half way.
The marquees and registration area at the top was fairly crowded, but registering was quick and (relatively) painless. There was plenty of opportunity to buy a range of Tour de France team kits, as well as special Marmotte paraphernalia from a selection of tents, and Emily identified a white jersey with Skoda on the front (the TdF young rider's shirt I think) as her prize for when she got to the finish - she's a proud Skoda driver, and thought she'd line herself up with a reward to give her an incentive during the race.
Back down to the bottom, we set ourselves up in the campsite, and met up with Tim and Matt, two guys who've both done the ride a few times before, and who we agreed we'd have dinner with. There was time for a quick dip in the pool before supper (and after re-constructing the bikes and spinning them into town to get some stuff for breakfast), and as the sun began setting over the tops of the surrounding mountains, it was all looking to be the start of an excellent weekend.
Dinner was fun - pizzas to start and spaghetti for main course, followed up with some crème brulé, and all washed down with some rose and vin rouge (for medicinal purposes). Matt and Tim enjoyed describing quite how grim certain sections of the ride were likely to be, and told some nice war stories from past exploits. All serving to increase the nervous excitement. I seemed to be saying "It'll be fine" an awful lot.
Set the alarm clock for 6am, stash the bikes in the back of the car, get some appropriate kit out for the following morning, find the sun cream, fashion a pillow out of a pair of cargo shorts, decide on the number of cereal bars to be taken for the ride, check where the sun cream is, debate using a wet towel for a pillow, find some sunglasses, hunt out a second spare inner tube, opt for an extra 2 cereal bars (quite why I have the super low calorie bars is beyond me, given the likely expenditure of enough calories the following day to power a small house), re-locate the sun cream under the new pile that’s developed on the driver’s seat of things not to forget, discuss the merits of applying the first load of sun-cream before bed, and, finally, give up and go to bed. And use a wet towel as a pillow. Thankfully I think the local rosé/rouge combination was enough to knock most things out, so the next thing I knew it was 6am (or, as I pointed out quite reasonably to Emily, 5am in England), and it was time to ferret through the pile on the driver’s seat again.
Cold – that was my main impression of the hour before the race – seemed pretty chilly down in the valley after a totally clear night, and the lack of cloud fuelled the paranoia that was building around the prospect of epic sunburn. Factor 50 was the order of the day (which Matt had intelligently brought with him), and it was slathered on with gusto, in my case as much because the subsequent task of trying to rub it all in actually helped (briefly) to warm me up. Plenty of faffing meant Emily and I left the campsite a little after the 7am target we’d set ourselves (we were due to start at 7:30), but, as it turned out, this played into our hands, since by the time we got to the start we were waved straight to the front, rather than having to queue (I was still mainly thinking about staying warm).
Before we knew it, we were off, and being cheered out of Bourg by a reasonably large selection of ardent locals, complete with brass band (who were taking a breather before the 4,000-strong 7:50am start group, and so instead we had some Enrique Inglesias being belted out over the PA, slightly incongruous, I thought Ride of the Valkyries might have more apt).
The first 10 km or so of the ride were also mainly notable for cold. Well, at least for me whinging about the cold. Emily seemed largely unaffected, which I put down to her sporting a natty pair of arm-warmers, which I, in my typical know-it-all, bluff-it-out kind of way, was neither wearing, nor in fact possessed. Conversation was punctuated by relatively frequent, but increasingly nervous phrases such as “If it carries on like this it should be alright” (it was dead flat at this stage), and “I don’t know what all the fuss is about”.
The fuss, as it soon became apparent, was about the hills – the first of which is the Col du Glandon. At 1911m, this involved about 1200m of vertical ascent, spread over around 25km. A breeze, I hear you cry. And it was (relatively). The incline was steady, and the beautiful surroundings and early stage adrenaline meant that the Glandon passed without much of note in the genuine pain category. Emily and I agreed to take it at our own pace, so I headed on ahead after the first couple of km of climb, safe in the knowledge that her triple chainring and high levels of bloody-mindedness would leave her well-equipped for the rest of the day.
The climb wound past some beautiful mountains and lakes, through a couple of small villages, and involved a couple of brief fast downhill sections. All-in-all, an enjoyable introduction to the day, complete with the requisite feel-good factor upon arrival at the top (with your arrival counted down kilometre by kilometre by helpful (later gut-wrenchingly painful) marker signs).
A quick re-fuel and then a hair-raising descent off the back of the Col – a fair exchange as we lost 1500m of altitude over the next 25km. This clocked up the first third of the race done, and, feeling nicely warmed up (or chilled in fact, as is the understandable reaction to freewheeling for 35minutes in what is effectively a stiff, and cold, breeze).
The next 20km or so give a great opportunity to stretch the legs and warm up as the route takes a main arterial road from St Marie de Cuines to St Michel de Maurienne. This is a fast road, and the field took on a distinctly tactical feel to it, as large groups formed behind the various riders strong enough (or stupid enough) to brave it at the front, and towing upwards of 30 riders in the slipstream behind. After falling down this trap for the first few kilometres (it’s quite a sight, when you’re enjoying riding strongly along at upwards of between 30 and 35km per hr, and are used to doing so completely alone with nothing but the iPod to keep you company, to look back and discover 40 riders sitting on your back wheel – arousing a variety of emotions which I probably don’t need to elicit), I found a couple of riders going about the same speed, and alternated the lead with them till we hit the rest station at St Michele de Maurienne.
Water bottles re-filled, bladder emptied, I rejoined the streaming mass of colour that was headed towards the foot of the Col du Telegraphe.
This was the easiest of the climbs, and really just a prelude to the main event of the Col du Galibier. Nonetheless, there were breathless moments. I was trying to keep my heart-rate suitably suppressed, so as not to risk blowing up too early, and every time I found the rate straying up I would mentally reign in the effort. As such, The Telegraphe passed without much of note, except to say that, much like the Glandon, I found myself passing hordes of other riders on both. I attributed this to two things – one, I quite like hills. Always have. Something to do with discovering cycling for the first time when living in Devon, and pretty soon realising that cycling for any length of time in the South West of England involves tackling hills of some sort (usually pretty steep, often brutally so, if never terribly long). The second was perhaps more important, and was the gearing ratio mentioned briefly above. The fact that the small cog on my chainset has 42 teeth (a lot, relatively speaking, for a chainring), and that whilst the biggest cog on my cassette has 27 teeth, a personally inflicted handicap (poor mechanical skills), meant that the easiest accessible cog was a 24, combined to mean that I was standing up pretty early into any of the climbs. For anyone unfamiliar with the subtler nuances of bike gearing (like me, it seems), this basically meant that my ‘easiest’ gear, wasn’t really ‘easy’ except by some stretch of the imagination. In any case, standing up, it turned out, was still serving me better than spinning away in a tiny gear, in speed terms, and at this stage of the race at least.
As intimated, the Telegraphe is the bouillabaisse entrée to the steak hachée main course that is the Galibier. And hachée is truly what your legs feel like after you’ve tackled the Col nestled in the middle of the race. The 1200m of climb crammed into the 15km up to the Col from Valloire is fairly unrelenting, and forms, for many, the ‘crux’ of the race. Speak to anyone who’s done the Marmotte and I’ll bet one of the small furry critters that top on their list of things that make the event tough is the Galibier – and that the last 3-4 km in particular were a personal hell-hole.
Needless to say, and well done to the more astute readers with a keen sense of irony, my earlier mashing of unfortunately large gears up lesser inclines served to make the Galibier a particularly unpleasant experience – my legs not really that enthused by the never-endingly upwards-pointing road, and less so by the lack of any semblance of a ‘granny’ gear to give them even the briefest of rests. My attempts to control my heart-rate went out of the window, and my dependence on Jelly Babies (usually so reliable) came to haunt me as the sugar highs collapsed to a grim energy low. Thankfully, having experienced more serious energy crises often enough to know the tell-tale signs of the rumbling stomach, wandering mind, narrowing vision, empty legs and the increasing levels of dribble from a distance, I was overjoyed (delirium also being a warning flag), to discover a road-side water stop with about 5km to the top. The fact that from this point you can actually see the top was both helpful and depressing, requiring a high level of commitment to get back on the bike after the 15 minute water/food/stretch stop. The top of the Col is clearly visible seemingly miles away and considerably higher, and the only thought that kept running through my head was “how on earth are they going to get all that ascent into 5km?”.
Suffice to say, they managed it. I don’t think I won any prizes for style for the remainder of the climb, but then, at least I was moving at a steady pace again, over-taking people (some of the ones who’s passed me whilst I rested), and, as I frequently remind myself whilst climbing, it’s not dressage.
The top brought a very welcome aid station with all sorts of exciting and delicious treats (anything would probably have tasted delicious at that stage). Things I discovered to take forward to future such experiences: warm tea without milk is a fantastic addition to a water bottle after 115km of riding, when sitting at 2650m of altitude and facing a 45km descent; dried pineapple slices are miracle food; camembert sandwiches are God’s way of awakening your taste-buds after consuming a week’s worth of refined sugar; hungry, tired cyclists aren’t great at queuing.
I didn’t hang around long at the top, conscious both of the time I’d spent on my rest on the way up, as well as concerned of the perils of getting too cold and stiff ahead of the next descent.
The descent off the top of the Col was terrifying, with a selection of tight switchbacks, no barriers to speak of, and pretty high winds making it for a fairly squeaky experience, and one which I’m infinitely glad I wasn’t tackling with too many other riders (not sure where they all were, but it seemed like the more technical parts were left to me and about 6 other participants at this point – a huge relief given the risks of crowding on such tight roads. A couple of ambulances served as powerful reminders of what might befall the reckless cyclist. Thankfully all the riders I saw being treated/rescued appeared to be in reasonable shape.
After the first section of particularly treacherous road, the descent opens up a little more, making for a less nerve-wracking time, and allowed me to munch on a couple of the items I had stashed in my pocket from the top (cue pineapple discovery, as well as less remarkable dried apricots, which mainly succeeded in making my hands sticky). In any case, I was happy to have left the trickier and more exposed parts of the Col behind, and whilst the road was still very fast, I’d settled into a small group of about 8 riders, taking turns at the front to drive the pace on down through the lower slopes, all thinking about the final ascent of the day, and most looking at reasonable finish times (I suspected – no conversation unless you count hand gestures to signal pot-holes in the road, or for someone else to come forward and take over as lead).
OK, so we’ve made it up and down two of the ascents, and are now through about 140km of the ride. Again, those of you who were paying attention at the start will notice that I’m compiling this from a doctor’s waiting room on the Monday following the event (speaks volumes about how over-booked they are that I’ve managed to get this far – it seems to be turning into a small novel). So – what happened? Well, having debated this in my head (and again, given the health institution waiting rooms (both French and English) that I’ve been in, there’s been ample opportunity for that), I’ve decided to give a slightly less gory account of the subsequent events.
Suffice to say, I was hammering along a smooth section of road, with the same gently downward gradient, in the middle of the same pack, when we came across a sequence of tunnels. The first couple of these were negotiated safely enough (bar me not realising until half way through the first that I had my sunglasses on, which was why I couldn’t see anything (the tunnels were unlit – even with sunglasses pushed forwards to bridge of nose it was practically pitch black)). It was around the third where I came undone. A quick dash through the details is as follows:
Me on outside of group, towards the front – travelling around 30mph – reasonably sharp left hander leading into unlit tunnel – traffic emerging from tunnel meant group edged further to edge of road, pushing me wider still – wet patch on entrance to tunnel directly on my line – me squeezed out my group, onto wet patch – unable to turn wheel without skidding/taking out others – tried to lean through corner – nearly made it – not quite enough space – collided full-on with wall of tunnel, about 30mph, shoulder and right forearm/elbow took brunt of impact, bike spat out from underneath me hitting another rider in group, knocking him down also – I ricocheted off wall and skidded to halt on right knee and left elbow, slightly contorted, upside down, and in some pain.
My bike was strewn in the middle of the carriageway, entangled with the poor other rider. He, thankfully, was ok, and got hurriedly to his feet, seemingly unhurt, hurled a “Ca va?” in my direction, and remounted before haring off down the tunnel to try and catch our fast-moving group.
I staggered a little less elegantly to my feet and checked my head/helmet for holes or general damage. Relieved to find I was able to both stand up and could remember both the crash in intimate detail as well as being over-whelmed with fury (not directed at anyone in particular – I don’t think it was anyone’s fault – more just at the general predicament), I considered myself lucky and salvaged my bike before another flurry of riders hurtled past, followed closely by a string of cars. Their cries of “Attention!” and a lone car horn (I hope warning the rest of the traffic to be ware, rather than chastising me for choosing a poor spot to fall off) sharpened my thinking, and after re-alligning the brakes, I hobbled back onto the bike, initially with the intention of rolling out of the tunnel to get into some daylight.
Bizarre as it may sound, as soon as I got back on the bike (and checked that the brakes were in fact working), I didn’t really think to stop outside the tunnel. My speedo read 90 miles (and in fact was stopped dead at 90 miles and wouldn’t re-start, something clearly broke during the crash, but I can’t work out what). So instead, my head decided it would ignore the various bits of my body which were lodging emergency aid requests (I didn’t actually look at any of my 2 elbows, or right knee till I had finished), and instead ordered that I eat everything I had left in my pockets and drink everything in my water bottles to combat shock, and to simply man-up and get on with it, after all, as my Grandfather frequently says “Worse things happen at sea”. This mantra went round and round in my head, until I decided a little music might be in order and switched on my iPod to help distract me, only to be greeted by “Crash” by James, which actually had me laughing out loud.
Some small part of me wanted to catch the group I’d been riding with, but the bigger part was more intent on finishing in a good time. As noted, my speedo had stopped, but my watch hadn’t and I knew I had about 30km to go, and about 2 hours to get in sub 8:30hrs, the time needed for a Gold classification – which right now was all the motivation I needed. As my head rattled through the maths, I began to pick up speed. 15km to Bourg (and I was praying this was all downhill/flat – I didn’t know since I hadn’t checked the route profile carefully enough), then 15km up Alpe d’Huez. At this point I risked a quick glance down at my elbow, which was starting to throb quite a lot, and thought the outer joint was sticking out a little further than it ought to and was convinced I spotted a patch of white through the skin (the entirety of my forearm was covered in blood, it seemed, and looked fairly mashed up). That was enough for me not to feel the need to look again.
I hit the bottom of Alpe d’Huez with what I remember as about and hour and twenty minutes to go (by my watch). I ploughed up the climb, probably faster than I would have done otherwise, such was my desperation to have something to show for this (and Gold, it seemed, was going to be that thing). The climb is not the toughest of the day by any means, but put it at 160km after you’ve done all the previously kilometres had to offer, and it becomes a totally different proposition. On top of this the 21 switchbacks are a study in psychological warfare – just when you think it’s not so bad and you’re going ok, you look up and discover you still have 15 turns to go, and the world seems to slip away again. I calculated that, having done the first 9 turns, I had 5 minutes for each of the remaining 12, and that would bring me home in time. Looking back, I’ve got no idea if my mental arithmetic was correct, since I remember that eliciting a sense of terror that I was never going to make it (although now looking at it, it appears I must have done the first 9 in about 20 minutes, so I don’t know what I was worried about). There may be some element of woozy thinking there, but let’s leave it that I was motivated, and cross. So cross in fact, that I started fixating on things which might make me crosser – specifically the idea that the organisers were going to have messed up the timing and not get me over the line in under 8:30, after all this effort. I was running through ways of proving to them what time I had started, getting the stopwatch on my watch permanently fixed, all sorts of things to justify the final burning of the lungs and searing of weary leg muscles.
I was passing people to my right, and the exclamations of revulsion upon them seeing my arm (or knee, I didn’t stop to specify), was not helping my general frame of mind. I got increasingly angry (again, with the situation, rather than anyone else), and this just drove me a bit faster with every swear word muttered under my breath.
Alpe d’Huez eases off with almost 2 kilometre to go, and those last couple of kilometres passed in a blur, as suddenly I found myself able to accelerate at last, and standing, I sprinted along the final flat section before rounding a quick chicane in the barriers and charging over the finish line, where, I can honestly say, I probably felt more jubilation then I have done in completing an event for a long time. My watch stopped at 8:16, and regardless of what the official timing said (I was still worried about this – but needn’t have been, my certificate says 8:16 too), I was happy.
No need for enormously long detail on the rest. Emily finished in a spectacular time of 11:30 – which, given she started cycling a year ago, and within 12 months completed the Marmotte in a time good enough to gain her a Silver classification, is a tremendous achievement. The fact that she crossed the line in fantastic spirits, exclaiming that “it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought; I really enjoyed it!”, underlines that.
I was frog-marched to the medical aid station, where a selection of volunteer Red Cross workers ummed and ahead about quite what they were going to do with me. After 2 hours, including a stint with a hose pipe, a lot of antiseptic, and a large amount of pretty painful wiping with gauze, the very helpful, but probably under-qualified staff (the main protagonist was an electrician, and admitted to not really knowing what was best for these particularly deep, tarmac-filled wounds), decided to point me in the direction of the nearest hospital (Grenoble), since these injuries were going to need “surgical scrubbing”. It seems that when forced in at about 30mph, gravel can embed itself fairly effectively into arms, knees and elbows. After Emily had finished, we jumped back on our bikes, rolled (a little gingerly) back down the hill, and round the 21 turns, packed up our stuff at the campsite, shoved everything into the car in a suitably random and heaped manner, and hit the road for Grenoble. Thankfully the traffic wasn’t too painful (since the limbs increasingly were) at this time of night (about 9pm), and we hit Grenoble A&E at around 10pm. Again shifting to condensed version to save the squeamish:
1 hour wait in waiting room (pass out in chair) – 2 hour stint with two doctors, each armed with metal-bristled nail brushes, going at the wounds as you would an piece of tarnished brass (i.e. not gently), me armed with some form of anaesthetic gas, doctors apologising that the flow doesn’t go any higher, and explaining that my lungs were too big, so could I please take smaller breaths since draining the balloon too quickly – quick inspection from senior doctor 1, unimpressed, retreat for stiffer-bristled brush, recommence scrubbing for further hour – feeling pretty weak – wounds bleeding a little more now, cleaner, but still worrying amounts of grey/black detritus left in each, quite deep it seems (“les blessures profondes” was the phrase), Emily enters from having been asleep in waiting room, very comforting, but manages a few minutes before having to leave because feeling a little sick – re-enter doctors plus senior doctor 2, announcement that sadly scrubbing not been sufficient, too high risk of infection from leaving half of French Alpine road embedded in flesh – only possible course of action is local anaesthetic and gouging (not specifically a medical term) with selection of oddly shaped and hideously contorted medical instruments (including one, and I swear this actually exists, with a tiny hook on the end – despite my plea that it definitely looked like something made for a Hollywood villain’s torture chamber, the doctor saw it fit to plunge it into my open knee a couple of times for good measure) – a couple more hours, one effective anaesthetic (in the arm), and one highly ineffective (in the knee) later, and the various injuries were bleeding profusely once again, but, mercifully, were also a lot cleaner, and senior doctor 2, perhaps reading the gaunt vision of exhaustion on my face with some sympathy at last, deemed that the effort had been a success, and the nurse could bandage me up. Both the junior doctor and I breathed a huge sigh of relief (poor chap, he was really nice, and kept apologising and saying he hated his job at times like this when he could see he was causing a patient pain).
I can’t praise the staff at the Grenoble Hopital du Nord enough – they were great, and made what was an excruciatingly awful medical experience efficient and highly professional - and almost bearable.
The race? Amazing. Fantastic route, great climbs, brilliant atmosphere, good crowd participation, and excellent organisation. As tough a ride as I've done in a long time, and that's ignoring my personal inability to stay on two wheels. Wouldd recommend this event to anyone, and fully intend to go back and beat that time (and avoid the friendly staff at Grenoble A&E).
By way of a random link to someone else who's keen on the same ride, Alex (friend of the earlier-mentioned Tim and Matt (who finished the Marmotte in 8hrs and 9hrs respectively)), has a great website detailing his latest epic cycling adventures - check it out here.
