Joe with Stephen Roche
Hats off to Joe Langford who has just completed a 4 day Alpine Challenge event based at Annecy in the French Savoie region. Joe needed special dispensation to ride as he is not yet 18.
Riding in breathtaking scenery, Joe completed the ride which was about 110 km per day and a total of over 8000 meters of ascent in fine style wearing the club jersey. Following a stunning warm up ride around Lake Annecy on arrival, the events started with a timed mountain Prologue which is used to seed riders into appropriate groups.
Joe
Thereafter, 3 mountain stages followed, scaling some of the famous Tour de France mountain climbs such as the Cols des Aravis, Col de la Crox Fry, Semnoz and Col de la Forclaz. Each day there was a flagged timed climb, with the aggregate times deciding the Leaders Jersey winners (male and female).
Joe got a photo of himself with Stephen Roche (winner of the Tour de France, Tour of Italy and the world Championship triple in 1987), and also met Magnus Backstedt (winner of the classic Paris Roubaix race in 2004)
The event is televised on Eurosport 1 this Friday the 12th, after the Live Vuelta coverage at 16.45 and repeated at 21.45 if anyone would like to see what it was all about.