La Marmotte

La Marmotte 2014

(This is a little blog that I wrote 4 years ago about my experience of riding La Marmotte, an event known commonly as Europe’s toughest 1 day sportives)

Marmotte trip 2014

La Marmotte is such a fantastic challenge in that pleasure/pain type of way..

Four years ago, while on a family holiday to Lyon, I visited Bourg d’Oisins at the foot of Alpe d’Huez. My mission was to ride this mythical climb on a bike I had hired from a local bike shop. This coincided with a visit to Allemont to see some of the SCC lads who were over there for a mammoth cycling challenge called La Marmotte. I managed to get to the top of the 21 hairpins in a time of 1 hr 25 mins enthralled in equal measures by the unique challenge to a newbie cyclist and the fantastic scenery. I was hooked.

Some racing, several sportives and a Raid Pyrenean later, I decided to take on La Marmotte as a personal challenge for my 51st year. I was delighted when others from SCC had decided to do it too so we had the genesis of what would turn out to be a fantastic trip. I had continued to hear this event being mentioned in hushed tones as a huge challenge and set about training for it in early January. This mainly involved doing regular long distances at a good tempo and low cadence, normally topped off with a hill to keep the legs honest. Sportives such as the Mick Byrne Randonnee helped with the preparation too.

With the bones of 6000kms in the legs, I arrived at our fantastic Stephen Kelly booked accommodation with room mates, Mark, Tonto and Corky. The craic and banter was relentless. On day 2 in this cyclists paradise we climbed Alpe D’Huez followed by the picturesque Col Du Glandon and Croix de Fer on day 3. The climbing was tough but the roads and views more than made up for the effort. I had learned a lot about long climbs from good experienced cyclists when doing the Raid Pyrenean two years ago. Bill Jordan is always good for ‘no nonsense’ type of advice and it was topped off by Aidan Quigley’s (Loftus Hall) advice of ‘How to eat an elephant – one bite at a time’ Brendan Cassidy of Killarney CC on one of the more difficult days that I was a bit worked up over advised ‘Phil, none of us are any good; we are tourists who happen to like cycling, lift your head up and enjoy the view’

The morning of La Marmotte came along with the devastating news that the bike shed had been broken into the previous night and a lot of bikes and wheels had been stolen. Most belonged to a group of English lads who were staying in the same accommodation. Of our group, Mick Byrne’s pride and joy had been stolen along with Corky’s wheels. We were devastated for them, especially Mick whose day was ruined. As a measure of the selflessness of the man, he spent the morning helping everyone else get ready while inside he must have been boiling.

On the cycle in to Bourg D’Oisins the atmosphere between us was a bit muted as we were gutted for Mick but we knew we had to regain focus for the monumental task ahead. Tonto, Corky and Mark were in the early bunch of starters, while Murry, Paddy and myself were off close to 8am. The atmosphere started to build and I was full of a combination of nervous anticipation and excitement. Most importantly though I knew I had prepared as best I could and had enough energy powder sachets, high-5 tabs, mule bars and gels to get me through the day.

At the start with Paddy

So with my stayin’ alive at 1.5 gilet shoved into my Slaney CC jersey, I took off after the countdown feeling so happy and privileged to have this opportunity to do such an event. I got into a nice tidy group and set about the task ahead. I settled into a nice rhythm climbing the Col Du Glandon on my heart-rate. Half way up I felt a gentle push on my back, I looked around to see Frank Dunne saying ‘it’s your guardian angel Phil’. The Glandon is so scenic and I took in all it’s fantastic vistas but all the time just concentrating on what was in front of me, one bite at a time. I hit the top of the Glandon on 2 hours feeling great, delighted my old adversary, cramp, had not kicked off. The descent off the Glandon isn’t timed due to some fatalities there in previous years so I took my time down this hair raising descent. At the bottom then I got into another group as far as the bottom of the Col de Telegraph.

The Telegraph is a nice steady tree lined climb of just under 12kms at an average of 7.3%. The heat of the day was getting up but it was still comfortable enough. At the top of this climb, the route flattened out and descended to the bottom of the Galibier. Just before the climb of Col du Galibier, I spotted Tonto along with Mark, Corky and Shane. I didn’t need to stop as I had plenty of food and fluid so I headed off to the base of the Galibier with Tonto’s words of encouragement ringing in my ears. Not sure how long the climb was, but it was really tough with relentless effort and concentration required. My old friend Mr. Cramp started to make its presence felt as I neared the summit. When I got to the top, I stopped and took in the magnificantly vista of Mt. Blanc in the distance. Moments like these are precious and it’s easy to get caught up in the moment of your timing chip but as Brendan had said,.. I’m a tourist on a bike!

The descent off the Galibier seemed to take forever and it’s not one of my stronger points. I see clubmates like Bill, Corky, Mark and Murry etc descending with such ease but it doesn’t come so easy to me. I did hit almost 70km/hr at some stage but it scares the hell out of me to be honest. My fingers were starting to lock up slightly with all the brake feathering.

On the roll in to Bourg d’Oisins I got into a few good groups all the time trying to spin the lactate and cramp out of my legs. There are 3 or 4 dark tunnels on this descent which are very scary after coming in from the sun. Apparently if you close one eye as you approach the tunnel and then open it once you enter, it helps to see in the dark; it worked on some of the smaller ones but the effect fizzled out on some of the longer ones and it was frightening with other cyclists and traffic coming flying past in the dark.

As I approached Bourg d’Oisins, Stephen was doing a stop for us there to get us up Alpe d’Huez. I grabbed a few gels, a bar and a couple of bottles of energy drink that I had prepared in the morning and set off on the final leg in 35 degree heat buoyed up by Stephen’s words of encouragement. I hit the bottom of Alpe d’Huez on just over 7 hrs very nervous about the cramp welling up in my legs. I had gone up this in 1 hour 4 mins earlier in the week but with 160 kms and 4000 metres of climbing in my cramping legs, this was going to be a battle of survival.

The first few ramps of this infamous 21 bend climb are very steep but it’s a beautiful climb and buoyed up by the atmosphere, I got to bend 17 before the first cramp spasm kicked in. Had to get off the bike to stretch it. Took on plenty of fluids and had my first gel of the day before taking off again. I repeated this a few times on the way up but was counting down the bends nicely. On bend 4, Tonto came flying past looking fresh. We exchanged words of encouragement before he went on ahead of me.

The finish came then very soon after and I crossed the finishing line in a time of 8 hrs 33 mins, enough to get me the gold medal for my age category. I was over the moon and embraced Tonto who was there at the finish, both of us vowing…NEVER AGAIN!

Never again..

Thankfully Stephen and Mick had the van so we didn’t have to ride home. We waited for the others to come in. Mark looking very fresh with a huge smile. Corky who had to ride with a 25 because his wheels had been stolen, got around through brutish determination and finished with gusto. Murry came in sprinting on the drops with that infectious laugh of his. Paddy, who had seen it all before, crossed the line with great vim considering he had been fighting a knee injury all week.
We were all over the moon with our day and were delighted in that pleasure/pain way.

That’s La Marmotte off the bucket list. I’ve ran 4 marathons and this was much tougher than any of them. It is manageable though with the right preparation. The only thing I would do different if I were to do it again would be to put a 28 on the block. A few times I was flipping my gear lever looking for a lower gear only to discover..there are no more gears! That said, I have no intention to do it again, there’s plenty more challenges out there.

If you’re reading this and think you might like to do it some day, then it’s totally doable with the right training. Don’t leave it behind you, you won’t regret it!!