Cracking the 1 hour on Alpe d Huez

coming round the mountain

Ok so it rained (and snowed in some places) all night and continued for the morning so it was another opportunity to chip away at the workload. Sorted out a few things with Kaycee back in the Tathra office, managed and actioned my emails and had a pretty productive work morning.
Then the sun threatened to make an appearance, I just couldn't help myself I needed to get out there on the bike, its just too tempting. It was getting late in the day so I thought maybe a challenge rather than a long discovery ride would be the order of the day, this time last week I achieved 3 ascents of Alpe d Huez so I thought I would attempt this tough climb with the aim of cracking the 1 hour, ambitious but no more than last weeks challenge.

Villard-Reculas

I gave myself a nice warm up on the 8km ride to the base of the mountain, stopped at the base, shed some layers, tied my helmet to the handlebars, reset my lap meter and off I went on the attack. The climb is a touch over 12kms so I knew that I would need to keep my average speed up over 12km/h to achieve my goal, I could monitor this by use of my trusty Garmin.
Long story short, I dug in at the steeper start of the climb and at one stage was a bit concerned that I could keep it up, I managed to get into a more even pace through the middle section and then toughed it out for the top section. Keeping an eye on the average which was slowly reducing as the climb wore on but still hopeful, then I dug deep for the last 1km and was ecstatic to get to the line just under the 1 hour...challenge success..oh yeah.
After espresso at the top I decided to head back to Allemont a different route, turning off a little way down to follow a stunning narrow mountain road that traverses the mountain to Villard-Reculas before an icey but adrenaline pumping descent into Allemont.
Arrived back at my home in Allemont absolutely pumped, this place is so so exciting!!!!