We leave for our cycling trip to France in one week. 7 days of riding, none of which I would call “easy.” Here’s a quick summary of what Jonathan has put together (he was hired as a guide on this trip through his website, France Cycling Tours):
Day 1: Le Tour de Lac Verney – Should be a nice, easy warm up day. Should be…
Day 2: – Alpe d’Huez & Col de Sarenne Loop – I’m very excited to climb the famous “Alpe d’Huez.”
Day 3: The Road to La Berarde – can’t wait to taste the crepes again in this adorable little town.
Day 4: The Giant of Provence and Gordes de Nesque – This day scares me. Mt Ventoux (The Giant of Provence) is a beast. But I can’t go and not try it…
Day 5: Villard Notre Dame / Villard Reymond Loop
Day 6: Le Mollard or Vaujany – Supposed to be an “easy” day but I’m not sure I trust my husband!!
Day 7: La Marmotte Route Loop, the Col du Glandon Loop, or the Varcours Loop – A whole lot of pain if we do one of the first 2.
In total, we’ll ride about 300 miles and climb 45,000 feet. What a vacation! I’m going to need a week to recover from this…
I have a list several pages long of things to pack – most of it is food, though! And in a stroke of irony, we checked with the owner of the gite we are renting in France to see if there would be a French press in the gite for us to make coffee. No press, just a very American-looking coffee maker! Add French press to the list of items to pack, along with a blender (the gite didn’t have one of those either, but that didn’t surprise me).
Our training has gone amazingly well. Gone are the days where we just don’t feel great. Instead we feel stronger with each ride, we are eating less before and after each ride, and have steady energy throughout the ride and after. I think we are both far more confident in our ketogenic diet now, and trust that we will get through long rides with minimal food. This past weekend we skipped breakfast altogether and just had coffee with coconut oil and coffee before doing hill repeats on Saturday. We both had personal records on the climbs we did so I’d say it was a successful experiment.
I will be taking the KetoCaNa (a ketone supplement discussed in an earlier post) to give us an extra boost and to make sure we stay in ketosis after being tempted by delicious French pastries!
When we return we start training in earnest for Lotoja – 200 miles of fun in one day. Can’t wait!
Val, I’ve tried to sandwich our epic days with easier days, but there are few flat roads where we’ll be in the Alps, so nothing is “easy.” That said, Mt. Baldy (particularly the top) is steeper than most of the climbs we’ll do in France, so you have trained well and are fit enough to conquer all of these climbs. The challenge will be 7 straight days of riding – but you are prepared for it.
Thank you, Jonathan! I hope you are right!!