Thursday 11pm
Well, all packed. For some reason passport didn’t even make my packing list so lucky I remembered. I’ve studied the map so hopefully I won’t get lost. Guess I’ll still have my trusty Garmin “return to start” feature… Technically I’ve signed up for the 250km epic but still not sure whether I’ll take the detour at the junction and just go the 200km route. I’m expecting probably about 10hrs of riding on the trusty Genesis (*fingers crossed*) and probably about 2000m of climbing. Must say, not quite as excited about this sportive as the others. Not sure why. Maybe the excitement hasn’t kicked in yet. I guess Tour of Flanders had the cobbles and La Marmotte had the alps. Just not sure to expect from this one. Hopefully a relatively “easy” ride!

Anyway, bed time!

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So, new year, new challenges to tackle.

On the agenda is my first triathlon, just a small one though: Eton SuperSprint – 400m swim, 20km bike, 5km run.

But the big one, and probably only one for the year: Amstel Gold Cyclosportive – 250km. I managed to register 4 minutes after it opened. (With a few intermittent crashes in between).

“Tourversion Amstel Gold Race full in recordtime
18 / 01 / 2010

This means that the registration has been fully booked and the entire pack is complete three month prior to the event. Last year the maximum of 12.000 participants was reached very fast. Then the organizers had to close the registration within 30 hours. This year the registration opened at 12 o’clock and in no less than 40 minutes the maximum number was reached. Something that never happened before in a recreational sporting event in the Netherlands.”

Zara and I were conned last night.

The plan was to have dinner last night with Zara’s best friend, Rozelle. Somewhere along the line the plan became dinner with Rozelle and her colleague, Nick, as a surprise for his birthday.

So it was nearly 8pm and we were supposed to meet up with Rozelle at the restaurant. She calls and tells us to take our time because she was going to be a few minutes late. No probs, traffic was a bit slow anyway. Zara and I both were both blissfully unaware when we met Rozelle. The three of us went in to what looked like a nice quiet restaurant. At the time, Zara didn’t think anything of the fact that all of the staff were looking at her.

Turns out the surprise was on Zara. I didn’t see because I was behind her, but apparently the look on her face was priceless – mild surprise as she saw a few friends and thought, “Oh, what are you doing here?”, then confusion, then embarrassment as she realised she’d been had! Rozelle had managed to rustle up a few of Zara’s high school friends for her 30th birthday.

Well, it’s a little late, but better late than never eh? I did start writing this on my PDA during the trip and made some minor edits when I got back but it’s just taken a while…

La Marmotte is regarded as one of the world’s toughest non-competitive amateur cycling events held in the French alps in early July every year. The course is 174km long, climbing over the famous mountains of Col du Glandon, Col du Telegraphe, Col du Glabier and finally finishing at the ski resort of Alp D’huez. Over 7000 people take on this challenge every year. Here’s my attempt at this epic challenge…

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