Peter Cossins - Alpe dHuez: The Story of Pro Cyclings Greatest Climb

Alpe dHuez

First published in Great Britain
2015 by Aurum Press Ltd
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Islington
London N1 9PF
www.aurumpress.co.uk

Copyright Peter Cossins 2015

Peter Cossins has asserted his moral right to be identified as the Author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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p1 all images Offside/LEquipe; p2 all images Offside/LEquipe; p3 top left and top right Offside/LEquipe, bottom Photosport Int/Rex; p4 all images www.alpedhuez.com ; p5 all images Offside/LEquipe; p6 top Photosport Int/Rex, middle and bottom Offside/LEquipe; p7, top Bernard Papon-Pool/Getty Images, middle and bottom Offside/LEquipe; p8 top Simon Wilkinson/SWpix.com , bottom Offside/LEquipe

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

HB ISBN 978 1 78131 425 8
EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78131 477 7

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2015 2017 2019 2018 2016

eBook conversion by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

For Mum, Dad, Viv and Geoff

Contents

The beauty of the bicycle is the unparalleled perspective it gives the rider onto their surroundings. Cars travel too fast, levelling out the landscape and neutralising the elements. Walking is better, but such slow progress limits the scope for exploration. Bikes are the ideal in-between, offering unrivalled efficiency as a mode of transport and unmatchable understanding of the terrain passing beneath its wheels.

Reflecting on more than thirty years of cycling, I can still summon up images of the countryside on many of the days Ive spent in the saddle with particular clarity and in a particular way. Mexicos Yucatn, for instance, evokes days dodging rattlesnakes sunning themselves on arrow-straight roads cut through a tunnel of green scrub, while on Scotlands Isle of Mull sea eagles and golden eagles soar above one of the most stunning coastal rides anywhere on the planet. But the most indelible memories are of days spent in the mountains.

Seen initially from a distance, mountain ranges appear eminently conquerable. Move closer and it becomes apparent that this first impression is completely skewed. Foothills emerge, peaks begin to tower, the landscape starts to rise and surround you. Eventually, in the highest ranges, the peaks seem inaccessible. You see them and admire them, said Sir Edmund Hillary. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them.

My own mountain challenges have never taken me to the heights or extremes experienced by one of Everests conquerors. Yet they are still unforgettable. My first attempt to express that challenge was on the Port de Larrau pass in the Pyrenees. On the early ramps, I recall looking up and seeing a group of bearded vultures, the regions famous quebrantahuesos, circling on thermals hundreds of metres above me. Half an hour later, I was looking down on them, marvelling at their size and agility. When I arrived sweating and breathless at the chilly summit, a Dutch tourist wandered over to me. Youll find it much easier in one of those, he said, pointing to his car. Easier, yes: but not as rewarding, or as inspiring. Like Hillary, I was hooked.

When writing about cycling became my career, climbs took on even greater significance. Starting with the Poggio and Cipressa in March, continuing with the Muur de Geraardsbergen, Mur de Huy and La Redoute in April, races and my reporting of them would reach the high mountains at the Giro dItalia in May. However, as for most fans of the sport, it was the renowned passes of Julys Tour de France that stood out, and none more so than Alpe dHuez.

At that time I knew little of the climbs history, but was well aware of its huge significance to the Tour and its riders, and especially the Dutch, for whom it is an arena to compare with Feyenoords De Kuip or Ajaxs Amsterdam Arena. A win on Alpe dHuez guaranteed legendary status, and a string of Dutch riders achieved exactly that in front of orange-clad, sun-baked and beer-addled hordes of fans.

On the Alpe, more than anywhere else in cycle sport, the spectators were part of the action, a fact I became more fully aware of when I first covered a Tour stage to Alpe dHuez during the 2003 race. Approaching it from Bourg dOisans, the road was easy to pick out, with its thousands of camper vans, their windows glinting like supercharged cats eyes, highlighting the climbs switches back and forth. Moving closer still, the route seethed with the movement of tens of thousands of fans, creating an ever-moving trail up an enormous anthill. Once onto the initial ramps, the steepest on the climb, the sheer number of bodies, banners, flags and colours resembled Wembley Way on Cup Final day, and progress was just as pedestrian.

Temperatures had risen to 40C in the ongoing heat-wave that had gripped France but, as my good friend and then Procycling editor Jeremy Whittle drove us towards Dutch corner, the most infamous of the climbs twenty-one hairpins, he insisted on all the windows being closed and doors locked. Youll never have seen anything like this, he told me. Its amazing for the riders when they come through here, but the press dont get quite the same welcome. After a brief halt among the frenzied throng, a few waved fists and curses as our tyres lifted newly painted names and slogans off the road, and a few choruses of, Boogie is de best, is de best, Michael Boogerd beter dan de rest, in praise of that eras leading Dutch rider, we were through, having repelled all attempts to soak us with super-sized squirters filled with water and, as some journalists later revealed, rather more unsavoury liquids.

Just above the mayhem, there was madness. Approaching bend six, the next one on from Dutch corner, we were confronted by two dozen Elvis impersonators performing Hound Dog on the back of a flatbed trailer. Techno music competed with the fifties classic, and fans danced in the road, unconcerned by the frantic hooting of press cars whose occupants were desperate to reach sanctuary and what was left of the buffet in the press room at the summit. Every metre of road was coated in emulsion, undercoat and gloss, these daubs encouraging even the most obscure members of the peloton. It was jaw-droppingly barmy and totally captivating. Thinking back, I remember more about the fans that day than the action the riders served up a couple of hours later.

Over the subsequent dozen years, Ive returned to Alpe dHuez many times, often staying in the kind of ludicrously overpriced and decidedly downmarket dorm-type room typical of so many ski resorts, and the atmosphere and race action on the mountain have never disappointed. More recently, Ive gone there with the aim of getting a different perspective on the climb, one stripped of all the hullaballoo that the Tour brings. Climbing it by car, on foot and, inevitably, by bike, Ive gained a better insight into a climb that is too often dismissed as an unremarkable road leading to a distinctly unattractive resort.

It lies in the heart of the French Alps, in the Oisans region of the