Haute Route Alps, Stage 6.

Haute Route Alps, Stage 6. Yet another long day out....

After gaining a little bit of confidence with the legs finally turning up to the event yesterday, I decided to try to have an “easier” day, but Freddie once again convinced me to try to stay with the leaders on the first climb.

The first climb was Col du Chaussy, one I only heard of this year. It was again a long climb and had a couple of these flat and down hill sections so the average gradient of 8.5% was a bit of a lie. I was about P40 when we hit the start of the climb, but it seemed the leaders did not disappear like usual. I pushed on a little and was soon on the back of the lead 20, this was a first of the week.

I was having a few mechanical issues yesterday and we found out I had one not enough spacers when my gears were not right. That issue bodged with a champag spacer I thought the gear issues were done. Oh no, once I had to stand up and lay down some “serious” power (for me that is), the gears were jumping about. Then followed plenty of swearing and growling. I ended up finding a gear to grind which was ok, the leaders looked like they wanted a bit of a holiday for the first half of the Chaussy, so I made my way to the front where friend and fellow Haute Route Veteran was doing his thing. We were both shocked to be there and even be on the front up a climb.

This did not last for too much longer, for one reason or another someone upped the pace a little and we were spat out the back pretty lively. I did try to stay with it but the gears were not playing ball so I got the hump and just turned the gas down and finished the climb at an easy pace. The summit we had a time off bleep as the descent was dodgy, even though this was neutralised we passed a guy who had taken a tumble and was getting patched up with a broken something or other.

Once down we hit the foot of the Madeleine, yet another longggg climb! 14k of 8%. Unlike the first climb the 8% was more consistent. I had decided today was going to be chilled and so I took it chilled up this climb, the time was now on until we hit the finish line to one more climb and 2 descents. Over 4200m of descending!

Cutting a long story short I did not have what you would call a day off but more a steady day, riding solo for the full timed section, getting on for 4 hours 40 minutes. Overall apart from the saddle sore which is making me ride out the saddle quite a lot I had good times on my own enjoying stunning views...! :-) Col des Saisies officially was 14k but the drag started earlier, maybe 33k from top to bottom. I think the organisation made a little error with no feed stop half way up this climb, many people complaining of riding a lot of the climb dry and hungry. I started this last climb myself with two full bottles and still ran out with 5k to go. Some people started with one and had to fill their bottles up out of a local stream... I hope their guts are ok for tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the final stage of the Alps edition, a pretty brutal and tough week. Freddie is a top top rider and has said the Pyrenees he did last week and this week back to back is the hardest 2 weeks he has had on a bike. Yes he was Racing it every day but it does say something about what a tough event it is coming from a rider of his caliber.

The final stage is a lot shorter and less climbing with a few neutralised section, I only hope to get through to the line in Geneva intact as there is an 8k convoy into Geneva, this is where is see the most crashes with pillocks trying to take selfies and switching off and chatting. Lets hope as it is only 8k we can avoid this madness.