The recreational cyclist's life goal: La Marmotte

It's a random Monday morning in July when a question is posed in our cycling club's app group. “Who fancies a spin tonight? Fifty kilometres or so.” The number of responses isn't more than a handful. The number of affirmative replies even less: precisely zero.

“That doesn't suit me at the moment.”
“I'm not going to make it.”
“Not bothered.”

And some more emoticons with the same meaning.

If the same question had been asked two months earlier, it would have certainly received an average of five positive responses. The reason? Everyone was in full training to be able to tick off the ultimate life goal of a recreational cyclist: Cycling around La Marmotte.

This tour – around 180 kilometres long, with four long climbs and more than 5,000 metres of elevation gain in total – is not only a dream but also a potential nightmare. That was certainly true for some members of our cycling group, some of whom had rarely ridden for more than three hours at a time in the polders.

The plan to cycle La Marmotte originated back in 2019, but due to circumstances (well-known during the coronavirus pandemic), it wasn't until 2022 that it actually happened. Nine strong, the cycling club ‘Hamburgers en Kanonnen’ would head to the Alps in June to achieve their sacred goal. They would be travelling independently, not as part of the organised event.

‘Incidentally, ’Hamburgers and Cannons'... We thought it was a brilliant name ourselves, given that one day you might fancy cycling hard as a cannon, and the next day you might be pedalling along chatting to a café to enjoy a hamburger. What you are – a Hamburger or a Cannon – can vary from day to day.

The travel party

The Hamburgers and Cannons who went to the Alps are probably a fair representation of what the average cycling group of friends looks like. I'll introduce them (the friends' names are entirely fictional, not only to protect their privacy but also to prevent angry reactions if they don't recognise themselves in a description):

- Huub is the most competitive cyclist in the group. Often undertakes absurd training camps of 600 kilometres per week and likes to set lofty goals. “How about an extra challenge, lads? A Marmotte Plus? We'll add an extra mountain at the end.” Describes himself during relaxed rides as ‘A lion in a cage.’
- Tom is probably the most cautious cyclist of the group. He's already looking anxiously at his heart rate monitor at breakfast and doesn't stop for the rest of the day. His friends have already jokingly tried to convince him that a person only has a certain number of heartbeats in their life. If you use too many during a bike ride, it could cost you a few weeks of your life. Also the one who keeps track of all the cycling statistics in a ingeniously set up Excel file full of pivot tables and macros.
- Stein. The climbing talent that cycles past everyone else as soon as the road goes uphill. Lives by the credo ‘I quickly reach a certain level, and if I were to train more, it wouldn't yield any results’. His friends are happy with that mindset.
- Fred He is Stein's brother. He is more someone who can handle a blistering pace in the polder than a smooth climber, but perhaps he'll know how to surprise.
- Martijn, also known as ‘the Black Panther’, was a gifted climber in his younger years, but has failed to achieve significant results in recent years. Will he be able to find his old form again?
- Peter He's a sort of cycling bodybuilder. During the week he does a lot of CrossFit and lifts weights, and doesn't cycle much. When he does go for a ride, he uses such a monstrously big gear that he needs to be put on a ventilator after two hours.
- Ramon. A diesel with incredible endurance. He claims to be able to pedal 200 watts for days on end. He doesn't have the physique of a climber, but he makes up for it with his mentality: even if it gets to midnight, he'll still complete the Marmotte.
- Jelger (myself, the writer of this blog, and with my brother – and co-founder of Pedaleur de Charme – Garikai the only non-fictional name) had been training non-stop for two and a half years. First for the Marmotte, then because there wasn't much else to do during all the lockdowns. Not the most talented cyclist, but the most consistent.
- Garikai lives by the motto ‘as long as you look good’, whether cycling at full speed or at a snail’s pace. Nevertheless, is of the opinion that it’s a lot easier to look spick and span when going at breakneck speed.

Preparing for La Marmotte

When you plan to cycle the Marmotte, you won't make it by dusting off your racing bike a few weeks beforehand and checking if there's still air in the tyres. It requires preparation with iron discipline; or at least a good number of longer polder rides. For some, that already began in the winter, Garikai and (especially) Jelger spent a good many hours on Zwift. Tackling Alpe du Zwift again and again, in the hope that it becomes progressively faster and easier.

Over the course of the spring, more Cannons (and Hamburgers) joined. This was evident in the Strava weekly rankings, which Tom expertly interpreted: 460 kilometres in one week in December, 770 kilometres in the first week of January, and already 1380 kilometres in the first week of March.

The rides became longer and sometimes more extreme. Ramon completed solo rides of over 200 kilometres, and Huub managed to cycle more than 100 kilometres for six consecutive days during a built-in training week. For the evening group rides, there were plenty of sign-ups: eight participants was not unusual. However, they weren't always just a pleasant social gathering: when Huub insists on riding in a “train” to practice echelon formation, some curse him. "From now on, I'll wait until he cancels." In May, the number of registered club kilometres rose to over 1900, and it was clear: the group was ready.

The time has come: Alpine week

The bikes were polished, the snacks bought and the car arrangements made: we were ready! On June 10th, the Cannons (as Hamburgers were no longer available during that period) set off for Bourg d’Oisans to achieve the sacred goal.

The weather favoured us, and we used the first few days to explore parts of the route that needed to be covered. These were the four mountains that had to be conquered during the Marmotte:

The Glandon (1.924 metres): a particularly very long (almost 27 kilometres) climb, with a few nasty steep sections too.

The Telegraph (1.566 metres) is, at over 10 kilometres, the easiest of the four. A warm-up for the next mountain:

The Galibier At 2,642 metres – when it's included in the route – it is usually the highest mountain in the Tour de France. A long climb that can be very tough due to the often strong headwinds.

The Alpe d'Huez (1.860 metres) is the best known, but certainly not the toughest climb of the tour. Although after about seven hours of cycling, this is by no means an easy ride.

The Marmotte was scheduled for Wednesday. During the warm-up days, it became fairly clear how things would shape up. As expected, Stein was the one who tackled the climbs most smoothly. Huub surprised by spectacularly destroying himself during a few climbs. So much so, that he began to have serious doubts about his participation in the queen stage. “Wednesday isn't going to happen for me, lads. Thursday, maybe. I need that extra training day.”

The others turned out – on the whole – to be in a better mood.

Fred: “I have SICK good legs.”
Stone “I am a LION in a cage” (loosely based on Huub in better days).
Peter, who gobbled up his competitors like Pacman on a new bike with lighter gears: “Nomnomnomnomnom…”
Tom: “Lads, I've just checked my heart rate, and I'm a bit worried, you know...”

The day of days: La Marmotte

When Wednesday arrived, the last doubter had also been won over, and we set off at full strength. In the first few days, a general division in ability had become clear, and we decided to work with adjusted departure times.

The hamburgers under the Cannons (don't confuse them with Hamburgers) left with five of them: Peter, Fred, Tom, Ramon and Martijn were given a good half hour's head start on the Cannons under the Cannons. The idea: then we could have lunch together somewhere, or pull sections together through the valley.

A plan that was immediately binned due to Huub. At the foot of the Glandon, he started stampeding, for reasons unclear to us. Did he want to start a solo ride of 180 kilometres? Did he expect us to catch him up halfway up the Glandon?

In any case, the early starters hadn't benefited from him at all, it turned out at a water point on the first climb. “Ah, you've arrived too,” Martijn called out to the approaching riders. “Huub passed here a little while ago. He thundered past us in time trial position.”

So the tactical plan hadn't quite worked, but the two groups (Huub was indeed caught halfway up the Glandon) had enough support for each other to complete the ride without any issues.

Everything went smoothly.

Or so we thought.

During the first few kilometres of the Telegraphe, Garikai received a call. Tom. Had we seen the sign stating the Galibier was closed due to roadworks. Well, no, not really, because we had indeed zipped past it in Huub's slipstream. But that was a problem. No Galibier, no Marmotte. Without the Marmotte, well, it would have been a rather rubbish holiday, really.

We decided after all to drive to the foot of the Galibier and see if the road was indeed closed. It wasn't. But what if boiling hot asphalt had just been laid just below the summit? Or what if we couldn't go any further on the descent? Doubt, doubt…

The atmosphere in both groups had meanwhile dropped to a dubious level. Stein continued to insist that we should just go for it, while Ramon cursed the hundreds of kilometres he had made in foul weather in the dark by way of preparation.

Ultimately, we resigned ourselves to the bad news, until salvation came from an unexpected quarter. Fred complained about the day (“everything is rubbish”) to a Belgian cyclist. “Oh, but you can just go up the Galibier,” he replied. “I drove up in the car and cycled back down from the other side. Didn't see any construction workers.”

And so, one chance encounter saved our entire holiday.

The rest of the Marmotte went just as smoothly as the first part. Stein was the first to reach the summit on every climb, Huub really struggled with himself a number of times, Garikai and Jelger only conceded a maximum of 2 seconds to each other on every climb, and the others had also rediscovered their zest for life.

The final climb was tough for everyone, but actually, nobody got into trouble on Alpe d’Huez. 13 kilometres of climbing, that’s not such a problem anymore with pizzas and a large bottle of beer in prospect.

’That evening, we were able to properly celebrate this ‘greatest sporting success of our lives’, and in the following days, the enthusiasm for cycling was already considerably lower. Stein, Jelger, Garikai, and Huub still made attempts to set a top time on the Alpe, but Martijn, for example, didn't touch a bike anymore. “Do you know how nice it is to do absolutely NOTHING for two days? At home, all my time is spent on work, wife, and child. Now I think I'll just stare blankly for a morning.”

The Strava tracker recorded a whopping 3,810 kilometres this week.

The following week: 694 kilometres.

After the nice weather, cycling happened a bit more in the following weeks, but now that the necessity has disappeared, it remains a bit of a search for the real enthusiasm.

On to the next cycling challenge then. A Marmotte Plus?

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