Alpe d’Huez

Ten years ago, in 1998, my good friend Christian and I drove to France to watch some of the Tour. The route that year didn’t take the riders up Alpe d’Huez, but that didn’t stop Christian and myself from renting a couple of road bikes in order to have a go at the 21 hairpin turns.

The ride was a memorable one and tomorrow’s upcoming stage in this year’s Tour made me think of it again.

It was my very first ride up a real mountain (Denmark doesn’t have any mountains what-so-ever) and it was definitely tough, especially as we got closer to the summit and had to contend with the increasing winds.

The descent however is what stands out the most. It was scary. I was going the fastest I had ever gone on a bike before, and I remember looking down on the little break pads on the bike thinking “those little pads are all I have to stop me!”. We made it down again safe, though, without any incidents and we were happy to have “conquered” Alpe d’Huez. But boy looking back at these pictures: Cotton T-shirt, platform pedals, and NO helmet!

And oh yes, since we were in France we did visit a couple of wine cellars to sample some of the good stuff…