We all can identify a handful of acquaintances, current and
past, whose actions have shaped the course of our lives. My high school friend Adrian has been such a
person for me, and over our teenage years he introduced me to a seemingly
never-ending set of outdoor endeavors – bike camping in New Hampshire, week-long canoe trips in northern Maine, cross-country ski racing in Vermont, and walking
up and down steep mountains with a whole lot of weight on our backs. I may eventually have stumbled into these
activities on my own, but Adrian jump started my life-long love of outdoor
adventuring.
Eventually we both graduated from high school and went our
separate ways. Every few years Adrian
would call or write proposing a new adventure, but life always seemed to get in
the way – things like kids, work, mortgage payments, sloth and flabbiness. Adrian kept tempting me, and early in 2013 he
made the offer I couldn’t refuse – he was going to France to participate in a
bike race called “La Marmotte”, French
for “marmot”, those woodchuck-like critters that live high above tree line in
mountain regions. The Marmotte is a
citizen’s bike race for shlubs like me, those whose imaginations are captured
by the Tour de France, but whose bodies have been victimized by too many years
of hard living and too many bagels with cream cheese. While the Tour de France is beyond our grasp,
the Marmotte opens its arms to all comers willing to take on the challenge, and
the route passes over the same roads and high mountain passes visited by the
Tour de France.
I reviewed the statistics of the event with some trepidation
– 17,000 vertical feet of climbing over a 108 mile course, including four of
the highest and most epic climbs of the Tour de France – Glandon, Telegraph, Galibier,
and the 21 switchbacks of the Alpe d’Huez. Once upon a time I had ridden a bike the 4000
vertical feet up Mt. Washington in New Hampshire and it was pretty hard – the
Marmotte is the equivalent of four of those climbs in a single day, with a
bunch of miles in between. Hmm.
Race day arrived on July 6, and Adrian and I lined up near
the back of a 7,000 person field. The
gun fired, and we then waited for a full hour for the riders in front of us to
file through a narrow one lane road before we could cross the starting line and
enter the route. Timing was via an electronic
chip on your bike, so starting near the back was not a disadvantage, other than
the fact that you were packed in with bikes all sides as you raced down the
valley at close to 30 mph. After only a few
miles we started the first of the climbs – 4,000 vertical feet to Col du Glandon (6312 ft). With fresh legs, I was able to negotiate much of this first
climb in the second to lowest gear of my rented bike, leaving the last gear as
the “bailout” when things got rough later on.
The top of the first pass was a riot of bikers, all trying
to get water bottles filled and something to eat before a 5000-foot twisty descent to the bottom of the
valley over the next 14 miles. After a
death on this decent in 2011, the organizers decided to turn off the timing
chips for this section, so your speed down the hill did not affect your overall
standing. Nevertheless, boys will be
boys, and I passed several accident sites on the way down, with the requisite
back boards, bandages, and ambulances.
At the bottom of the hill, the route followed the flat
valley floor for 15 miles. Speeds were
high and we all felt like bike racers for a few moments. This came to an end at the 50-mile mark, when
the road pitched up to the sky, and the biggest effort of the day began – a 7300-vertical
foot climb in a 20 mile span over the Telegraph and Galibier passes. After stoically resisting for a few miles, I
realized I’d be using my “bailout gear” for the majority of the climb. I shifted down, and started the long grind up
the switchbacks, occasionally glancing upward at riders several switchbacks
ahead and perhaps as much as a thousand feet above me. My speedometer was glued on 8 km/hr, where it
stayed virtually the whole climb. Riding
along at under 5 mph means it takes a while to get where you’re going. The kilometer markers on the side of the
Galibier pass, which started at 22K to go, passed by ever so slowly. Grades kicked up near the top of the pass –
to 11 and 12 percent, which will put a hurtin’ on just about any cyclist. At this point many were off their bikes
walking and stretching cramped legs. Near
the top, at nearly 9000 feet of elevation, last winter’s snow lingered, and at
points the road was cut through snow banks still 10 feet high.
A distinct benefit of riding a bike up a big hill is that
you get to go back down. After you summit
the Galibier, that down goes on for 40 miles, and by the time you hit Bourg d’Oisans
at the bottom of the valley you’ve shed 6300 vertical feet. It was a wild ride down the mountain at
speeds often above 40 mph, slowed only by the automobiles in the way, which
most of us elected to pass. Occasionally it would be lights out as we
passed into darkened tunnels, praying that the condition of the pavement (which we
could not see) remained acceptable.
At the 101 mile mark you reach the point from whence you
came, the village of Bourg d’Oisans. Any
sane race director would call it a day at this point, and let us go home. But this race prides itself on its epic-ness,
and we still had the small matter of the 21 switchbacks of Alpe d’Huez to
contend with – a 4000-foot climb over 7 miles.
Everyone’s legs were shot at this
point, and as we started up the hill the toll on the cyclists’ bodies was
immediately evident. Within the first
mile I was already seeing people off their bikes and hiking. I put it in the bailout gear and started
counting the switchbacks down from 21.
As the climb continued the suffering increased. The late-afternoon sun was cooking the side
of the valley, and when a water hose was offered in a small village at the side
of the road it was well received. With four
miles to go I saw a cyclist lying on the road, face down, panting. With three miles to go the ambulance was
loading someone else. With two miles to go, I saw someone wretching
over the guard rail. A large percentage
of the field was walking. I pedaled on,
hoping that the leg cramps that always seem to come would hold off. With a mile to go the grades mercifully
diminished, and we were able to roll past the cheering throngs to the finish
line with our dignity somewhat intact.
At the finish line they asked me if I would like the T-shirt
or the medal. I went with the medal
because I figured I deserved it, even though I was the 3,247th finisher.
I embrace the “everyone gets a medal” concept. Adrian had finished about an hour ahead of me,
and I’m pretty sure he is already plotting the next adventure. I’ve come up with a lot of excuses not to do
his adventures in the past. I might
recycle one of those and save myself some misery next year.
