Mountain Profiles

For those that haven't seen them, here's the mountain profiles that we have to go over in a week's time. The route looks like this:
The first climb is about 12mile in, the Cote de Sainte Marguerite, but apparently this is too small for anyone to publish a profile of. It's only about twice the size of anything around Hull... The first climb-proper is the Col De Lautaret, which officially starts near Briancon after 26 miles. This is fairly gently climb for the first 11miles before starting to kick up over the last 6.
The Col de Lautaret wouldn't be too bad were it not for the fact that the top of this climb is the bottom of the next - the Col de Galibier. Apparently we do this from the easy side, but as you can see below, there is no easy bits (green bits) and it has a particularly nasty sting in its tail, with a 1:8 section right at the top... If my form in Hull a few weeks ago is anything to go by then the top of the Lautaret is about where I crack and TGMM whizzes off into the distance. Dez meanwhile will meander by, Tortoise and Hare style... We'll have been going uphill non-stop for 22 miles at the top of the Galibier. Luckily, 21 of the next 24 miles are downhill. Yippee!
Unfortunately, the downhill has to end somewhere, and for us it does so at the foot of the Col de la Croix de Fer - the Iron Cross in English, so named because apparently it feels like you're hauling one of the these up behind you when you ride it... Although this has a couple of slight downhill sections (the green bits), this just means that the "ups" are that bit steeper. The last 4 miles are particularly savage. My monies on a nice steady ascent of this all round. We'll have 97 miles in our legs when we hit the top; the reality of the day will have well and truly kicked in and we'll all know we need to keep a tad back for the grand finale... Croix de Fer is another 16 miles going uphill, total so far 38miles.

Another 17miles mostly downhill to recover before the last 7 miles through to Bourg D'Oisan and the bottom of the final 9 mile climb - Alpe D'Huez. Although this is a fair bit shorter than the other climbs , we will have covered 121 miles when we hit the bottom of this, and as you can see below, Alpe D'Huez is no pussy cat! It's designed to break you right at the bottom with the first mile averaging over 1:10. It then only backs off to 1:12 and pretty much stays at that all the way to the top! You can see there's only two short sections were it eases off marginally. Again based on Hull form, the first of these is where I'm off of there's an ounce of energy left in my legs and the section is where I crack big style and Mr Motor bike cruises off... Or, if I've learned anything over the last couple of weeks, the first is where I cling to TG's back wheel , and the second is where I stay clinging to TG's wheel!
Well, hope this gives you a good feel for the punishment we face in two weeks time (just under now!)... Can't wait.

Cheers,

Col.