Alpe-d'Huez

Last night I decided to ride Alpe d'Huez, not literally but virtually, and since we will be doing this climb in a couple of weeks, I thought I had better refresh my memory on how arduous it is!

This is how it went:

First 5km - was going pretty well, and I was thinking its not to hard, I hope I can keep this up!

2nd 5km - getting harder, legs starting to hurt a bit now and the distance between each bend was getting longer! (or so it seemed) anyway reached the last bend and I though yay, close to the end, but no, there was still 3.4km to go!

Last 3.4km - legs felt like lead, and I so wanted to stop, it seemed to take for ever to do those last few km's, but finally made it to the top.

so overall its actually a good climb, and not too steep, the switchbacks gave some reprieve at 4-5% and most of the climb was between 7.5-11.5%
Time: 1.42.34 not bad for me as I'm not a climber by any means, but the pros do it in about 50mins - something to aim for I guess...

Map of the climb, it looks steeper than it actually is

We will be doing a lot of big climbs during the Tour de France, most of them i have already done on my virtual trainer, so I'm looking forward to seeing how different it is on the road compared to on the trainer, I hoping its about the same!