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1000 Bosses cyclo-sportif, Lyon 1 May 2005

Club member Ian Collins recently moved to Geneva. Since then, he's ridden some of the sport's greatest routes. Now, he is able to ride the numerous cyclosportif rides that are popular on the continent. Here he describes the 1000 Bosses event

Everyone has heard of the Etape du Tour and many of the other famous “cyclosportifs” (eg the Ardéchoise and La Marmotte) which take place every year on mainland Europe, particularly in France. I for one, however, didn’t realise that there is virtually a “cyclo” industry and that talented riders from all regions treat them very seriously indeed – to all intents and purposes, they form a race season and those who do well are minor celebrities amongst their peers.

I myself was attracted to them when I arrived in Geneva because they offer what is in effect a race but one in which there are enough participants to find your level – although the parcours are generally pretty long and challenging, typically over numerous cols, there is almost always going to be a respectable group of participants to compete against, even if the top guys have ridden away from you at the first sign of an incline. While I’ve enjoyed racing in more conventional events too, I’ve been finding the standard somewhat too high for my level! The cyclos give you a tough challenge but you are not going to find yourself having to ride 100km plus on your own...

My ultimate goal for this year is to finish La Marmotte in a half-decent time and with that in mind, I’ve entered a number of cyclos throughout the summer to tune up. I’m also particularly looking forward to meeting up with the Wheelers to do the Ardéchoise. With this in mind, some of my Geneva clubmates suggested I enter the 1000 Bosses (the 1000 hills!) near Lyon with them. Not many, if any, of you will have heard of this event. It doesn’t go over any famous routes or cols of the Tour, nor is it a formidable distance or based on one of the Classics. It is just a bog standard cycling event like scores of others that take place all over France from May to August. But that is not to say it isn’t still a challenge, albeit an enjoyable one – 139km with just under 3000m of climbing over a course which it would be fair to say did not have single metre on level ground. One of my clubmates had finished second in 2004 and this time seven of us were upholding the pride of the violet jersey of La Pédale des Eaux-Vives.

Although Lyon is not far from Geneva, it still meant a 4.50 am wake up for me in order that I could meet up with the other guys for a 5.30 am depart in the PEV bus. Luckily, one of the riders’ dads had volunteered to drive us there so all we had to do was fit all the bikes on the roof and chill out for the next hour and a half in the not-so-plush van – less like the Discovery team bus, more like Derek Trotter’s three wheeler. All the other riders then proceeded to tuck into the weird and wonderful “magic” race food that is all part of the dark arts of cycle racing. One guy had an enormous tupperware bowl full of pasta smothered both with olive oil and apricot jam. Most of the others, however, had baked “gateaux de sport” – I’ve not seen these in England but they are basically allegedly sport-specific packet cakes that you mix up and cook the night before. One of the PEV guys had chivalrously baked me one as I had voiced concerns over what to eat and before Lyon I had eaten the whole thing. I reckon they must come from a time before scientifically manufactured energy bars etc and made me think of other “pearls of wisdom” I had heard from some of the PEV riders, eg that staying in the bath for longer than 10 minutes was bad for your muscles and so you must always time yourself to get out after nine minutes!!!

Once there, we picked up our numbers and timing chips and took a look at the opposition. There were apparently 2000 people taking part, though some were doing the 85km distance while others had opted for the untimed randonnée. I later found out that 558 other riders were doing the 139km ride with me and that for a significant part of them, this was a race to get as high a position/quick a time as possible. For the really top riders, there was an overall series competition over the whole season. As such, there were some frighteningly fit looking guys on expensive bikes. But the real giveaway for those taking it very seriously were the top of the range wheels in evidence. I even spotted a pair of Lightweights at around £2000 a pop. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was unbelievably friendly and it seemed like a significant proportion of the local population had turned out to wave us off. A couple of marshals at the start, seeing the names of Geneva-based sponsors on my jersey, even thanked me for turning up to their event.

We were given the off right on 9.00 am and an initially huge peloton cruised out of town. I hadn’t had time or opportunity to have much of a warm up but in any event, I wasn’t surprised to see my other clubmates jostling up at the front to get good positions while I languished at the back end. That was the last I would see of them until the finish line. I later heard that two elite riders broke away quite quickly and pretty much rode the whole way on their own. However, their names did not later appear on the official results list and I presume they were perhaps ineligible (may be even pros?).

The climbing started almost immediately and the field soon thinned out. I found myself with a group that was taking it seriously but who weren’t too quick for me and we effectively had our own race for the next 130 odd kms. None of the climbs were horribly difficult, being neither steep nor # too long, the shortest recognised col being around 3km, the longest around 11km. But of course, it’s all about how hard you ride up and at 25km/ph, I felt on the edge for the first 15km until we had a shortish descent in which I could recover. Amazingly enough, the whole field was already strung out by this point and I decided to try to move up to some other groups further down the road before the next big climb. I realised that it would be stupid to try to bridge too many gaps but at the same time, I felt the pressure of not keeping my other team-mates waiting at the finish as much as any pressure on myself to perform well.

In between the categorised climbs (which were rated in a completely indecipherable way that kept me guessing until the end), the road continued to undulate, quite violently at times so you had the sensation of pretty much permanently climbing. In addition, the weather was glorious but hot, with temperatures touching 30 degrees, and I quickly realised I was going through my water much too quickly given that the first food station was not until the 53rd km.

From what I could make out, the surrounding countryside was gorgeous but I have to admit that for most of the time I just stared at the wheel in front of me, at times hanging on for grim death. As we progressed, it became clear that we were all expected to do some work on the front as well and for large parts of the time we rode in pretty disciplined pace-lines until the climbs got steeper and longer. Despite the generally friendly ambience, there was very little chat as we rode, just like in a proper race and whenever an attempt was made to leave one group and bridge over to another, there were invariably other riders who jumped onto wheels to get across too.

I hadn’t decided finally before the race whether to stop at every food station but by the first I was seriously low on water and so filled up my bottle and grabbed some cakes and biscuits for good measure. I only stopped for 30 seconds or so but of course this meant I lost the group I had worked myself up to, most of whom did not stop. But as the event progressed I got into a situation where I would catch up, then pass those who had ridden on and it became clear to me that many of those who were not stopping were in fact not doing themselves any favours – by the end, I came in before all of those riders immediately around me who didn’t stop at the first or subsequent food stations.

I won’t bore you with the details of every climb and descent, save that some of the downhill sections were treacherous to say the least and I saw a couple of nasty casualties being tended to by the side of the road. Generally I felt surprisingly fresh and passed quite a lot of people on the climbs – I think I could perhaps have pushed myself a little harder but my priority in the first event of the season was to finish without killing or embarrassing myself. I had a mental target to come in under five hours and this became increasingly important to me as the kms ticked away. Somewhat humorously, by the last few kilometres it was clear that some guys were saving themselves for a sprint for position at the end. I thought this was pretty stupid seeing that we were so far down that the time of finishing was going to be the key determinant of performance but I suppose this is all part of the fun. As it turned out, one last sting in the tail of the course seemed to catch most of my group out and it was left to me and one another rider to come in together. He obviously wasn’t bothered where he came but I felt we should at least compete and so sprinted (if you can call it that) the last 50 metres to come in before him in 4 hours 57 minutes, much to his bemusement I think!

One of my clubmates had sprinted in third behind the two original escapees (who never appeared to be classified as I mentioned above) and so was named the winner of the 139km event – a really great performance and one which saw him come in nearly an hour before me. Another was 29th, while the guy who had finished second the previous year saw his hopes for 2005 dashed after two punctures. Needless to say, I was the last PEV rider to finish, just in the top half of the field but at least they didn’t have to wait too long for me and in any event I finished before the prizes were handed out to PEV’s Damien.

We then all sat down with the whole field for an amazingly tasty meal provided by the organisers. Just another example of the brilliant organisation of the whole event. They were no doubt helped in this by the fact that although the roads were not closed, French drivers seem to be amazingly tolerant to being stopped while riders come through and the majority seemed to pull over even without being asked to let groups ride past. This meant that while in general you had to ride on the right side of the road, you could pass by on the left without too much difficulty. I suppose it helps that the roads are much less busy than in the UK generally.

All that was left was to be driven back to Geneva while we planned the next events. Many of the PEV riders are out and out racers who only do cyclos when it suits their calendar but a few specialise in them and expect to finish high up in the placings. I’m never going to be in that position but they certainly provide a great outlet for competitive riding without the stress of being blown out of the back of proper races. And I’m certainly better at the longer, more endurance-based events. To those in the UK who have looked at the well-known cyclos, I would really recommend considering some of the other less famous events that go on. If nothing else, it makes for considerably easier organising and many go over pretty famous climbs after all. I am doing one in June that incorporates the Joux Plane where Armstrong famously bonked big-style in the Tour owing to not having eaten enough and several others go over well-known mountains etc. Most of those I am doing take place reasonably close to Geneva and any Wheelers that fancy giving one a go (as preparation for eg the Etape), feel free to give me a call as there is always space at my place for riders who are into Alpine suffer-fests.