September 11, 2024
Day Twelve - Huez
Another "relaxed" day today, at least in the sense that no cycling with luggage attached to my bike is involved. Breakfast purchased the day before at the conveniently located Intermarche Super (just across the river, bizarrely listed as permanently closed on Google Maps!). All I had to do was get ready to ride my bike up to Alpe D'Huez. I managed to set off by about 9AM - I would have considered going later however MET office weather at least suggested heavy rain would start from about 2PM, which would be irritating enough at ground level, never mind at the top of a mountain.
I hadn't paid for the camping yet, so I did that just before setting off. Slightly cheaper than expected, which was good as the campsite wasn't quite as pleasant as I had hoped.
That said though, it is very conveniently located for the big climb! Turn left and it starts practically immediately. Is the campsite on Zwift? I'm guessing not, but it'd be amusing if it were.
The climb itself was...fine. I don't know, it didn't really feel like the sort of climb where you can take in the view while riding it. I also struggled with pacing myself I think, in the end. On zwift there's a power meter I can look at. Not so in real life for me at least, and even if there were, it would be on my head unit rather than directly ahead of me. My two options seemed to be either concentrate on the ride itself, push myself while doing so, and pay particular attention to the strain involved, or distract myself with wandering thoughts and then realise five minutes later I could have been pushing more. I often feel like I'm not great at pacing myself on climbs. The main thing for me was to not stop.
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I think when I did the Zwift version of the climb, I was paying very close attention to each hairpin, and religiously counting down the turns until it was over. That didn't seem to happen on this go up the real thing. Maybe actually riding a bike in real life is too much of a sensory experience to pay attention to that sort of thing.
Oh, the music I was listening to - the Wipeout HD/Fury soundtrack followed by...Basement Jaxx I think.
Got to the top, looked around in some of the shops. I was tempted to buy a jersey but none of them seemed particularly interesting. If you're reading this and know of a cycling jersey that has both Mont Ventoux and Alpe D'Huez on it, let me know!
A Dutch bloke asked me about my dynamo, so I explained how it works to him...if only I had more faith in it! It'll come with me on the next trip anyway however.
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Descending back down I listened to BBC R4's Oncoming storm programme, discussing all the wacko conspiracy theorists in the US. That was novel! I stopped at a few of the hairpins to take in the view. Towards the end of the descent my rear brake started making a loud squealing noise. Uhoh! Once I arrived back at the campsite I quickly whipped out the rear brake pads to take a look. Oh dear. Rather thin!
I don't know whether they had any life left in them but if they did it wasn't much. Good job I was at one of the meccas of cycling! So a trip to find a bike shop and then off to the supermarket to get some supplies.
Getting the pads was easy enough, to my relief. Turns out I've done about 48k feet of climbing on this trip and that's mostly with luggage. Given I'm a nervous descender I suppose it should not come as a huge surprise that the pads didn't last the trip.
Went back to the campsite where I ate cheese and biscuits, very classy! Then got a bit bored so had a pootle around on the bike, very short. Maybe this is why I didn't go on holidays before I started going on cycling holidays. If I'm not riding around I'm probably getting bored. Bummer.
Ate some more cheese and biscuits as a 5PM meal. I've still got bolognese meatballs to eat! Oops. Off to Grenoble tomorrow.
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