Hot ticket

Rookie Anna Gardiner straps in for ride of her life at a scorching L'Étape du Tour, the world's biggest and arguably best mass participation event

- Anna Gardiner

There were no qualifying events, so how hard could it be? That was one of my initial thoughts when Cycling Plus, through holiday firm Sportive Breaks, suggested, close to Christmas last year, that I ride and report from the 2023 L'Etape du Tour. It's a ride that, for 30 years now, has been giving amateur riders the chance to ride a key stage of the Tour de France, on closed roads. With thousands of riders taking part each July, it might not be the toughest one-day ride in the world, but it's certainly the most prestigious and the most recognisable within the cycling community. I was new-ish to road cycling and had only heard about it second-hand, but knowing this was enough for me to instantly say yes... and then worry about the rest later!

In January, once Christmas was in the rear-view mirror, I knuckled down to training, which roughly followed a plan on the Etape's website. I was largely starting from scratch as, following the 2022 Ride London event, which I'd written about in Cycling Plus, I'd fallen again for my first love: running. It's obviously not training from the ground floor, though, as I have years of endurance training in my back pocket, and that does help. I kept a copy of the course route in front of my Wattbike, boosting my training motivation through the long winter of 2022/23. The 157km with 4,100m of ascent, from Annemasse to Morzine, captivated and bothered me. The course profile was like a sawtooth. Three category 1 climbs (Col de Cou, Col de Feu and Col de la Ramaz), all before a brutal finale on the hors catégorie Col de Joux Plane, one of the most feared climbs in the pro peloton, with its 11.6km over an average gradient of 8.5%. It'd be wretched in isolation, let alone at the end of a long. hot day.