As every cyclist knows, Alpe d'huez is one of the most imfomous climbs out there for a cyclist. It has been featured in The Tour De France countless times and has shown to be the decider of greatness for many grand tour cyclist. The 13.8 km long climb consist of an average gradient of 8.1 percent and in some of the steepest parts can get up to 11.5. This is not your local KOM. It has brought pro cyclist to their knees and continues to be a fan favorite climb throughout the years. Another hard climb, maybe not as famous is Alpe du Zwift. A virtual replica of the famous climb that is easy for everyone to access, if your willing to pay 15 dollars a months to sweat your ass off. this virtual climb consists of 3,399 ft of climbing, with 21 sectors of riding. The sectors are the distances between each switch back, copying alpe d'huez. Now, I'm sure your wondering why this could be so hard. Since it is virtual, you don't have the same elevation change from top to bottom, or the same weather conditions. While all that is true, it is still safe to say that Alpe du zwift is one of the hardest climbs out there, and probably the hardest climb you can do virtually.
One of the reason I think alpe du zwift is a true tester of your physical, and mental endurance is because of the a few factors. One is heat. Normally when riding our side your body does a fairly good job at colling yourself down. The wind in your face while riding can help with you body staying in somewhat of a homeostasis. You would think that a fan could do the same things quite well, but you could not be more incorrect. The indoor tight space, and the weakness of every fan will leave your body sweating buckets of salt. With all this sweating comes the real risk of glycogen levels in your body becoming low, and the inevitable "bonk" to happen. So if you think nutrition isnt important on an hour long indoor bike ride, you couldn't be more mistaken. Another major factor is the length of the climb. the climb in total is 12.2 km, and with a smart trainer, you will really be able to feel the struggle of this steep climb. Although this isn't as long as the original, it is still enough to make your puke at the top. The climb for me took around 55 minutes. Since I did it only with a week of training under my belt, I was happy with this effort, but felt like I could do better. If you think about it, a 55 minute climb, pretty much anywhere, is extremely rare, and extremely difficult.
The last factor that plays into the sheer difficulty of this climb is pacing. With only the 21 sectors to help you with how much you have left on the ride, your left to pace the hour long climb to yourself, and that's hard. At the beginning you don't want to go to hard, because if you go too hard, you will burn out too early and feel like a dying cat for the remainder of the climb. If you go to slow at the bottom, you will always be wondering what could have been. Considering the fact it is pretty close to 1 hour, you can try to go off of your ftp, but that is also pretty general because it takes a different amount of time for everyone.
When I did it, I went out a little to hard in the beginning, and dropped my watts by about 30 on average for the last few miles of the climb. The beginning of the climb felt easy. I was fresh, I felt good, and i thought I could hold this pace for hours. 20 minutes later, I was feeling it. I could still push the same amount of watts, but my cadence had gone down and I knew it was going to be a hard 30 minutes. I had already been sweating way more then a should, but for the last 30 minutes my face stung like a bee sting. The only thing i had saving me were the sectors. I could pace myself accordingly, and with every switchback I could give myself a little rest, which was very needed. On the last sector I gave it everything. Pushing more wats then I did in the beginning. I knew i could hold this for a little, but it was going to come at the cost of my breathing and my overall well-being. As I crossed the finish line I kealed over, gaged a little and rested. I was happy to be done, and happy to do it in under and hour.
For every normal, everage rider, I would say, "save yourself. don't do it. It isn't worth it." But if your like me and not doing it isnt and option, I would say, "get ready for some pain."
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