Alpe D’Huez Charity Bike Ride
We have rather worryingly agreed to take part in the Alpe D’Huez Charity Bike Ride. Darren Tibble, Laurence Dunn, Gareth Xifaras and Chris Colbert are Team Mountain Sloths on this epic challenge.
Why are we putting ourselves through this torture? For three great charities – AAIR (the asthma charity), Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation.
Our motley team of four fat, old, decrepit and (probably) unhinged cyclists, have decided to embark on an incredibly difficult 3-day cycle challenge in France. We will be covering over 400 miles and in excess of 20,000 feet of climbing through the Alps in 3 days, culminating in a spectacular finish on the summit of Alpe D’Huez.
The event is a celebration of the French mountains, made famous by the Tour de France. We will start riding from Troyes, after making our own way there in Chris’ trusty Volvo, on 17th September 2015. On the first day, we will warm up by riding 180 miles through the beautiful Champagne region, then through the vineyards to Macon, before riding onwards towards the Rhone Alps.
If that hasn’t already finished us off, on day 2 we will ride 175 miles through the beautiful (but horribly hilly) 1,000 Lake district, before finishing at Vercors, taking in 3,600 metres of mountain ascents on the way. That’s a lot of ascents (roughly 2.2 miles up from sea level, over a climbing distance of 36 miles at an average gradient of 6%).
On day 3, the survivors from day 2 (if any) will ride through the French Alps, climbing both Chamrousse (21 km of uphill and peaking at an altitude of 1,750m) and Alpe D’Huez (13 km of uphill and peaking at an altitude of 1,850m), dragging ourselves around the 21 hairpin corners of the ascent to this iconic climb, which earlier this year (as it often does) decided the winner of the Tour De France (Chris Froome).
In order to make the climb of Alpe D’Huez achievable, without the need for ‘sticky bottles’, tow ropes, hidden electric motors, performance enhancing drugs or blood transplants, the organisers have kindly reduced the last day to just 60 miles (mostly uphill!), so that hopefully we will have a little energy left to celebrate at the end.
We know that there are lots of requests for donations nowadays, but we would really appreciate it if you could spare just a little to support these great charities and help to drive our tired legs up the mountains.
Visit out JustGiving page to donate.
If you would prefer not to use JustGiving but would still like to support this cause, please just email us with the amount of your pledge and, if it is out of your own earned income, with your house name or number and post code, so that Gift Aid relief can be claimed.
