Time Megéve June 6 2010

Did this one again except I did the medium course this year. I was trying for a fast time to test my fitness and I was quite surprised and pleased to finish in 4hrs 19min for 91st place out of 987 that rode the same course.

The medium course was still 120kms and 3000m of climbing. My Polar said 116kms and 2810m of climbing at the finish. 4 tough Tour de France climbs were ridden.

There was a little more than 1200 people on the line for the 8.30am start. They dropped the flag and away we all went on a slightly downhill 10kms towards the first climb, the Col d'Avaris. This brute was roughly 12kms of climbing at 5% average grade. The road totally packed side to side with cyclists all grinding their way up. Then a long fast hair raising 20km descent with switchbacks, crazy cyclist and rough pavement to the base of the Col de la Croix Fry, then up 12.6kms of 6.6% average or 50 minutes of suffering. Then a slight drop and up again to the col de Aravis then a long fast descent towards the base of the Col de Saisies. It was near the base of the descent that I came towards a tight corner, two course marshals with safety vests were peering over the stone wall into the gorge below, then I noticed a red Cannondale leaning against the low wall. Holy shit I thought, no way !! 2 minutes later the road turned upward to the Col de Saisies, then after a couple minutes of climbing the wail of sirens started in the valley below. I didn't find out until the next morning speaking to a friend at work who'd also rode that someone had died on that corner, apparently a guy from Switzerland got stuck in a rut in the pavement at 80km/hr, fell, slid towards the wall and dropped 80m into the gorge below. No prize cerrimony and all the festivities were closed at the end of the ride. Really, really terrible but with the open roads, really bad pavement, high speeds, tight corners and closely grouped cyclists I honestly can't believe it doesn't happen more often. There was a minutes silence the following weekend at the next event that was VERY VERY moving and sad.
Here's a link to some photos of the location of the incident.
http://www.velovelo.com/article.php3?id_article=7356