Raid des Alpes - part 2

What goes up, must come down. Or so the saying goes. Having endured several hours of climbing the carrot dangling at the top of the climbs was the chance to open the taps up and push some speed on the beautiful alpine descents.

This is the scalextric style view of what you can expect to rocket down and there's miles of it.

The length of the descents coming off the back of cols such as the Galibier, Vars, Bonette, Saisse etc has no real comparison in UK terms.

In my view they are gifts which keep on giving.

Having taken the time to trundle 26km up the Bonette or the several hours to rock up the Iseran, the least the French can do is lay some good tarmac to allow Johnny English to get the adrenaline levels going. And that, in the most part is what happened.

Being more suited to going down a hill than up it (in comparison to my companions at least), I took a view of "if it is worth doing, it's worth doing well fast". With James Gomm and Rob Fryers in particular we had some real grins ratcheting up the speeds as we weaved down of the higher cols.

Hitting speeds in excess of 50mph, some of the descents became battles of nerve as well as stamina as holding on to a carbon bike with under 20mm of tyre tread in contact with the road is tiring. The arms begin to burn and the neck and back begin to wonder what is going on. The wind rush and exhilaration make up for it though. The GoPro footage (above) taken on the Col de Vars gives a good idea of some of the lines we were taking. James is hanging on to my wheel here deliberately to film the lines and give an impression of what it was like. Keep an eye on the horizon line to see how much we threw the bikes around.

Critical to success (and being able to avoid total wipe-out) is the ability to relax on the bike and to focus on where you want to be in the road. Taking hairpin bends at speed and flowing through them in the right gear helps save energy and keep momentum. Observing the valleys and bends below is also an absolute must given that these are not closed roads. A near miss with a Fiat served to shoot more adrenaline in to the system but the calculated risks taken ensure safe passage. On that occasion being in control of the bike allowed me to flick the rear wheel out to create safe passage. This kind of proves the point that descending is all about being fluid and loose - I don't want to do too much more field testing like that though. James likened the downhills at speed to slalom skiing and that analogy stacks up - even though I've never skied I can see the logic. I did raise an eyebrow when he ordered extra espresso when we got to a Cafe at the bottom of the Saisse though. I don't think it had any affect.

I'm not sure if it's the inner child inherent nutter in me that thought going as quickly as possible wearing only lycra and a plastic helmet was a good idea? On one of the peaks I think I was paid a compliment by one of the other riders when he said, "you go first, you are good at this sort of downhill thing." Either that or he wanted to be out of sight if/when some form of terminal event or smash occurred. 

I think it was the former. If you can ride down Hillfoot near Cardington on the tribars at full tilt anything that involves proper handlebars and brakes that aren't built around carbon pads has to be child's play surely? You can see where it is easy to get in to a breakaway move given the speed we were holding.We readily tapped out average speeds of well over 30mph for very long stretches of road. It could have been a better strategy to hold something back on some of these drops as there may well be 3 or 4 to do each day, as well as the associated "going back up" bits. I have tried to blank those out as it's the rocking downhills and associated rush that leave the enduring grin.