The Legendary Alpe d’Huez Ascent

Today was the long awaited Alpe d’Huez climb, another famous long, steep Tour de France climb with its legendary 21 turns.

We got so lucky with the weather as we avoided the storm and had very pleasant weather for our ride….

…although it looked a bit threatening and slightly ominous as we prepared to depart.

Brad had been waiting to do this cycling climb for a very long time. As for me, I had done it many times in the 10 years I lived in Grenoble… but by car to go skiing! Never did I think I would do it by bike one day, and even make it to the top thanks to my beloved e-bike… that I named “Huez” today.

We started in the village of Bourg d’Oisans, then quickly headed to the official starting point with an incline of 11.1%. When Brad started to take off very fast, Pascal looked at me and said, “I’m not following him!!!”.

I decided to take my time and stop several times to take plenty of photos of this legendary climb. It is insane to think about how many cyclists have done this climb!

When we reached the summit, we took celebratory photos at the podium before enjoying the pain au chocolat and fresh squeezed orange juice from Boulangerie Pâtisserie Salazard.

Later, it was interesting to look at our Strava times, because in the end, Brad and I had the same average speed, so we could have arrived together! Isn’t it crazy what a road e-bike can do?!

I am very proud of Brad for his accomplishment… (one of his athlete friends told him he wasn’t allowed back in the US if he took more than an hour to climb Alpe d’Huez) …well, look at our Strava times: Brad with a time of 56.09, placed 3,170 out of 137,355 and I placed 117 out of 339 e-bikers with a time of 1:06:27!

We had fun on the fast descent and even found a market in town!