Tour de France Cols

Monday, June 13, 2011

Time Megeve Mont Blanc 2011

Sunday June 12th saw the  8th edition of the Time Megeve sportive. A cool sunny start in Sallanches as 1700+ lined up. Along with us from breathebike.com was Penny Comins from Cycling Weekly and Gareth Evans from Evans Cycles, with his brother Michael and father Ron.

Its a flat start for around 20kms with a very quick pace to Cluses with the speed reaching 50kmh at one one point. After negotiating the town its a turn left through to Scionzier and the start of the Colombiere rising from 498m above sea level at the start with a brief respite through the aptly named Le Reposoir (resting point) before marching ever upwards to the summit at 1618M a total climb of 19.5KM. With Jude providing support for the day, after swopping bottles, its a swift descent down to Le Grand Bornard with a short leg burner climb up to St Jean de Sixt before the swooping descent down to Thones. Onto the Col de la Croix Fry  starting all the way down at 625M and rising over 12km to 1467M. Feeling good on the climb, even as it ramps up after Manigod, the decision was made to go for the long route (133Km total) as part of my Marmotte and Etape preparation. I'm not using a power meter, however I've discovered that if I climb at 159bpm, and maintain a cadence around 75/80 I avoid blowing up! The short descent brings you out around 2/3rds of the way up the Col des Aravis with approximately 4km to the  1461M summit. Luckily I joined a confident group on this technical descent and we were flying down to Flumet. Shortly after the village you swing right onto the Col des Saisies  and the last climb of the day the 14km ascent from 700M to 1657M. After ramping up through the first km, the gradient levels slightly. This was the junction for the long event and the guy in front of me thought wise to turn around at this point and head straight to the finish! Pushing on with a good cadence and another energy gel, summiting just after 13.00 it was now warm enough to descend in short sleeves for the first time today. Back down on the main road to Megeve its the final 8KMS to the finish and over the line in 5 hrs 23 mins. In total its a circuit of 133KM with 4 climbs all regular features in the Tour de France and a total ascent of 3500M.

Great organisation from the Time Megeve and Club des Sports Megeve.



With the Marmotte only 3 weeks away I'm finally feeling confident about the distance and the climbing. Morzine is next weekend with a slightly longer course and the final climb over the Joux Plaine.