Classic Climbs - Back on track
Our intrepid Classic Climbs reporter (now editor) Peter Cossins has put his hand up for plenty of assignments before, and when physiotherapist Tania Cotton asked him to be a guinea pig for her work with cycling tour operator GPM10, he was happy to oblige – especially if it meant relief from long-suffering back pain and better results on the bike.
Words: Peter Cossins
Photography: Richard Lundberg
Thinking back, I reckon that the last time anyone took a good look at my position on the bike was in the summer of 1971 when my dad took the stabilisers off my first Raleigh and ran alongside me giving frantic instructions on how to stay upright. Over the subsequent three decades, I've owned at least a dozen bikes, most of them selected for reasons of price rather than size or comfort. Like many other cyclists, I figured that I knew pretty much what set-up suited me and rode largely on 'feel'.
But what has this to do with procycling's regular travel feature, you may be wondering? Well, back in the early summer, during a weekend riding with the GPM10 team in France's Avavis Massif between Chamonix and Annecy, I had what I can only describe as a moment of cycling epiphany. Having struggled back into Chamonix after 80 hot and hard miles, I was stricken with all kinds of aches, notably in my lower back.
This was nothing new. Over the course of the past 15 years or so I've consulted with physios, chiropractors, osteopaths, stretch coaches and yoga gurus in an attempt to rid myself of occasional but extremely painful backache. After the ride into Chamonix , I hobbled to a massage being given by GPM10 associate Tania Cotton, a chartered physiotherapist, but also one of Britain's leading experts on body biomechanics and movement dysfunction. Back pain is one of her particular realms of expertise.
Tania looked me over for a few minutes and concluded that I had 'issues' from the physical point of view. Instead of the massage, I was asked to do a series of exercises that, to a certain extent, revealed how my body performed when subjected to the stress of long climbs that I wasn't used to over distances that were, thanks to recent work commitments, beyond me.
The result was pretty shocking. Tania explained that unless I made significant changes to my position on the bike, then my cycling career would be prematurely ended by back problems. In short, the one form of exercise I loved doing more than any other was gradually turning me into a physical wreck.
The good news, as far as Tania was concerned, was that my problems were so impressively substantial that I would probably be worthy of a prospective PhD student's doctorate. The good news for me was that it was by no means too late to change my set-up and performance on the bike. This would, Tania explained, not only significantly reduce my problems with back pain, but would also enable me to direct all of the power I was generating on the bike through my legs and the pedals, rather than much of it being wasted by putting unnecessary pressure on my lower back.
In other words, a wee bit of tinkering with my bike and a more significant amount of remodelling of my set-up and pedalling technique would make me both faster and pain-free.
Having returned to the UK from Chamonix with instructions on a series of exercises provided by Tania that I should do on a daily basis, I naturally did none of them. However, it wasn't all bad, as I did organise to return to the French Alps later in the summer to spend a couple of days riding with GPM10 head man Mark Neep, who was planning a recce of a prospective two-day ride based on the town of Bourg d'Oisans. Tania was also planning to be on hand to explain how she will be working next year with Mark and GPM10's team to help clients develop “efficient movement”.
Having offered myself as a back pain-afflicted guinea pig, the first part of the process started with me and Mark heading out from Bourg d'Oisans for a two-day ride taking in the Croix de Fer, Télégraphe, Galibier and Alpe d'Huez. Every July, the famous La Marmotte cyclosportif event covers the same 174-kilometre route, but of course in just a single day.
Our dinner companion the night before, a procycling reader from Calgary called Dennis, had set out earlier the same morning planning to do the circuit back around to Bourg but, on what was a late September day, missing out the final flourish on the Alpe. We, however, were being more circumspect, aiming instead to ride over the Croix de Fer and Télégraphe before an overnight stop in Valloire, then going over the Galibier the next day and back into Bourg.
Much of the reason for our more steady progress was that Mark and Tania were monitoring my performance on the bike with the aim of providing feedback and suggestions on how I could improve things when we reached Valloire that evening. The first part of this process was to film me on the bike to get an idea firstly of my position, and secondly of how that position changed when I began to find the going tough.
The bottom section of the Croix de Fer was an ideal point on both counts, the road being quiet enough that the GPM10 car could get alongside me for a good distance and hard enough that Tania was quickly able to see some of the reasons why the power I was outputting wasn't all going where it was most needed. For five kilometres the road rose relentlessly through the trees to the village of Rivier d'Allemont, where we stopped for a coffee. Having already diagnosed that my seat was too low and too far back, Mark made some minor adjustments while I attempted caffeine-based resuscitation.
The change was immediate and very noticeable. Climbing towards the Grande Maison dam, I immediately felt more power going through to my pedals and less strain on my lower back. The surroundings picked me up too. The Croix de Fer is one of the most spectacular passes in the Alps ; the autumn colours of the forests giving way to stunning mountain scenery above the turquoise blue of the Grande Maison reservoir. With little traffic and just a light wind, there was almost total quiet.
Three kilometres from the top of the Croix de Fer, a road goes left to the summit of the Col du Glandon. It was only 200 metres to the top, giving us two cols for the effort of one. With a hot chocolate and an omelette spurring me on, the Croix de Fer was soon conquered too, although by now the mist was coming down and it was getting pretty cold. With the descent off the Croix de Fer partly closed, we decided to get everything and everyone into the car and follow the diversion down into the valley.
This took us over the Col du Mollard and down through the village of Albiez-le-Jeune and onto the most sinuous road I've ever come across. Although not a huge climb, I swear it's got more hairpins than the Stelvio; the road running 200 metres in one direction, then switching back to run another 200 back again. Before too long, I was going back too, to that summer of 1971 again and sitting in the back of my dad's car on a long journey having overindulged in biscuits. By the time we reached the valley my stomach rebelled.
Thankfully, Mark opted to press on over the Télégraphe to Valloire, though not without me suffering another rebellion. It was honestly just coincidence that this time I was sick all over Richard Virenque's name on the road...
There were three positive aspects to the next morning. Firstly, I was able to eat and hang on to breakfast. Secondly, the weather was perfect for the Galibier, unlike the evening before when we heard that our Canadian friend Dennis had been caught in a snowstorm at the summit and almost frozen, Ullrich-style, on the descent. Finally, I was able to have a consultation with Tania before setting off, which included a review of the video nasty of me riding up the Croix de Fer and a mass of suggestions and information about how I could develop efficient movement both on and off the bike [see page 116 for more details on the consultation].
I admit to being slightly overwhelmed by the issues and remedies that Tania had put across to me, but she suggested that I focus on just one or two things to start with on the bike. As we set off up the 17km run to the summit of the Galibier from Valloire, the two tasks I set myself were on pulling up on the upstroke and trying to keep my pelvis in a neutral position in order to avoid unnecessary strain on my lower back. I soon noticed that my breathing was much less laboured as I stopped myself from dropping into a hunched position over the bike.
However, the Galibier is a climb that demands almost total attention, and it wasn't easy to focus on how I was riding with so much to take in. After a steepish section going through Valloire, the road followed a very comfortable grade through some meadows, allowing us to get into a smooth rhythm.
There were just occasional switchbacks as we sailed ever upwards towards the Grand Galibier and the other 3,000-metre-plus peaks crowding the head of the valley. At Plan Lachat (1,961m), the road bent back to the right crossing the river tumbling down from the Galibier peaks, and the climbing started for real.
In the final eight kilometres, the Galibier pass rises 700 metres, initially through a series of tight hairpins all bearing witness to the Tour de France's crossing of the peak a couple of months before. Dutch fans seemed to have predominated based on the Rabobank-boosting slogans on the road, with 'Paco' Mancebo apparently able to call on plenty of support as well.
As well as the gradient and perhaps the thinning air, I was also struggling against the effects of the previous day's loss of a meal. Before too long I was running on empty. Fortified by a ham sandwich, I pressed on, with Mark and Tania making occasional suggestions on positioning as fatigue pushed me back towards some of my bad and energy-wasting habits.
After the initial switchbacks, the road emerged onto a wide valley. Unlike the more spectacular setting of the Croix de Fer, with its rich blue lake and autumn colours, the top sections of the Galibier were stark and imposing. The scenery was impressively inhospitable.
The final three kilometres hairpinned all the way to the summit. In summer, you could imagine these sections lined with camper vans and roaring fans in baking temperatures, but at the tail-end of September it was decidedly chilly. Patches of ice glistened on the shaded sections of corners and the wind whipped up behind us from the north, nudging us towards the 2,646-metre pass, where it was too cold to dally for anything more than the obligatory summit shot.
With cloud billowing in, we donned all the kit we had for the fast eight-kilometre descent down to the main road and the Col du Lauteret. From here, the N91 descends 40 quick kilometres back to Bourg d'Oisans. Even with a strong headwind slowing us slightly, we still made good progress, as we sped by the turn up to Les Deux Alpes on one side of the valley and, a few kilometres further on, the road to Alpe d'Huez on the other.
It was with mixed emotions that I pressed on to Bourg – disappointed to have missed out on climbing the Alpe because a flight home was calling, but relieved because I would have needed an awful lot more than a ham sandwich to climb those mythical 12 kilometres. But the Alpe will still be there when I return, and by then I should have put my 'issues' behind me and be totally ready for it.
Mountain focus
In a similar way to Bormio, which featured in last month's Classic Climbs, Bourg d'Oisans is a perfect base for riders wanting to spend a few days in one place but looking for plenty of different climbing options at the same time. Unlike, Bormio, Bourg d'Oisans is not a particularly pretty town, but you are likely to spend so much time looking up at the surrounding mountains, and especially the early hairpins heading for Alpe d'Huez, that you'll barely notice.
Set in a valley running north to south along the Venéon river, Bourg offers superb riding options at all four points of the compass. The least known is the Col d'Ornon (1371m, 2nd-cat), which climbs first to the west and then to the south, initially through dense forests. It last featured in the Tour de France in 2002, when Axel Merckx led a breakaway over it on the way to the nearby resort of Les Deux Alpes, where Santiago Botero took the stage win.
To the east of Bourg d'Oisans are the fabled 21 hairpins climbing to Alpe d'Huez (12km, 1860m, super-cat, 8.2 per cent average gradient), last climbed in a road stage in 2003, when Iban Mayo won at the end of a stage that also included the Télégraphe and the Galibier. More recently, the Alpe was also the scene of one of the Tour's most controversial time trials, when hundreds of thousands packed onto the mountain to see Lance Armstrong barracked by some brainless fans but still demolish his rivals in 2004.
We focused on the climbs to the north and south, basically following the route of the Marmotte cyclosportif out of Bourg and heading for the Col de la Croix de Fer (32km, 2067m, super-cat, 4.7 per cent average gradient). The Tour has not been over this spectacular peak since 1999, and then it was coming in the opposite direction and heading for the Alpe on the occasion of Giuseppe Guerini's victory. Coming from the south, the Croix de Fer offers a bit of everything – steep roads through the woods on its early slopes, a sudden steep and switchbacking descent after this, then more hairpins climbing up to the rich blue waters above the dam, and a final pull up a breath-taking valley to the summit.
Although it is hard to get into a rhythm on a climb with so many changes of gradient and personality, the setting makes it fully worth the effort. Don't forget to add in the Glandon (1924m, 1st-cat) for good measure. The highly visible names on the road hark back to the Tour's passing over this climb last year, when Gilberto Simoni led the way.
The road through the Arc valley from the foot of the Croix de Fer to the bottom of the Télégraphe (12.2km, 1566m, 1st-cat, 7 per cent average gradient) is a dream for lovers of cement-making factories. But for the rest of us, it's a relief to get away from the valley floor and climb the big step towards the Galibier. This road is well surfaced but tends to be quite busy as it rises through the trees towards the resort town of Valloire.
Thankfully, the road is quieter once it exits the busy Valloire and starts the climb towards the Galibier pass (18.2km, 2646m, super-cat, 6.8 per cent average gradient). Scene of one of Alexandre Vinokourov's many attempted breaks in this year's Tour, with this one ending in a victory in Briançon, the Galibier is one of the Tour's most visited peaks and is often the 'roof' of the race. The two toughest sections come on the climb out of Valloire and when the hairpins begin at Plan Lachat, with 8km still to the top. Save something for the last couple of kilometres too.
The descent from the summit drops quickly to the road junction on the Col du Lauteret (2058m, 1st-cat), where Vinokourov went left to Briançon, but we went right, back towards Bourg d'Oisans. The Galibier can be climbed from this side, but the road is very busy and there are a lot of poorly lit tunnels.
A cycling MOT
For non-UK readers, MOT stands for Ministry of Transport and refers to the certificate British car drivers are legally required to have in order to be able to get insurance on their car. In other words, without getting your car through an MOT check on an annual basis, you can't drive in the UK .
I would never consider missing an MOT test on my car, but I have never looked into having the same kind of tune-up for my body. Over the years this has meant frequent visits to all kinds of physios and therapists in the search for rapid remedies to a variety of physical complaints, predominantly lower back pain.
Some of these therapies have worked well, and I would have no hesitation in recommending them, but I can safely say that during two decades of such visits, no one has ever suggested ways of remedying my physical problems preventatively rather than dealing with them when they appear. Perhaps there's a good reason for this, in as much as therapists could be doing themselves out of work and money by advising on the roots of a problem. But, more worryingly, perhaps they are simply not aware of the strategies needed to encourage efficient movement in their patients.
This latter point struck home when reading an interview with Jan Ullrich's personal soigneur, Birgit Krohme, in the August 2005 issue of procycling. Krohme has been working with Ullrich for the past three seasons, having initially been contacted by the German when he was looking for an answer to acute knee pain.
Working from a "physiological and biomechanical perspective", Krohme spends much of the off-season working with Ullrich on optimising his muscular efficiency on the bike. Although she has come up against much resistance to her methods and thoughts in the archly conservative world of cycling, Krohme admits that Ullrich has been totally supportive of, and enthused by, the methods she has introduced him to. Although Ullrich's results may still be short of what they once were, the T-Mobile star is riding with much more efficiency.
This brings me to Movement Masters, the Chamonix-based company run by Tania Cotton, and which offers all kinds of athletes the opportunity of improving their performance and reducing the risk of injury through individualised and sport-specific movement analysis. In effect, Tania offers athletes the chance to work with a Birgit Krohme of their own, with the focus on building towards a specific performance goal, such as the Etape du Tour or the Marmotte cyclosportif.
From next season, Tania will be working with the GPM10 team, offering clients cycling-specific movement analysis (CSMA). Tied in with one of GPM10's trips, the package provides an all-round cycling experience, covering a fully-supported ride in the Alps with the option of expert biomechanical feedback – the ideal tune-up for out-of-sorts cyclists.
Working with GPM10's Mark Neep, who has worked and trained dealers on the bike-fitting system endorsed by Trek and Litespeed and provides feedback on bike set-up and positioning, Tania assesses five areas: static and dynamic body posture and alignment on (and off) the bike; core stability; core strength; muscle length, recruitment and force efficiency; and breathing technique.
The first stage in this process is video analysis of a rider's position on the bike. This is usually done on a tough climb, when bad biomechanical habits tend to become more exaggerated. Without going too deeply into my own biomechanical problems, of which there are plenty, Tania noticed even before the video review that I tended to fall forwards over the bike when under stress, that my chin poked forwards because my head was not supported by the core muscles in my neck, and that my right leg came in towards the top tube as I tried to generate more power. Tania and Mark were also somewhat disconcerted to notice my overactive calves, which twitch as if containing a couple of boisterous ferrets after rides, the result of keeping the calf muscle under constant load during the pedal stroke.
In short, I was producing plenty of power but not much of it was going where it was needed. In fact, when out with riders of a similar level, I was having to expend more power than they were to follow the pace, and had few resources left when the pace was even slightly increased.
It was like a 'eureka' moment for me. Suddenly, I understood not only why I was failing to follow friends, particularly on big climbs, but also that I could change things in often quite simple ways and end up with much more power going through my (currently almost unused) gluteal muscles, down my legs and into the pedals.
Working through these aspects, Tania ultimately provides clients with a personalised performance programme designed to improve performance and make objectives become both achievable and enjoyable.
"It was so refreshing to read the article about how Birgit looks beyond these historically limiting approaches to more progressive ways of rehabilitating Jan Ullrich and helping him regain function, and further develop, his form," Tania told me in between hilarious (due to my lack of control) core muscle-strengthening sessions on a 65cm gym ball.
"Strength training alone does not address the fact that for movement to be efficient there needs to be underlying control that can be sustained and forces that have to be transmitted efficiently. It is like driving a car with an accelerator and no steering wheel, brakes or suspension – you get to the first corner and… The hardest principle for many sportspeople to grasp is that often 'less is more'!" Tania explained.
With winter quickly arriving in the UK , I'm off out now to buy my own gym ball to get my performance enhancement programme under way. My long-term goal is to complete the Quebrantahuesos cyclosportif in the Spanish Pyrenees next June, and in the back of my mind I'm considering tackling the Marmotte a few weeks later and giving my revamped body what must be one of the ultimate tests for an amateur rider.
GPM10's CSMA costs L129 and includes a two-hour one-to-one consultation. For more information on the 2006 trips offered by GPM10 and their link-up with Tania Cotton visit www.gpm10.com
Way To Go
This is an easy region to access by plane and road. Budget carrier Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies to both Grenoble and St Etienne ( Lyon ) from London Stansted. The former is only 40km from Bourg d'Oisans. easyJet (easyJet.com) serves Grenoble from London Gatwick and Luton , and Lyon from Stansted, as well as offering flights to Geneva from several destinations in both the UK and Europe , although some of these are winter-only routes. BMI Baby (bmibaby.com) also serves Geneva and has flights to Lyon from London Heathrow.
procycling came into Geneva from Manchester with British Airways (ba.com), and the Swiss city is certainly the best option for international flights. Bourg d'Oisans is a two-and-a-half hour drive south from Geneva .
When to go
Open from June 1 to whenever the snows come in October, the Galibier is the key climb on this route as there's no easy alternative if it is closed. July and particularly August are likely to be busy, but June and September are much less so.
We had two very warm days riding in the region at the tail-end of September, when the traffic was extremely light on the Croix de Fer and Galibier, and the temperatures were still warm in the valleys. The autumn colours added to the beauty of it all, but it was nippy on the summits even on clear days, so you'll need to take longs and other cold weather gear.
Cyclosportif and other events
The toughest and most famous of all the rides in the region is the Marmotte cyclosportif (sportcommunication.com). It takes place on the second weekend of July, and covers the Croix de Fer, Télégraphe, Galibier and Alpe d'Huez. The fastest time that was posted for the 174km was just under six hours, with the last of the 4,000-plus riders coming in more than seven hours later. The previous weekend's Vaujany cyclosportif (same organiser) tackles some of the same roads and finishes at that resort, which is above Bourg d'Oisans.
Although taking place more to the west in the Vercors region of the Alps, the Dauphiné Challenge (ledauphine.com) is also worthy of consideration as it is run by the organisers of the Dauphiné Libéré race. It takes place in late May and features eight climbs on the longest 180km route.