From Lake Como to Alpe d’Heuz

A bit slow on the blogging front but i actually didn’t really get a chance to sit down at write a report about my cycling sojourn in the mountains.

Over the course of the week, we covered 750km. I arrived into Como on Sat 9th July. We stayed in Como until Thursday arvo. A typical day in Como

- Up at 7am for breakfast
- On the bike by 8am
- 2 -3 tough climbs (ranging from 500m to 1200m climbs (gradient 5% to 12%) Even manage tough Giro climbs Mortirolo.
- Back at around 1-2pm
- Get some good Italian food into us and watch the tour with some beers)

The next 3 days were spent in the Alps, tackling some of the toughest mountains they could thrown at us (Col De Cuvery, Col de Porte, Col de la Morte) and of course the now legendary Alpe d’Heuz (21 hairpin climb). On the final day, we encountered torrential rain which made cycling pretty difficult especially on the descents. I had a pretty bad fall in Lake Como on day 1 and didn’t enjoy going down (but was helped by Clarky who provided some great tips on how to descend quickly)
At the bottom of the Alpe d’Heuz, all riders were timed to see how quickly they’d get to the summit, there was a lot of trash talk earlier in the week. I surprised myself getting to the top in 71 mins. All week, I was middle of the pack on the climbs so i surprised a few of the riders coming home 3rd out of 26 riders. Dave Clark was first in 64/65 mins, Dave Robb came home in 69 mins...Dave Clark actually timed himself the day before in 47 mins (obviously without 130km in the legs and no wind or rain). I am really looking forward to going back and timing myself up that beautiful hill.

Suffice to say this is one of the best holidays I’ve had in a long time and am likely (if the good wife allows) make this annual event.

Got back to Ireland on the 18th July and caught up with family, friends and sank plenty of the black stuff. I actually got a bit of running in but on the evidence of today’s HuRT session (8 reps on Argle street) it will take a few weeks to get my running legs back.

Finally congrats to Cadel, you don't realise how tough it is until you tackle some of the those mountains....