Have signed up for 2026 edition of etape du tour and the route announcement has me thinking I might have bitten off more than I can chew.
Once we get into March, my plan is to incorporate targeted weekend outdoor rides. Whilst I don’t have the alps on my doorstep, I do have some of the biggest climbs in the UK within a short drive. Initially I plan to traverse some of these on a non-stop out and back every second week (again weather dependant - snow / ice can still be settled on these roads). With in between weekends being reserved for endurance rides (zone 2). As I move into April and May, and daylight hours start to extend, I have two rides planned to execute ahead of the event in July. Ride 1 is 170km and 2600m vertical gain, and the second ride is 145km with 5000m elevation gain, this out and back 4 times (8 ascents) over one of the uk’s biggest climb. Whilst neither of these rides resemble the etape du tour, max altitude in both cases is sub 1000m, they will give me a good indication of for planning nutrition, bike setup and generally practice for settling into a comfortable rhythm to dial in pacing. All these climbs have steep ramps similar to what I’ll see out in France also.
I’ll be 46 years old at the time of the event, I’m 188cm tall and will weight somewhere around 83kg which is my nominal riding weight year round. I’m conscious that altitude and temperature will play a big part in the effort I can expend. The idea I had in my head for training was to try and get as much volume specific to riding up long and steep gradients without burying myself ahead of the event with the notion that my base fitness for long endurance days is pretty acceptable already and will be fine tuned further with this training plan.
Is there a danger of overtraining with this strategy or does it sound reasonable. I figured the terrain where I live whilst it isn’t the scale of the alps, it is the biggest terrain in the uk and I’d be silly not to take advantage of that being relatively close to my doorstep.
The etape du tour is a bucket list experience for me, I committed in 2022 that I would do it before I’m 50 and ideally the year it finishes on Alpe du huez. I guess the finish this year wasn’t the dream finish but regardless it’s on now and I’m committed. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated, please share anything that will help, from training specifics to recommendations for nutrition and bike setup tips.
ETD ‘26 is basically La Marmotte with Col de Sarenne finish instead of Alpe d’huez. Done the Marmotte 8 times so enough experience to give you some advice.
Main thing is, what is your goal. Finish the ride or go for a ‘as fast as possible’ approach? Crucial is going up the first climb (Croix de Fer) as easy as possible. Adapted gearing can be crucial here because this climb starts with 5km at 9% so keeping the legs fresh with a smaller gear can be helpfull. Also Telegraphe play it cool. This ride starts halfway the Galibier. There for sure you going to feel the legs. So every match burned before will hurt 10x as hard as normal. So…my nr1 tip. Be smart on the first climb.
Training wise. Try to incorporate lots of lower cadence tempo/sweet spot work. Simulate the higher torque on the legs. And get your endurance up as high as possible. So lots of Z2 work but don’t forget the work on the legs. Being used of 1h30 of climbing can help. And you can do that indoor with lower cadence tempo / sweetspot blocks…
Agree with above, you’ll likely be spending most of the climbs at tempo or sweet spot. Your long endurance rides sound good. I’d use the trainer to build up to repeated 45-60mins sweet spot intervals. Nutrition and perhaps more importantly hydration will be key.
I think Col du Sarenne is a more enjoyable climb than the Alpe FWIW.
Your prep-plan should give you enough endurance to complete the ride as your training is very specific. However you should add in heat training, when I did EdT a few years back my power was down maybe 30% due to the heat, this extended my ride time by hours meaning it was a 9hr day for me which was easy enough as I was doing 3x5hr rides per week in training, but I wasn’t fast.
If you want a faster time you should add in some threshold/above work, don’t just do lots of long steady rides as you will end up with great endurance but not being particularly speedy, so you will benefit from some intensity too to boost your climb rate. You might not think you’ll want to be fast as the aim could be to complete it but as a newbee you’ll be put in a later start pen and that means you’ll actually have a lot less time to complete before they close the roads than much faster riders who are let go early. It’s a strange situation but essentially slower riders are given less time to complete! My ride partner was caught out and faced a barricaded road at the base of the final climb manned by armed Gendarmes and you won’t be getting through for an hour or more until they ‘re-open’ the road to general traffic. You’ll be getting a DNF on your result sheet in that situation.
btw I’m guessing you are in Wales? Which mountain gets you the 5k meters ascent in that distance as if I sign up for this year I’d like to do that too!
the Hill climb I am planning is the Bealach na Ba over to Applecross in the West Highlands. It’s just over 600m vertical gain on each ascent and starts at sea level each time. So one out and back is around 35km and 1200m.
Myself, I’m based in North East Scotland so Cairngorms are relatively close to the doorstep and applecross is a few hours drive.
More than welcome to join me when I do this ride by all means. Aiming to do this around mid June.