Haute Route Alps, Prologue and Stage 1.

Dolomites done and in the past for now. Onto the Alps, and the possibility of a tougher group of riders at the front of the group. Yesterday was a bit more of a relaxed day, we had no travel to do and staying in the same hotel two nights in a row was a nice change. A chance to relax, get an afternoon nap and the only little job to blast 9k along the side of Lake Geneva.

I had a time of 12:30 for my Prologue, I missed this by a good hour of so. I knew the organisers would not be too worried about order, and with relaxing and recovering the most important item on the agenda I wandered down after a few hours of ice on the knee of doom. The Prologue itself I could only say went ok at best. No warm up (unlike some who had turbo trainers (thats serious)), and the lack of flat riding in the last week I was not expecting too much. I rolled down the start ram and instantly gave it the beans, not a good idea. No warm up and my legs were fully in misery corner, heart was ripping itself out my chest. Got down to the turn, gave it the grunt to get back up to speed. Dam, head wind on the way back. Started to catch up a few people, including 3 guys form the same club seemingly doing a team time trial... cheating gits!! got to the finish hurting a load more than I would have wanted to but it was done. Back to the hotel for a kip!

Stage 1 of the Alps started with a bit of a crazy 25k from Bonne to the lower slopes of col du Colombier. The front of the main group hit the start of the climb hard and they were disappearing fast. So I knew then I would not see those guys again. Descending down from the top of the col we passed through a few towns which were a bit busy for my liking. Just as I arrived at the bottom of the second climb I felt a group behind me. Looks like Emma had come to play again, though she was ahead of me up the first ascent, they had stopped for the call of nature. So we had company of a group of six or seven. Knowing the final climb before the clock stopped was only short we could hit this one a little harder, then a short descent and up the last 4k. All went well, kept out of the red zone and stopped the clock at the summit of Aravis.

We then had a good chill out eating at the feed stop drinking coke etc etc. Rolled down the untimed descent then into the final 10k which was timed again. I even mustered a bit of a sprint to the line. I think on provisional result I was 15th, not brill but ok. There was a lot of fresh legs about on this first stage and some people were doing the "compact", the first 2 stages only so they would be hitting it very hard! I was always lively to be lower down with the higher competition in the Alps. We'll see what tomorrow brings and especially stage 3, thats going to be a long long day...!