Wow! La Morzine Vallée d’Aulps Cyclosportive
By Will • Jun 22nd, 2008 • Category: Climbs, Cycling, Cyclosportives
Perhaps the hardest ride of my life.
Martin, Barry, and I (and Doreen!) stayed over in Morzine for the “La Morzine Vallée d’Aulps” (yes Aulps) Cyclosportive.
Barry - being the strongest rider of course did the shorter route - he actually has a training plan! Martin and I? We chose the longer route.
Over 140 kilometres with about 3,400 metres climb (+11,000 feet) in a heat wave. This is the first time I have ever done a ride with a real expectation beforehand of not finishing.
The route started by climbing the beautiful and challenging Col de la Joux Verte.
A long descent through the Vallée d’Aulps and then a climb into and through the scenic Vallée Verte culminating with the steepish Col des Arces.
A very small climb to Col de Terramont and then a long rolling ride to Samoens to climb the legendary Col de Joux Plane. Yikes!
Here’s a short video of the day:
A big congratulations to Martin on his ride today. He’s been training very hard for our July trip and it shows. He dropped me on the beginning of Joux Verte and beat me by a bunch. Well done!
Grade Charts for the two big climbs:
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Will is Happiest while cycling uphill. More enthusiastic than talented, his 2008 Challenge is to (again) cycle 160,000 metres of vertical ascent.
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It’s amazing !
Nothing else to say…
OK all 3 of you. Now you have two choices : 1) Or you admit this is all BS and you are nothing but a sad bunch of liars OR 2) You stop BSing about your condition being crap and you guys so called not being ready for the Tour d’Enfer. Keep going like this and there won’t be a Tour d’Enfer for any of you…you’ll have to rename it into “Tour du Paradis”.
And Will, next time I ride with you, you do this again…make me struggle!
Great ride Will… congrats! I think your strength will be peaking for the Tour.
[...] weeks has been the five mountain cyclosportives that I have completed (La Montagnarde, Time-Megeve, La Morzine Vallée d’Aulps, La Grand Bo, and La Marmotte). I am no racer but participating in these long, mountain events has [...]