Can I Climb Alpe d’Huez in under an HOUR?

In this episode, I challenge the mighty Alpe d’Huez and see how it compares to Alpe du Zwift with the goal of the Tour de France finish in under an hour!

Morning um plan for today I think I’ve I’ve just had a bit of a coffee in my ARA press and some egg sandwiches actually quite nice quite luxury for once um then I’m going to head into town get another coffee and a pastry and stuff chill out do some editing till

About lunchtime then I’m going to go absolutely hammer it up the Al I think is my plan as hard as I can obviously I won’t be that quick cuz I’m on touring tires and a heavy bike but um just see what I can do up there really I just

Fancy a bit of a hard effort and then I’m going to I’ve got a bit of a circuit I can do from there some like nice sort of back roads along some really like pretty stunning Cliff sides you can go down the I don’t know me and my family

Used to call the balcony roads when I was a kid don’t know what they’re actually called but yeah I think that’s the plan so yeah let’s get cracking right that’s video rendering it’s pretty incredible that I can just do this on my iPad in a cafe in France

Right I think the plan is to try and be on the bike for about half one just sat outside the tourist info now getting my upload done um yeah lazy start but I need it today and yeah I’m just going to absolutely Smash Up the AL we’ll just

See how it goes but yeah looking forward to it right well I’ve actually G my bike a bit of a service before going up the AL the chain isn’t completely black with tar now so hopefully that’s a bit more efficient it’s not perfect but it’s better than it was

Right so the goal for today upz in less than an hour and that’s proper upz not this little silly time trial route that people call it that’s Bas it’s like what they do on with no proper tour the front rout up out who knows if it’s possible

On these touring tires on my heavy Touring bike but I’ve even taken the rack off so you know it’s got to be done just going to go for a little bit of a warm-up spin now and then yeah let’s get cracking see what my legs have got left

In them so I think on a on a proper Road Road bik you probably need to be able to do about 4 watts per kilo which for my weight is around 255 260 wats but I’m on a gravel bike with touring tires so I think realistically I’m going to

Aim for well 300 wats see what happens I have done 300 wats for an hour before when I did the bton hilly well my normaliz was way over 300 it was like about 305 so should be doable but yeah it’s going to be hard and it’s hot it’s like 30° and I’m not

Not the best in the Heat usually but we’re going to give it a go just going to set off at 300 try and average 300 and we’ll see what we get I mean if I don’t get under an hour and I manage to hold the 300 wats we’ll know it’s the

Bite because there’s no way at 64 kilos you can’t do it in under an hour with 300 WS cuz that’s like 4 and 1/2 WS per kilo but we’ll just see I mean I me if I could do 6 and a half then i’ do it in

40 minutes but that’s happens so you know right let’s have it go that’s warm up done here we Go N A Well that was pretty hard I could not hold the 300 WS got about 25 minutes in they decided right now it’s silly I’m just not fresh enough for this so I dropped the power down about 5 minutes then got about going again at about 270

280 to the top so yeah all right 58 minutes I think so pretty happy with that not bad for a heavy gravel bike with touring tires on it yeah to clarify something that I feel like a lot of YouTube probably doesn’t really elaborate is when they make videos about

This climb is that there’s sort of two different finishes there’s one which is kind of the time trial finish which is the the Finish has been replicated on zift and stuff which is the bottom of the town where it’s probably about 53 54 minutes up to there and then this is the

Actual to of France finish we have to go up through the town and up to here um and yeah it does make quite a difference to be honest with you just having that last little bit in your legs even though there are a couple of flat bits and

Descents coming up to here which and also why the time TR doesn’t come up here because of like it’s a bit a pain to navigate there’s a little tunnel and all sorts and there’s a bit more traffic in town but but yeah I thought I’d elaborate that as to why like on zwift

Oh you can go way faster and also on zift you know you’re perfectly aerodynamic and all all these other assumptions that completely work but yeah oh yeah I also realized this ride puts me over 30,000 M of climbing for the trip let’s get moving off the mountain and then onto some of these

Stunning balcony [Applause] Roads And that’s why we call it the balcony Road it’s pretty stunning isn’t it well that balcony Road was definitely um interesting I think now I’m going to just descend down and head back along the valley I was going to go do the desert one as well but I’m just

Knackered after that effort and I fancy getting a bear and watching the end of the Paris Sprint so yeah going to go head to Cafe De Parry in Bor and get myself a left I think and I’m still absolutely buzzing I got up in under an hour despite absolutely blowing up at

The bottom and being on this bike so at some point I’m going to have to come back on my proper race bike and see see how quick I can do treating myself to be on burgers and rice for tea tonight got the rice bed in

The bag ready to go 375 G of it and the burgers so yeah that should get me fed well that’s been a really successful day I’ve had a look at stra and I did um 5740 averaging 283 Watts which to be fair I’m pretty happy with considering like the fatigue

I’ve come in with and stuff and I mean yeah I’m not exactly on the most optimized bike so I mean it’s got a little thought in my head with another year of training and I actually turning up with something decent on a perfect day could I go under

50 possibly I mean something to work towards at least I mean it may be quite an insane Target I’m all showered up now probably about to get into bed tea was good I hate 350 G of rice alongside them Burgers so pretty pretty well loaded with the carbs at least so hopefully

Tomorrow I’ll feel relatively recovered after that think I’m going to go back to that same Cafe tomorrow as well and get some get decent breakfast in but yeah I I’m not sure where I’m going to go tomorrow actually I need to start I I think before I go to sleep I need to

Have a bit of a Google about campsites but I’m definitely going to head over the c da on I think um with the goal to head towards Gap with the day after going to barcelet ready to do the banet over towards nice so yeah it’s all a bit

Up in the air at the minute but I’ll update you on plans in tomorrow’s video anyway I’m going to get some sleep see you Guys