My little Galibier

I can't quite get my head around 5000m of climbing during the big event. I have used bike ride mapping to work out a route in the Chilterns that replicates as close as possible as much climbing in as little distance as possible by combining just about every hill I can find and you know what..........at a push you can probably get about 2500 m of climbing in 100 miles!

We just don't have the terrain in this country, the hills are short an sharp where I need a long middle gradient hill that goes on for miles. So on Thursday (I had a day off ) I decided to climb the biggest hill in the area until my garmin said 2000 mtrs climbed and the result was this:

What you are looking at is Whiteleaf hill (x14.5) in the Chilterns (nr Princes Risborough) and I simply decided to go up it as many times as needed to get 2000 mtrs of ascent which worked out at 41 miles. I reckon thats not too far off the ratio of distance vs height we are looking at for the Marmotte and it felt alright to be honest. 

So to be clear 41 miles and 2000 mtrs was ok, fairly hard but ok.......now all I've got to do is the same again and then half as much again..........bugger

Its worth noting that the gradient ramps up to about 22% on whiteleaf, we won't get anything like that on the Marmotte and my heart rate doesn't get much higher then 154bpm. Keeping my HR below 140 for the Marmotte should be fine then, just select a low gear and spin away for 112 miles :)

I've got a couple of centuries coming up and then the wiggle long one at 130 miles and 3600mtrs of climbing and then I'll be in relax mode up to the event.

Steve

PS...will it ever stop raining?