Geneva-> Col de la Ramaz-> Geneva. 60 miles, 4823 feet of climbing. Category 1 climb.
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/ch/geneva/935128361774569996
Remember how I talked about the fatigue catching up with me? Well, it did big time after the last ride. I took a day off to try and recover/avoid the crappy weather and I had to take care of some other things so I didn't even touch my bike in the spirit of abandoning useless recovery rides that seemed to hurt rather than help me.
My plan on this day was to to ride the Col de la Ramaz up the hard side from Mieussy, descend down the other side, ride up to L'Encranaz, then down through Taninges and back to Geneva. 2 hard/long category 1 climbs in the high mountains that I hadn't done before and a pretty solid plan.
Showing posts with label European Rides. Show all posts
Showing posts with label European Rides. Show all posts
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Fun Climbs Not Found In ANY Race
Geneva-> Bonneville-> Mt. Saxonexx-> Brizon-> Morsullaz-> Solaison-> back to Geneva. 75.51 miles and 5.974 feet of climbing
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/ch/geneva/317128311044610899
Some of the best climbs I've done around here haven't been in any kind of race/Grand Tour and never will be. Today was full of them. 10%-12% averages (at the lowest), almost no traffic, and one of the climbs had a 1,000 foot drop off on the other side with only a 1 foot high stone wall that separated me and certain death. Almost no traffic, nice shade, and great views of glacial gorges make these climbs really hard, but also really enjoyable.
The ride out to the Alps has become completely monotonous. Through downtown Geneva, out to Annemasse (a rather crappy town on the outside of Geneva), down a busy road to Bonneville before crossing the river to some quieter roads/farm towns. The climb started rather abruptly and was quite steep from the beginning. I believe its 8% at its lowest and averages 12% for the first portion. The key to this climb is getting some speed at the start and doing whatever you can to maintain it. I was spinning my lowest gear, a 34-25, but once you get going it just comes down to not slowing for turns, cracks in the road, passing cars, fatigue or whatever. A lot of people go too hard on climbs like this and then lose speed when they try to do whatever they can to correct for their mistake. I've found that if you start at the right pace then it gets easier after the first 5 minutes. I've heard that some people 'get comfortable' for climbs and change their position/seating and try to use different muscles for different types of climbs, but for something like this I think thats kind of bullshit. They're not long and they're steep, but not ridiculous. Get a comfortable cadence and stick with it in whatever gear works. For stuff like this you can't worry about spinning fast to avoid lactic acid buildup or any of that crap, you just have to use sheer force to tough it out for a bit. Think of someone like Jens Voigt who isn't a climber, but can manage to tough it out for long pulls on the front. Same thing.
The first climb is on a very narrow road surrounded by huge gorges. Its hard, then it gets flat for a few hundred meters and goes back up. I turned around at the town, descended on the 8 foot wide single lane road and back to a left turn up to Brizon. I then took the road back to the top of the first climb via a flat byway between the two towns and climbed up to Morsullaz, which turned out to be a rather bad idea. The road is at the top of a ski station and better suited for mountain bikes so I was constantly swerving to dodge massive potholes, cracks, and hikers. I later found that if you go straight instead of going up this climb you end up at Le Reposoir, which is mid-way through the Col de la Colombiere right before it gets really hard.
After Morsullaz I went back to Brizon and found that I had originally missed a turn to Plateau de Solaison, which is yet another steep 10% climb up to a beautiful alpine meadow. These climbs weren't super long, but they were fairly scenic and quiet. The grades made them pretty challenging, but I've never had a problem with shorter, steeper climbs probably from learning to ride in Arizona and Central NY where things are usually short, steep, and fairly fast.
The ride home was the same as the way there and proved to be fairly quick. False downhills/false flats have a way of making things seem longer/slower than they really are, which always makes the ride too and from rather boring. Total ride time was 5.5 hours due to the slow, steep climbs even though the mileage was low. Despite feeling incredibly tired my climbing felt even better than the day before, but I know it won't last too long. My recovery is slowing down and my energy is dwindling so I will have to back off for a bit. There's quite a few more rides I would like to do before the winter, but my weeks are averaging almost 25 hours despite riding 4 or 5 days a week at most. Its also hard to eat enough with the high prices of food around here.
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/ch/geneva/317128311044610899
Some of the best climbs I've done around here haven't been in any kind of race/Grand Tour and never will be. Today was full of them. 10%-12% averages (at the lowest), almost no traffic, and one of the climbs had a 1,000 foot drop off on the other side with only a 1 foot high stone wall that separated me and certain death. Almost no traffic, nice shade, and great views of glacial gorges make these climbs really hard, but also really enjoyable.
The ride out to the Alps has become completely monotonous. Through downtown Geneva, out to Annemasse (a rather crappy town on the outside of Geneva), down a busy road to Bonneville before crossing the river to some quieter roads/farm towns. The climb started rather abruptly and was quite steep from the beginning. I believe its 8% at its lowest and averages 12% for the first portion. The key to this climb is getting some speed at the start and doing whatever you can to maintain it. I was spinning my lowest gear, a 34-25, but once you get going it just comes down to not slowing for turns, cracks in the road, passing cars, fatigue or whatever. A lot of people go too hard on climbs like this and then lose speed when they try to do whatever they can to correct for their mistake. I've found that if you start at the right pace then it gets easier after the first 5 minutes. I've heard that some people 'get comfortable' for climbs and change their position/seating and try to use different muscles for different types of climbs, but for something like this I think thats kind of bullshit. They're not long and they're steep, but not ridiculous. Get a comfortable cadence and stick with it in whatever gear works. For stuff like this you can't worry about spinning fast to avoid lactic acid buildup or any of that crap, you just have to use sheer force to tough it out for a bit. Think of someone like Jens Voigt who isn't a climber, but can manage to tough it out for long pulls on the front. Same thing.
The first climb is on a very narrow road surrounded by huge gorges. Its hard, then it gets flat for a few hundred meters and goes back up. I turned around at the town, descended on the 8 foot wide single lane road and back to a left turn up to Brizon. I then took the road back to the top of the first climb via a flat byway between the two towns and climbed up to Morsullaz, which turned out to be a rather bad idea. The road is at the top of a ski station and better suited for mountain bikes so I was constantly swerving to dodge massive potholes, cracks, and hikers. I later found that if you go straight instead of going up this climb you end up at Le Reposoir, which is mid-way through the Col de la Colombiere right before it gets really hard.
After Morsullaz I went back to Brizon and found that I had originally missed a turn to Plateau de Solaison, which is yet another steep 10% climb up to a beautiful alpine meadow. These climbs weren't super long, but they were fairly scenic and quiet. The grades made them pretty challenging, but I've never had a problem with shorter, steeper climbs probably from learning to ride in Arizona and Central NY where things are usually short, steep, and fairly fast.
The ride home was the same as the way there and proved to be fairly quick. False downhills/false flats have a way of making things seem longer/slower than they really are, which always makes the ride too and from rather boring. Total ride time was 5.5 hours due to the slow, steep climbs even though the mileage was low. Despite feeling incredibly tired my climbing felt even better than the day before, but I know it won't last too long. My recovery is slowing down and my energy is dwindling so I will have to back off for a bit. There's quite a few more rides I would like to do before the winter, but my weeks are averaging almost 25 hours despite riding 4 or 5 days a week at most. Its also hard to eat enough with the high prices of food around here.
Intermediate Climbs That You've Seen In The Tour, But Didn't Care About.
Geneva-> Bonneville-> St Jean de Sixt-> Thones-> Col de la Croix Fry-> La Clusaz-> Col de la Aravis-> back down to Geneva. ~100 miles, 7320 feet of climbing
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/ch/geneva/905128303053344062 I got lazy while mapping and didn't include a few detours for the bathroom or carefully map one part where I got lost and had to backtrack a bit so I'm rounding it off to an even 100 miles.
Today re-starts the mini-tour I've been doing of the Alps. The original goal was to do a new route with new climbs every day, but that's getting tougher and tougher to do without a car or train. After tomorrow I will have 3 minor climbs left, the back side of a major climb, and 2 climbs down by Annecy that I'm not sure I want to do because the ride there is boring and there is tons of traffic.
Somehow today went according to plan despite the fact that I left my maps and directions at home. It was simple enough; just ride to Bonneville, cross the river, and head towards St. Jean de Sixt. This route would take me up a nice demoralizing 12 mile climb to start the day, then two more difficult climbs including the Col de Aravis, which was used in the 2010 Tour, and the Col de la Croix Fry http://www.climbbybike.com/climb.asp?col=Col-de-la-Croix-Fry&qryMountainID=6119, which cann be seen in Floyd Landis' epic comeback in the 2006 Tour de France and the day he would be caught doping. Up the first climb, down to Thones, up the second, down to La Clusaz and up the Aravis and then back home the way I came.
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/ch/geneva/905128303053344062 I got lazy while mapping and didn't include a few detours for the bathroom or carefully map one part where I got lost and had to backtrack a bit so I'm rounding it off to an even 100 miles.
Today re-starts the mini-tour I've been doing of the Alps. The original goal was to do a new route with new climbs every day, but that's getting tougher and tougher to do without a car or train. After tomorrow I will have 3 minor climbs left, the back side of a major climb, and 2 climbs down by Annecy that I'm not sure I want to do because the ride there is boring and there is tons of traffic.
Somehow today went according to plan despite the fact that I left my maps and directions at home. It was simple enough; just ride to Bonneville, cross the river, and head towards St. Jean de Sixt. This route would take me up a nice demoralizing 12 mile climb to start the day, then two more difficult climbs including the Col de Aravis, which was used in the 2010 Tour, and the Col de la Croix Fry http://www.climbbybike.com/climb.asp?col=Col-de-la-Croix-Fry&qryMountainID=6119, which cann be seen in Floyd Landis' epic comeback in the 2006 Tour de France and the day he would be caught doping. Up the first climb, down to Thones, up the second, down to La Clusaz and up the Aravis and then back home the way I came.
Massive Post, Lots of Alps Info/Stories
Although I've lived in Geneva for the entire Summer, I've only made it out to the Alps once before this week (twice if you count the Saleve climbs as the Alps). It wasn't due to laziness, but rather the sheer amount of time it takes to get there. The closest climbs are at least 1.5 hours away, so I tend to stay in the somewhat smaller Jura mountains to the West of Geneva. The Juras are home to numerous categorized climbs as well as stage 7 of the 2010 Tour de France so its not like it was really a bad thing. For sub 4 hour after work rides its pretty easy to just hop into France, get some good climbing in and ride home.
I knew that I would have two weeks of added free time this August so I began to plan my escape. I had rental cars lined up for trips to France and Eastern Switzerland to ride some tall peaks, but then I realized that I was being incredibly short-sighted. There are dozens of climbs right to the East in the Alps that I could ride at no added cost. They range from the unknown Monastre climb (which is actually quite harder than many of the category 3 climbs and even 2 climbs I've done here), to the famous 1st category Col de la Colombiere and Hors Categoire (too hard to be categorized) Col de Joux Plane.
I knew that I would have two weeks of added free time this August so I began to plan my escape. I had rental cars lined up for trips to France and Eastern Switzerland to ride some tall peaks, but then I realized that I was being incredibly short-sighted. There are dozens of climbs right to the East in the Alps that I could ride at no added cost. They range from the unknown Monastre climb (which is actually quite harder than many of the category 3 climbs and even 2 climbs I've done here), to the famous 1st category Col de la Colombiere and Hors Categoire (too hard to be categorized) Col de Joux Plane.
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