La Marmotte Granfondo

Post date: Jun 26, 2017 6:14:29 PM

(By Shay O'Toole - Mon. 26th June 2017)

Next Friday, twelve Lakeside Wheelers members will be departing for the French Alps to participate in the 2017 La Marmotte Granfondo which takes place on Sunday, 2nd July.

La Marmotte is one of the most difficult sportives on the ‘leisure’ cycling calendar and requires riders to have trained for several months in order to complete the 174km course. The event is restricted to 7,500 riders and it includes 5,000m of climbing. This is achieved by cycling over four very famous alpine mountains, Col du Glandon, Col du Telepgrahe, Col du Galibier and finally, finishing the day off, by riding up through the 21 bends of the iconic l’Alpe d’Huez.

To put the task in context, the mountains involved are regularly included in the Tour de France route and have often played host to some of the greatest battles in this race’s history. The opening climb, the Glandon, is 22km in length with an average gradient of 5.5% with the Telegraphe a little shorter at 11.5km and averaging 7.3%. Having completed these two the participants will then have to face into two of the most difficult mountain passes in cycling, the Galibier is 17.5km at 7% with l’Alpe d’Huez, 13km at 8%.

Lakeside Wheelers has been represented in this great event on a few occasions in the past so if you are up for a challenge put La Marmotte in your diary for some date in the future.

Best of luck to the 2017 crew: Jack Nugent, Charlie Sheridan, Robbie Kenny, Ken Berry, Colin Pierce, Barry Pierce, Joe Kenny, Philip O’Hara, Ciaran O’Brien, Eoghan Kevlihan. Graham Morgan and Derek Sheerin.

Thanks in advance to Robbie Kenny who has promised to write a short ‘blog’ on the trip which will be included in the notes in the coming weeks.

La Marmotte 2017 Route Profile