They have a professional photographer that takes your picture as you climb Alpe d'Huez, then you can go online and order pictures if you want, but they are in smal sizes unless you buy the original, and you can't blow it up much without making it look a mess.
Another picture of me climbing Alpe d'Huez.
Nice picture with the mountains in the back ground.
The start line at Boug d'Osains with the Alpe d'Huez lead out truck with the stop clock on the back.
The finish line of the climb.
I think the average gradient up Alpe D'Huez is like 8.6%, but most of the climbing portion is like 10-12%. It flattens out in the corners, and then just as you build your speed up to about 14 mph, it kicks up again to 12%. It's a pretty tough climb.
A nice view of Lake Annecy.
Mitzi loves going to the playgrounds at the parks.
The kids having fun at the playground.7-8-10 Thursday
Today was one of the days I was looking forward to quite a bit. Today I raced up Alpe d’Huez. For those non cyclists, Alpe d’Huez is probably the most famous climb in cycling and is included quite a bit in the Tour de France. A couple of years ago when Lance Armstrong won a time trial up Alpe d’Huez, they estimated probably a million people were lining the approximately 8 miles up from the valley to the ski resort at Alpe d’Huez to watch the race. They have a race up the road every Thursday morning in the summer put on by the tourist office and Alpe d’Huez. I didn’t get the best sleep the night before, but got up early and drove there to get registered in plenty of time and warm up a bit. There were probably about 50 riders doing the race, some of them looked very fit, lean and serious, and a few looked like they would be happy to just make it up the climb. They start you off as a neutral start with a truck from Alpe d’Huez leading you out and a large digital stop clock showing in the back of the truck. As they reach the turn onto the climb, they wave a flag, the stop clock starts, and it’s game on. The steepest part of the whole climb is the first mile or so, so I was kind of amazed when they started, about 5 guys just stood up and sprinted up the hill like they were in the last 200 meters of a race. They blew up the road. I settled into a strong pace trying not to go too far above my thresh-hold too early. I quickly settled into a pace I felt like I could maintain and just tried to focus on keeping the pace strong. Very soon the order of the stronger, medium, and weaker riders showed, and everyone strung out on the climb at their own best pace. I passed a couple riders who went too hard too early but mostly focused on a guy above me who looked strong and was going at a good pace. I gradually reeled him in and then focused on the next guy up the road. I caught him and we mostly climbed together most of the rest of the way. They have signs at each corner that number the corner and list a previous winner of a Tour de France stage at Alpe d’Huez, but they are placed quite high up, and some of them you don’t see as you are focused on climbing the road, unless you are really looking for them. I lost count of where I was on the road, and thought I still had about 1km to go, when I went over a little rise and could see up the road, and the finish line was only about 100 meters in front of me. I surged to the finish line and finished with a time of 55 minutes, 22 seconds. I would have been extremely disappointed if I hadn’t finished inside 1 hour. I was a little disappointed with my time, knowing I could have done a little better, but not too much. I could have done better if I had got a better night’s sleep, if I had the power working on my power meter, if I knew better where the finish line was, and of course if I was 10 pounds lighter where I should be if I hadn’t eaten so much gelato in Italy, but still a time of under 56 minutes isn’t bad. I think I finished about 6th. The winner’s time was like 44 minutes something, which isn’t too far off Tour de France winning pace. I think the record up the climb was set by Marco Pantani at just under 37 minutes. I had been riding in Europe now for over a month, without a flat or any major mechanical problems, and didn’t take my bike bag with air and spare tube for the first time riding in Europe as I didn’t want the extra weight, but of course Murphy’s Law crept up and bit me. I blew my tire about 1/3 of the way down the descent. Somehow the tire was chewed up a bit on the side, and even just a spare tube without a something inside the tire wouldn’t have fixed it. I ended up holding my thumb up at turn number 8 for probably a ½ hour until a guy with a trailer came by and picked me up and gave me a ride down to my car.
Later in the day we all went down-town and walked around. We bought Donner Kebaps and ate them at the park while the kids played. Most of the kids like playing at the parks over here, especially Mitzi and Ian.
