Prior to our France trip, I googled possible routes and posted them in Karel's Training Peaks account. I had a lot of different route ideas that included specific climbs that we wanted to conquer. One climb that really interested me was the Lacets of Montevernier. The climb is located in France's Maurienne Valley (Savoie). It features 17 tight hairpins over 2 miles and has an average gradient of 8%. The TdF has climbed this route three times (2015, 2018, 2022). Since we were staying in Le Bourg-d'Osians, we would need to drive ~90 minutes to start this climb. I did some research and came across this website and discovered that we could bike to the lacets using this route. The only downside was that we would need to climb the Croix de Fer (again) - from both sides! This climb is a grueling climb but we were up for the challenge. With this being our last ride of our epic 3-week France trip, we knew we would be bringing a lot of fatigue to this ride but we co...
My friend/athlete Leah told me that the Alpe d' Huez triathlon was one of her favorite triathlon races. As I was searching for routes for our France trip, I realized that we were able to cover the entire bike course from the race. With our Airbnb located at the base of Alpe d' Huez, all we needed to do was ride towards the lake (near the town of Allemond) to start the bike course. With our athlete Bara in town from Czech, we headed out in the morning and warmed up our legs with a flat start to the ride. For the actual race, the start for the L (Long) distance is at 9:30am. This gives time for athletes to bike to the swim start at the lake as the race expo/finish is centered around Le Bourg and the village of Alpe d'Huez. The distances for the L race are: 1.3 mile swim 73 mile bike (10,500 feet elevation gain) 11.9 mile run (1,150 feet elevation gain) One we got on the course, the next 10 miles were fast as it was a gradual descend. The road was a bit busy as it was o...