Haute Route Tips

Although the Haute Route really begins many months before you cross the start line at the event, while you can’t cram in last minute training or stretching a week before the event, there are some final week preparation activities in combination with your tapering program that you can undertake to make transition into the event seamless.

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The Ronde Van Vlaanderen

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Guest Blogger: Nigel Manson

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

From the opening lines of Dante’s Inferno.

A few years ago, when I was in my late thirties, I found myself in my own ‘forest dark’. Restless at work, lacking focus, and feeling empty and lost, I could feel midlife cloying around me like an itch I couldn’t scratch. The crisis was sure to happen, but what would it be? I could leverage up and buy an Aston Martin… or I could dye my hair back to the colour of my youth, wear black jeans and a leather jacket, and have a ridiculous affair with an inappropriate 25yr-old dirty blonde? OR, I could take up a ridiculous pasttime where I could set myself some ridiculous goals, obsess about data to the nth degree and equip myself with some hi-tech, weapons-grade kit. And so I found cycling. I honestly thought I’d made the choice that would be both better for my marriage and cheaper. In hindsight, I was probably wrong on both counts. (more…)

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To Hell and Back

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Guest blogger: By Michael Edwards

Paris Roubaix….two words that have echoed in the very deep of my cycling soul since the first time I saw the images of De Vlaeminck and Merckx fighting their way over the cobbles. Finally, early last year, after seasons of looking on aghast at the racing in this ‘Queen of the Classics’ I decided it was time.

Having done the Marmotte with La Fuga I knew that the Hell of the North needed the sort of guardian angel service that Ian and the team offer. This trip promised to be hard enough as it was. (more…)

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