From: bhilden@bigriver.Eng.Sun.COM (Bruce Hildenbrand)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.racing
Subject: Re: no Alpe d'Huez on 93 Tour!!!
Date: 9 Oct 1992 19:50:06 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: bigriver-248

In article <92282.191449SJ81SANU@MIAMIU.BITNET> <SJ81SANU@MIAMIU.BITNET> writes:
>Actually, I seem to recall Hampsten saying in Velo-News that he had to deal
>with a lot of shoving on the way up the Alpe, although he wasn't knocked down.
>That may have gone unnoticed by many because it wasn't telivised (as opposed to
>Chiappucci on his stage win).
> 
I have just returned from spending a week with Andy and his lovely
fiancee Linda(who is tearing up the local mountain bike circuit!!!)
at their home in soththern Switzerland, I can shed some light on the
situation on L'Alpe D'Huez in the 1992 TdF.

First off, you cannot make any judgements on what really happened by
looking at the ESPN television feed.  In Europe, all the big mountain
stages of the Tour de France(TIOOYK) are televised live and in their
entirety(at least all the climbs).  I remember almost having a heart
attack when Chiapucci and LeMond were deuling it out on the Tourmalet
and Luz Ardiden in the 1990 TdF(ooooh, the goosebumps are coming back!!!).
Chiapucci attacked, LeMond was dropped, LeMond caught, waited for the
10+% section above the vilage of Grust on the acent of Luz Ardiden and
then countered with Parra, yeah!!!

Oh I digress!!!!!

Anyway, the European television coverage showed the whole climb and
Andy was seen at one point to forceably knock a teen-ager to the ground.
In Andy's own words,"it was him or me!".  This incident caused a very
big stir in the European press.  One of Andy's old racing buddies
is now the TdF commentator for Swiss television(a Swiss version of Phil
Ligget), Antonio Ferretti, and he dedicated 1/2 hour of his TdF show
for that day to the defense of Andy's actions, saying it was necessary
and that Andy was such a gentle guy off the bike.

There is a great picture in a Japenese cycling magazine of Andy on L'Alpe.
Actually it is just a sea of people and somewhere near the center of
the picture you can just make out Andy's head amongst the crowd, it
was that bad.  Andy jokingly referred to himself as Moses, parting the
crowds.

One interesting thing Andy said was that he had the sensation that he was
going really fast when he was parting the masses, because of all the
people jumping out of the way.  When he got to the section with crowd
control barriers with 2km to go, he actually thought he was slowing
down because people were not jumping out of the way!

For those of you into gearing, Andy said he rode a 39x23 on the lower
3km(which is 12%) he wanted to keep the group together there and
sort it out when it became less steep.  The last 10km averages 8-9%
and Andy was riding a 39x19 at tempo with sections of 39x17 when
he wanted to apply the pressure.  Yikes!!!!!

>As far as eliminating it, I've heard tell that while the Alpe is very
>difficult due to it's many switchbacks, there are many other climbs both longer
> and steeper.

There are a number of climbs that are longer(Madeline, Glandon, Criox
de Fer are all 5000+' feet of climbing compared to L'Alpe at around 3700')
but few are as steep(L'Alpe averages 9%, the abovementioned climbs are
7-8%).  So, yes there are longer climbs, but none as steep over any
significant distance, EXCEPT, my current death climb...the south side
of Mt. Ventoux which climbs 5500' and has a 9% average over its 17 km
ascent with 11km of 10%+!!!!!!  This is one really tough climb!  And the
TdF returns here in 1994!  Holy painfule legs, Batman!

Rambling on as usual,

Bruce

ps - you could call the ascent of Luz Ardiden outside of Luz St.Saveur
the Alpe D'Huez of the Pyrenees(hey, LeMond even said that in Winning
Magazine!), this may be the mystrerious mountaintop finish near Lourdes
in the 1993 TdF(TIOOYK).