Day 1: Nice to Cuneo
Length: 186km
Elevation: 4,100m
TSS: 469
Calories Burned: 5,122
Strava Link
Stage Profile:
Hotel Experience
Just to get this out of the way, since this annoyed me to no end:
This was one of the worst hotels I've been in and I have no idea why they'd include it in the "premium" package when there are so many options in Nice. I'm struggling to remember all of the details but I recall there was mold in the grout in the bathroom and the room seemed to be generally falling apart. This was much worse than any Hampton Inn I've stayed in. The next morning, we were up at 5am for breakfast. Fortunately, breakfast was disproportionately better than the hotel was. After breakfast, I did my morning routine, brought my bag to the lobby drop off location and headed to the start line 30 minutes early to get near the front and find my friends.
Back to the ride...
This route is new to Haute Route Alps and it was the longest mileage route we did for the week. We rode north out of Nice with a neutral rollout. I started about 40 riders back but quickly made my way to the front behind the neutral car. There was a lot of yo-yoing, even being in the front. Riders would swarm up the left side of the road to get into the front and then roundabouts would be chaos. I was trying to keep in the first 20 or so riders, I can't imagine how bad it was mid pack. Once we got out of Nice metro, we hit a 20 minute unprofiled climb up to Levens. I ended up pushing harder than planned but got caught up in the moment since I felt good. People were popping off left, right and center so it required a lot of bridging to maintain in the group. Despite best efforts, my friend and I ended up in the second group on the road. I was also surprised to see a petite blonde woman with us, seemingly unphased by the pace (about 4.3 wpk). Turns out that is Janine, who has won HR and various gran fondos over a dozen times, so I'd be seeing a lot more of her throughout the week. My friend led the descent and we soon bridged back to the front group before the bottom of the descent. Immediately, at the bottom, we hit a small 2k climb and the group and I pushed 450w for the first minute, then decided eff this, and backed it off.
I ended up riding the lower grade portion by myself until I bridged to a group, which I rode with up Saint Martin. This was effectively a 30K effort with about 1K meters of elevation. I ended up averaging 3.4 wpk for 1.5 hours on this segment.
On Lombarde, I settled in to 245w and most of my group of 20 or so rode away from me in the first 5k. However, I think most had pretty optimistic pacing since I managed to catch most of them by the top, maintaining the same pacing. Around Isola 2000, I started getting muscle twinges indicating my legs were going to cramp soon. So, at the top feed stop I used my Skratch Hyper Hydration and topped up on food and fluids.
Coming down Lombarde, it was clear very few on this ride know how to descend. I consider myself a mediocre descender but passed a lot of people on the way down. I was making good progress coming down until near the bottom where my leg seized up, so I backed off and took it easy hoping the Skratch would kick in soon. There was a final 20K timed section through rollers that I had to go through. I started it with a group of 20 but on one of the hills, it turned out my legs weren't ready yet and I fully cramped up and lost my group. I coasted for a few minutes until a group of two caught me and rode with them. After that, it felt like an eternity getting into Cuneo on the 16K untimed section. It didn't help that drivers in the area were seemingly hostile towards cyclists. I had ridden almost 300K in France that week and hadn't been honked at once and 16K through Cuneo and I had been honked at a dozen times. To add insult to injury, the roads there were awful as well. It seems the Italians do not care as much as the French for their road upkeep.
Once I got into Cuneo, despite being 50th or so, I realized that my concerns about the village, cafeteria and massages being packed were misplaced. It looked like a ghost town at that point. I also recall having no idea what to do.
Hint: what you need to do is park your bike in the secure bike park area, get your backpack and then book a massage for about an hour from then. After that, head to the showers, get a quick cafeteria lunch then a massage. The lunch itself is not very good but you're so hungry at this point it doesn't matter. I also recall my lower back being fully seized. it was a major struggle trying to get my shoes off and sandals on.
Next up, after lunch, was the massage. This became a point of contention. HR hires students studying physio in college. Unfortunately, many of them have no clue how to do a proper sports massage. The young girl I had basically gave me the equivalent of a petting session despite asking her to go harder three times. I ended up skipping the massages because I had two poor ones and one okay one.
Once I was done with the massage, I checked into my hotel and then came back to Cuneo to stuff as much food in my face as possible. Overall, Cuneo was a quaint, small Italian town with a decent selection of food options despite being the middle of August.
My hotel in Cuneo was an improvement but still what I'd consider a 3 star hotel in the US and breakfast the next day was good.
All in all, this felt like the queen stage and I was fairly apprehensive about the rest of the week considering my lower back was majorly struggling already and the pace was so high.
Breakfast for the day (plus a couple more plates of pastries)
Very early start to the day
Descent from Levens
Grr...location was turned off on my phone so not sure where this is:
HR Village Post Ride
My Group Heading to Lombarde
Main drag in Cuneo
Post ride gelato (excellent)