Megeve Time Bike Race Review

Ali from 44 South in Morzine gives us a run down of her recent road bike race the Time Megeve....

The Time Megeve is one of the classic French Sportives, and has a reputation as being one of the toughest due to the climbs in it, and this year’s 25th anniversary edition was no exception.

It is cleverly designed with short, medium and long routes that add onto one another to allow riders to decide which distance during the ride (more on this later!) It boils down to 2, 3 or 4 climbs, a climb being 12–14km and 800–1000m of altitude, give or take a metre or two. As James put it you’ll probably be able to do all the distances but it depends whether you want to enjoy it or be in pieces at the end.

It is incredibly well organised with food stops, or RAVITs as I soon learnt in French, at the top of each climb. This is a French food stop we are talking about so there is baguette with a couple different types of local sausages and cheeses, and the usual bananas, cereal bars etc. What really set them apart was the willing volunteers to pass you what you can stomach/fancy and fill your drink bottle and be incredibly encouraging and cheerful.

The Day of the Ride

This time, being seasoned experts at the whole sportive thing, we remembered everything and even managed to be early, very early. So we had lots of time for the usual phaffing and have a catch up with a few familiar faces in the car park. It mostly gave lots of time for the nerves to set in as a couple thousand people arrived with much fancier bikes than mine, a fair few shaved legs and packed to the max with energy gels and sports drinks. My cheddar sandwich, cereal bar and emergency Freddo that has now done a fair few rides didn’t quite fit in! But getting into the starting area and chatting to the people around us allayed some of the nerves as we found a lot of people were just there for the “short” ride (at 80km and 2 TdF climbs!) as well as the middle. Not many takers for the long one then?

We had found out in the ride info about the cut off times that, alongside the actual terrain make the Time Megeve the challenge that it is, and they are fairly brutal. 1pm at the Col d’Aravis else you get turned around to go back down it for the middle distance. This is after climbing the Col des Saisies from both sides, also TdF climbs, and some bone-shattering descending.

It was always going to be touch and go to make it, and after 4 ½ hours of riding I arrived at 1:10. I’d like to say I was gutted that I couldn’t do the long route (another 40km and 1000m of climbing) but by the time a huge clap of thunder reverberated around us, and we started being pelted with hail 2km from the top, I think I was quite relieved.

I rode the 12km up to the Col with a couple French guys from Paris and using the event as preparation for the Etape du Tour in July. We made a good team as we all tried to make the top in time. They had many more miles in their legs than I had after years of road riding, but I had the not so secret weapon of a triple chainset and being based in the mountains.

The volunteer at the top deserves special mention. He not only took hold of my bike, but also refilled my water bottles while I went under the cover of the tent to put my “waterproof” on. It was a quick turnaround as I wanted to get down off the col as the rain, hail, thunder and lightning were awful. I had thought I would pull in once down a bit and take shelter as it was now raining and hailing so hard I could feel each bullet passing straight through my jacket and within 30 seconds was drenched. However cold hands, wet brakes and steep hills had another plan as I found I couldn’t actually stop so on I rolled.

The reason for telling all this is 20km later (10 down 10 up) I arrived back in Megeve and crossed the finish line to some cheers from the very brave people still outside. My name was announced on the loudspeaker with my time, flashed up on the results board as well, and I was actually a little disappointed it was all over. James had arrived a couple minutes before me and was at the car about to put his bike in. We excitedly talked about the ride and were planning next year’s attempt, and what training we would need to do to do the Big one, all the while still drenched and cold.

If you had told me a couple years ago that I would really enjoy riding a bike predominately uphill for 5 hours I would have thought that was the most ridiculous idea. That’s how enjoyable the ride was, as I was finishing I was planning how I could do more of it for longer next year.

Its not a ride to be taken lightly, as even the short course has almost 2000m of climbing in, but with the three options and the ability to choose (or not!) mid-ride it means you can see how you go. As we found with minimal hill preparation you will make it around and enjoy it, and I’m proof that riding big hills in the Alps doesn’t need to be reserved for the experienced who do thousands of miles a year.

A word of warning, sportives and riding bikes up hills is addictive – who’d have thought it!

44 South operate a catered chalet in Morzine which you can use as a base for cycling, mountain biking and hiking holidays.

For more information on road biking around Morzine, check out our guide to cycling & some of the routes on offer.