Posted: Wed 4/Jul/07 12:40pm Post subject: Marcus Roy - 2nd At Les Du Alpe!!
just found this on the mountain bike otago website, thought I'd post it on here, great work Marcus
Marcus worte:
I raced this weekend in Les Du Alpe located in the French Alps. I did the two hour drive down from Annecy on Wednesday stopping off at the bottom of the famous Tour De France Hill top finish of Alp du Hez. I rode it because it would be rude not to. So I set out on my mountie with my slicks, and ground my way round 21 hairpins and up the 16km accent in just under an hour, it wasn’t quite the Marco Pantani 39 minutes but I’m sure he wasn’t riding a mountain bike when he posted that time. The temperature when I left the bottom was 30 degrees and man did the gravy flow. The bottom bit is quite steep, and I’m glad it relented a little bit after hairpin 7. I felt a little satisfied knowing most of the great riders have also been in the hurt box while doing battle on the same section of tarmac. It was something else to see the great names painted on the road, the famous road has certainly seen some sweat and tears. Practically every major rider features in the paint work, there was even a go kiwi slogan painted on the road for New Zealander Julian Dean.
I arrived to the town of Les Du Alpe a bit jaded and got myself sorted out and entered for the weekends racing. The first race was yesterday it was a shortened marathon, starting at the bottom of the glacier at 3200m and finishing at 1600m in the township. So the total descent was over 3000 meters and a total climbing height of 1300m. On race day the wind on the glacier was very high and the organiser got us to start at 2600m and race up 400m before the descent. I got a good start and soon mother altitude had both hands grasping my bronchial tubes putting the squeeze on the already tough start. Nearing the top of the climb there were only two of us, and third place was a bit back. The descent wound its way down over snowy patches that you either had to ride or run, I had a crash and bent a link in my chain, and managed to straighten it without too much trouble, I lost a bit of time on the leader but I could still see him. After the second climb there was only a minute between us and third was about 2 minutes further back. I stayed about a minute back until the bottom of the last big descent where I punctured and lost another two minutes, I managed to hold onto second and gain myself a spot on the podium and a big Happy Gilmore Cheque to take home. (Picture attached)
So race one was a success, and I managed my first podium in a European race. This afternoon I have a 30 minute short track race where I am hopefully racing the winner again. And Saturday the race is a 6000m gondola shuttle run, 9 lifts in total and we don’t cover the same track twice. I’m not going to be racing too hard in this one, just riding and doing some Down Hill training. If the tracks we rode yesterday are like the ones we ride on Saturday it’s going to be a sick day riding!
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