Quäl dich, du Sau! - Tracking Jan Ullrich (non-doped) in the Alps

Yes, I can! After having watched the Tour de France enthusiastically as a child (and after having been desillusioned after all the doping cases came up), it had always been a dream of mine to climb the famous "hors catégorie" [the label for the hardest mountains in the Tour the France] mountains myself. For this purpose, Grenoble proved to be a great basecamp, for many of the famous mountains are in close proximity: The Cols du Galibier, Croix de Fer, Glandon, and of cours legendary Alpe d Huez. And I climbed all of them!! Here is a quick summary of my days in the Alps:
Day 18: Grenoble - Alpe d Huez - Grenoble, 100km, 1450+ meters altitude difference climbing. I had to go 35km from Grenoble at 400m altitude (and back later the day) to Bourg d Oisans at 700m altitude. This is where the mountain acutally starts: 1100 metres up, from 700m to 1850m altitude, 14km constantly (and I mean it! There is not one single meter where the street does not go up) between 8% and 11% up in 21 hairpins (virages). I took me about 1 hour 40 minutes to climb it, so I was going at an average speed of about 8-9 km/h. Doesn't sound like a good speed, but hardly ever have I done anything as challening is this ... But is was an incredible feeling to be up there and get the recognition of the hundeds of other cyclists - I was the only one to climb the mountain with a trekking bike (and not a race bike), and not even at a slower pace than most other bikers :)

Day 19: Grenoble - Col du Glandon - Col de la Croix de Fer - Grenoble, 120km, 2000+ metres altidue difference climbing. The route took me from 400m altitude in Grenoble to 1950m to the top of the Col du Glandon and afterwards to 2050m to the Croix de Fer.

Beautiful nature, and higher up and longer up than Alpe d Huez, and "hors catégorie" Tour de France classification, and also very hard to climb, but nowhere near Alpe d Huez. When climbing the Glandon and the Croix de Fer, there are also parts where the streets descend for a couple of metres so that your legs can recover. But it is the combination of the length and *continuous* steepness of Alpe d Huez that takes cyclists to the brink of giving up..
Day 20: Grenoble - Col du Lautaret - Col du Galibier - Grenoble, 166km; 2400+ meters altitude difference climbing. This day took me 166km from Grenoble (400m) to the Col du Lautaret (2050m) and then to the sixth highest mountain pass in the Alps and the highest point that the Tour de France has ever covered, the Col du Galibier.

Climbing the Galibier was particularly hard because it goes up to 2640m and because the last kilometre goes up at 17-18%. However, on top, one could see as far as Italy and Switzerland (Mont Blanc). On top, there was still snow lying around, and when going down, one could feel the increasing temperature (40 degrees in Grenoble) every metre.

These days in the Alps where a great experience and I am more than happy that I managed to fight down these Tour de France giants, climbing some 6000 meters altitude difference and covering some 390 km within three days :) Btw, the area around Grenoble and Bourg d Oisans is an eldorado for (race) cyclists. Literally hundreds (if not thousands) of amatuer cyclists are around in the region to take on the Galibier, Glandon, Croix de Fer, Lautaret, or the legendary 21 hairpins of Alpe d Huez. Oftentimes, one finds oneself racing against one another, or cheering each other up :) At the top, people also cheer and clap when one arrives - great feeling!
By the way, 99% of the cyclists have a race bike and I guess about 70% come along with one or more supporting cars (Begleitwagen) to carry their water - I had neither a race bike nor a supporting car :-P