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Alp D'Huez is the most famous road cycling climb in the world so when we were out filming some of the best road bikes, Cycling Weekly videographer Ed fancied a go at the famous pro cycling climb. He rode a gravel bike to a very respectable 1:07 up the alp but wondered if he could climb Alp D'Huez in under an hour...
In this video we make some bike upgrades to make Ed's faster at climbing hills and look for other ways in which to climb faster on the bike - Can he climb Alp D'Huez in under an hour?
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0:00
Come on
0:01
Up! Up! Up! This is Ed. I'm so hot
0:12
Come on, you'll normally find him behind a camera, just like he is now
0:17
Ed likes riding his bike, but isn't usually overly concerned about the tech on it
0:23
However, we're currently on a trip to Alp Juez, and after an effort up the famous climb yesterday
0:29
he's got a target can he go sub one hour so how much quicker at climbing can we make him
0:36
make sure you're subscribed and let's find out yesterday ed decided to take on the world's most famous climb alpdues 21 switchbacks a pure french
0:51
emotion and gurning and it's safe to say that we were surprised he did it in a very respectable
0:57
time of one hour seven minutes and 31 seconds the only issue is it's a little bit too respectable
1:03
and a little bit too close to going under an hour a target for many an amateur cyclist so today we
1:10
rest and tomorrow when the fog clears we go again in order to try and hit his target we've come up
1:17
with a plan a he's going to pace it better more on that in a minute and b i've been tasked with
1:23
trying to make him and his bike as fast as possible so i've dug around and i'm pulling out
1:28
all the stops because i just know that it's going to be a very long drive back to the uk
1:32
if he doesn't manage it so the bike this is what he used for his first effort it's a pearson on and on gravel bike
1:51
which I know Ed's been absolutely loving and has been using for all sorts of riding from
1:56
bikepacking across Europe to commuting and of course some road riding too. Now this probably
2:03
isn't the bike from Pearson's locker that they would put forwards first for a hill climb effort
2:08
but it is what Ed's used to and so I think it's definitely worth sticking with it. There are a few
2:14
things though that we can definitely hill climb-ify so let's go through it and I'll tell you some of
2:20
the time savings that I expect each upgrade to make. Right firstly and I think this is where the
2:28
biggest gains are going to come from the wheels and the tyres. I literally have no idea where Ed
2:35
found these tyres but let's just say I'm pretty sure they were chosen based on maybe their colour
2:41
and maybe their puncture protection rather than any kind of performance characteristic
2:46
so we're going to switch them out for something much much lighter and hopefully much faster so
2:53
these brown monstrosities are designed for touring and the average budget wire beaded 32 millimeter
3:01
touring tire will produce around 28 watts of rolling resistance per tire at 28.8 kilometers
3:08
per hour. Now this is a Continental GP5000 STR and as you can see it has no wire bead. It is a
3:16
folding tyre. In fact the most popular folding tyre in the World Tour Peloton and this has
3:22
something more like the rolling resistance of 10 watts per tyre at 28.8 kilometers per hour
3:29
So by changing these I reckon we're going to save ed around 18 watts at 12 kilometers per hour
3:36
Now that is not to be scoffed at, as I think it can make him around three and a half minutes
3:41
quicker over this hour long climb in rolling resistance alone Now as he riding at a constant speed with no accelerations I also work out how much time we think he can save by weight savings altogether in a minute
3:56
Now, another nice big chunk of weight saving can come from your wheels
4:00
Now, Ed has been using a set of 45 mil deep Vision SC wheels
4:05
which are certainly no slouch. These, however, are Vision's latest Metron 45 RS wheels
4:12
The most popular wheels in the pro peloton and the choice of no fewer than four men's world tour teams
4:21
Why? Well they are really light. Sub 1,300 grams in fact. A full 250 grams lighter than the ones
4:29
that they replace. They also have carbon fiber spokes for maximum stiffness and power transfer
4:36
They've got ceramic bearings to make sure they spin as freely as possible and this aerodynamic
4:41
profile which has been proven to be very stable in cross winds as well. Now I'm not sure that the
4:47
aerodynamics are going to be the biggest issue that Ed faces whilst going up Alpe d'Huez. On his
4:53
last all-out effort Ed managed 10.7 km per hour and his target speed for the next one is 12 km per
5:00
hour. They should give him a nice boost on the descent though and that leads me on to one other
5:06
upgrade that we're making. Ed was previously using standard butyl inner tubes but I'm replacing them
5:12
with a set of these. TPU tubes. Now TPU tubes are not only significantly lighter but they also
5:20
should roll a bit quicker. A pair of these are around 250 grams lighter than the ones that they
5:26
replace and you know what they say, every little helps. Now we'll top that saving up in a moment
5:33
But I reckon from a rolling resistance point of view, probably one to two watts
5:41
It's not a lot, but it might be a few seconds. Right, Ed, come over here
5:48
So I've downloaded your previous effort and compared it against a time which has got an hour, okay
5:54
What happened here was you can see that you were very quick for the first K and a half
6:00
Yeah. And then I think, well, this bit here, I think there might have been a bit of a blow up
6:05
Yeah. Yeah? There's that sort of... Yeah. The issue with the climb of Alp Dues is that you can see it actually starts off pretty steep
6:12
and then sort of gets a little bit shallower as you go on. Yeah
6:16
Now, what that means, there is more time to be gained when you're traveling slower
6:20
When you're traveling faster on the flatter sections, there's more aerodynamic drag and that's a..
6:26
It's not exponential, but we're not getting into that. On the steeper bits, you do need to ride a little bit harder, but probably not as hard as you did
6:34
Okay. So you might have also noticed that I've made some changes to your bike
6:38
Yeah. Hopefully they will help. I reckon they could help to the tune of like around five minutes
6:44
Yeah. I will believe that when I see it. It still leaves you with at least two minutes, maybe two and a half minutes of extra
6:53
That I have to do. Yeah. Really. Exactly. So if I do exactly the same thing you did last time
6:57
mathematically, I'd go five minutes faster. Yes. So I need to find another two and a half minutes in myself
7:03
You do indeed. Right. Let's get you to the bottom. Yeah, let's do it
7:07
Get on with it. Yep. Question. I was thinking about this while I was, well
7:17
failing to get to sleep last night. Line choice, right? Line choice
7:23
Yeah. So if I'm going around the hairpins, what I did last time, because they're flat, I was like, oh great, I'll use this to recover
7:28
I went as wide as possible but technically that cover more distance So if I go tighter in on a hairpin then technically it a shorter distance right I think we clutching at straws Ed Clutching at straws The things that we
7:43
been tweaking on the bike. We're taking the bottle cage off, for God's sake. You asked me if I could
7:48
shave my legs yesterday. Yeah, and you haven't. No, I'm not going to because I'm not a poser
7:52
Don't start taking it seriously now if you're not going to shave your legs. I've only got about
7:56
four hairs on them anyway. What difference would it make? You know, when you crash and you need Matt to give you a deep tissue massage
8:05
don't come crying to me when it hurts. Don't need that
8:20
Spent six quid on that. I can't work out if I've gone out too hard or not
9:04
I think it's better than last time. It's hard to say though. It's actually ran something easy up this bit
9:19
You're catching someone. Let's go up again. Come on, come on, come on
9:39
Just chuck it when you're done with it. Thank you. You're over halfway
9:47
Keep it up. It says Ed on the road somewhere up here
10:53
Come on! Up, up, up
11:08
Ah I going to take a seat Oh man Thank you very much That looks hard I feel like I did it faster I don know if I did it seven minutes faster but
11:29
Well, let's have a look. Break the news gently. There's a cliff right there
11:38
Okay. On the lap. No way. One hour. So I was 31 seconds off, I forgot to say
11:48
I was 16 seconds slower than you. Right, where's that cliff? Thanks to Vision for sponsoring this video
12:00
and helping us make Ed a full seven minutes quicker in just two days
12:04
If you want to get faster on your bike or just want to check out these World Tour favourite wheels
12:09
then we'll pop a link down in the description below. Or there is a whole range of Vision wheels to suit a whole range of budgets
12:14
Vision's range spans from the Team i23 wheels to the SC range, the very popular Metron SL wheels
12:22
and of course the carbon-spoke Metron RS wheels, which feature the brand's latest ratchet system in the tallest lightweight rear hub
12:30
We're pretty confident that they've got all bases covered. To discover the whole range, there's a link in the description below
12:37
Right, back to the video. Well, you climbed quite a long way, didn't you
12:44
It's amazing on the first hairpins how you sort of feel like, Oh God, I've got so much left
12:48
Now you look down, you're like, I've actually covered quite a lot. Yeah, just the three first hairpits
12:52
Yeah, yeah. That's probably bigger than most climbs in the UK. And then you've got another 18
12:58
So you're not too disappointed, are you? No, I'm not disappointed at all. Like, there's a part of me thinking
13:03
where could I have saved 31 seconds? Well, next year, we'll come back
13:07
We'll find the excuse to come back to Alpec D'Huez. Yeah. And you can give it another go. We'll film it for you guys
13:12
and see if you can go under an hour. I'll see if there's anything else we can upgrade on the bike
13:18
Yeah. I mean, we saved seven minutes over the course of the last two days
13:24
Seven minutes in two days. If we did come back next year and I make a few lifestyle changes
13:29
then, you know, I should be able to do it a sub hour
13:33
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And how did the bike feel? The bike felt great. I mean, I love this bike anyway
13:37
I love it with the other tyres because they're like my touring tyres and whatnot. But with the wheel and tyre swap like it did
13:42
I'm not going to say it felt like it was flying because I was absolutely shattered. but like it was very, very noticeable
13:47
Yeah. And considering, you know, this is like a gravel adventure frame
13:52
you know, I've taken it for a two week long tour with panning racks and whatnot. So you can have it as that
13:56
and then you can make a few changes to it and then do a sub, okay, an hour and 31 minute
14:02
but you could probably do a sub one hour outdoors on it for the same bike that can also take 45 mil tires
14:07
That's pretty impressive. Like it just shows how much, how versatile a frame can be
14:11
Yeah. And I think I would definitely rather upgrade my wheels and tires than my frame yeah definitely and it seems like that is where the where a lot of
14:19
gains are made especially if we're if we are now to do a flat time trial like a deeper wheel a more
14:26
aerodynamic wheel yeah we'll we'll have a have a double benefit there as well yeah absolutely and
14:32
it's a you know potentially a more cost-effective upgrade than upgrading your frame and an easy one
14:38
to make too yeah just buy them bolt them on there's certainly less waste for them just buying a whole
14:43
new bike. Yeah. Well, if you want to see more of this bike, then we do actually have another video
14:48
coming up with Ed talking about how versatile gravel bikes are. So if you don't want to miss
14:53
that, then please make sure you're subscribed. If you enjoyed this type of content, then please
14:58
give it a like. Leave a comment down below on how we can make Ed even faster
15:03
And we'll see you next time. Right. That's going to get you warm
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