Race Report: Haute Route Multi-Stage Cycle Race, Nice to Geneva (for anyone who is interested)
As a few of you have found the triathlon and RAAM race reports interesting I thought I would share my Haute Route experience. The Haute Route (if you are not familiar) is a 7 day, multi-stage cycle race from Nice to Geneva. It covers 855km and involves 22,150 of vertical ascent or climbing Everest two and half times. The organisers basically replicate the Tour de France with a General Classification ranking (your overall time compared to the race leader) and on the whole they do a pretty good job. The course takes in many of the famous climbs such as Croix de Fer, Galibier and the Col de Madeleine. As such it tends to attract a lot of serious cyclists and as a triathlete it is always a shock to discover how crap I am on a bike when normally I would expect to be “up there” on the bike leg of a triathlon.
I arrived in Nice and everyone had seriously expensive bikes, no shoulders or pecs and legs that looked like the London tube map their legs were so veiny indicating sub 10% body fat. The field was mainly men, mainly middle aged and mainly wearing Rapha – you can imagine the type. They all looked like serious cyclists, turned out to be a good bunch generally but I really had no idea how I would compare with them.
The first two days were rode in conditions from hell. It was cold, rainy and windy and whilst the first day was ok the second day was probably my worst ever day on a bike. Even though it really hurts going up, you are at least warm. Many at the top were suffering from early stage hypothermia. On the way down I was shaking with cold and as it was so steep I constantly had to break but when I broke I would transfer the shaking to the bike and a number of times I nearly lost it at 50 to 60km/hr on the wet slippery roads. It was so bad that I even began to think that if I was hit by an oncoming car it would not be the worst thing and at least the ambulance would be warm!
I had a carefully worked out race plan at the start of the race and with my power meter for guidance I planned to ride the hills at tempo, which for me is around 150 bpm. As soon as the race started this went immediately out of the window and I tried to stay with the real cyclists. I was red lining for most of the climbs and my best placing on the first day was 108 out of 560. This I would later learn was pretty damned good as many have being in the top 200 or top half as their goal. However, I would pay a heavy price for abandoning my plan.
On day two I started the race with tired legs but for the first two climbs rode at 150 bpm and placed 135 and 133 which was great and then it all went horribly wrong. I felt like I was cycling through treacle, I even looked behind to check no one had attached a tow to my bike – I went backwards. I suffered complete and utter power failure and placed 271 on the final col after a miserable, freezing, lonely and miserable day – if they had not promised better weather for day 3 I would have flown home that night.
Day three is a short time trial taking between 40 minutes (for the race leaders) and a lot longer for everyone else. All I could do was keep turning the pedals and make it to the top. I was well down the rankings.
Days four and five included the Col du Galibier, Col de Croix de Fer (twice) and the Madeleine. Looking for reasons why I was cycling so badly I concluded that I must have bonked (running out of energy stores in the body) and decided that the solution was to increase my consumption of sports drinks and gels during the race and eat myself senseless at dinner and breakfast. Again, I should have known better and whilst I did ride a bit more consistently I ended up taking on so much sugar that I ended up retching and feeling sick. Fortunately, a friend made earlier in the week “towed me up” and I just clung to his back wheel as best I could for 30km – mentally it was tough.
On the morning of day six I told myself to stop being such an idiot and go back to basics and do what I normally do on a long distance triathlon. I stopped over eating off the bike and limited my food intake to 65g of carbs per hour which I know is the maximum my body can handle. I set myself a sensible power output which I believed I could maintain on every col and finally my placings, whilst low, were at least more consistent. I even felt a bit of strength returning. The weather was amazing, the scenery fantastic and with descents, flats and climbs it felt like a real race (many of the descents earlier in the week were not timed due to the conditions to stop people killing themselves). Living in the mountains I realised that I can descend a lot faster than those that only have the Surrey hills to practice on and it was a shame there were not more descents to play with to compensate for my inability to climb.
Day 7 I began to feel a bit like my old self and my power started to come back up but of course by this stage it was too late to make much difference. Overall I finished 217 out of close to 600 riders who left Nice – there were many DNFs (Did Not Finish) and I am disappointed with myself to be honest.
The key thing I learned on the Haute Route is that pacing yourself is absolutely the key to success. If you go too hard, too early you might make some gains but if you die on the final climb you can easily give up 30 minutes or more to those riders who rode a more even race. Overall it was an amazing event and am seriously thinking about doing it all over again next year to see how I would do with some specific training and sensible pacing. Anyone else interested?
Expeditions 