By now I know that it takes a while. Back home, looking at photos, I’m still up there. Still unable to explain. But with so many more people that don’t need an explanation anymore. Over two and a half thousand riders and so many supporters. Among them my colleagues who climbed with me: Rob, Marco, Evert Jan, Wim, Carola, Marco, Michel and Jansje. Our support crew: Michiel, Sander and of course Anna.

And if it’s impossible to describe what it’s like to ride Alpe d’HuZes, then how am I going to describe climbing the mountain for the sixth and final time, together with Edzard, my brother?

Axel and Edzard finish Alpe d'HuZes

Axel is descending for his last, 6th, climb. He’s going to do it with his brother, Edzard. Then we are going to rest, a little massage and jacuzzi, delicious pasta a la Michiel.

So, there we are. Axel has done his first climb. He was at 6:20 at the top. A banan and warm cloths on ad there he went. And I wait. I will keep you informed.
Anna

Busblog

Amsterdam to Copenhagen in a taxivan. This is supposed to be aviation. 800km is too long to spend blaming Iceland, but the seats are starting to hurt. Then again, in the last 2 weeks I rode 1100km on a carbon saddle. That hurts too. Not the saddle, though people never believe an unpadded saddle can be comfortable, but that’s another rant. No, the hurt of riding off for the fifth day in a row, knowing it’s going to be another 100 odd kilometers. The legs seem to know and complain with all the residual fatigue that you spent so much time building up. If there is such a thing. After about 30.000 Kcal of cycling in this fortnight, I wonder. Because once I’ve found my pace, the hurt is gone. It’s 3 hours and 100k later and I feel fine. Granted, the weather helps. Even the wind died down and the skies were clear. The gusty conditions made it a bit harder to find a steady pace. Being a lightweight is not an advantage here. But really, I’ve been climbing mountains. It’s been growing on my mind, steadily. Funny, because when I passed through the Swiss Alps a few weeks back, I didn’t get that tingle of anticipation, a weird combination of apprehension, eagerness and hunger. I can call it up now, driving through the flattest part of Germany. June 3rd, appointment with the Alp.

That ride through Switzerland had a different purpose. On the 21st of March I rode my first Individual Pursuit on the boards of the Velodromo Montichiari. That’s what the red bike in the steed gallery is built for. I’ve been riding the track for over a year and searching for just as long to race in the greatest event in cycling. That’s my conviction, which was solidly confirmed in Montichiari. Let me explain by paraphrasing Dr. Andy Coggan, excercise fysiologist and co-author of Training and racing with a Powermeter. The individual pursuit is a deceptively simple event which favors individuals with very high aerobic capacity together with a well developed anaerobic capacity. That means you need to be able to deliver a huge amount of oxygen to your muscles and be able to deal with the consequences when it runs out. How do you find out? You put your bike (1 gear, no freewheel, no brakes) in the middle of the straight part of the 250m wooden track, while your opponent does the same on the opposite straight. An official holds your bike during the countdown. Five seconds, five beeps, then the long beep and you go. Since you only have one gear you need to choose well beforehand. Too small and you spin out at top speed. Too big and you can’t get up too speed. Out of the saddle, It starts with lots of force to accelerate, but not balls-out. You just want cruise speed when you sit down and tuck into the aeeodynamic position going into the second curve. 0 to 50 in 150m. Now’s the time to remember Coggan’s rule:
Don’t start to hard
Don’t start to hard
Don’t start to hard
If you push 2 or 3 laps half a second too fast, you pay dearly in the last half of the race. It’s only 12 laps, 3000m. But those last 6 are on another planet. I glanced at the display and saw 54kmh going into lap 2. Too fast. Back off a little. Digging in at what seemed fast, but not stupid fast, I focussed on the black line and waited for the hurt to come. In hindsight I waited too long, because I had some left in the tank and actually accelerated in the last 2 laps. I’m obviously not breaking any records here, but a 3:39 on my first try and 2nd place in the race are results I’m pleased with. A good target to improve on. Which means improving me, coz’ the bike can’t get much faster. Well, Bradley Wiggins, 2 time Olympic Pursuit Champion, used the Giro d’Italia with it’s endless climbs to prepare. Like I needed more motivation to go climbing. On June 3rd, I’ll be climbing the Alpe d’Huez 6 times. Starting this year, we stop the count after 6, so I’m going to make each one count. As hard as I can. Not because that is important, but because it’s all I can do that day.

Actually it isn’t even keeping up. More like catching up, with my brother Edzard. I try hard, but he’s just there, somewhere up ahead. Ticks me off. I’m not talking about cycling of course (though that uphill sprint we did hurt me as much as it hurt him). I’m not talking abut his blogging efforts either. There nearly as unimpressive as mine. What’s not unimpressive is the €10.000 his team has already racked up, plus at least another €10.000 their auction pulled in yesterday. Real money. Team Transavia is not exactly slacking off either. We’re steadily approaching the magical €10.000 ourselves with the sale of out lottery tickets coming up to steam. Read about the lottery here (Dutch).

In short, you can win a weeks holiday with Club Med in Marrakech, 3 days in Nice, and 3 days in Berlin with Kras Reizen. Flights included, of course, from Amsterdam with transavia.com. And tons of other prizes.

But speaking of slacking off, it’s time for a ride.

An unexpected four day trip for the boss left me with some catching up to do. I just read that while I was away, on the 18th, Herman Houweling died from colon cancer. I met Herman on the Ventoux, where I had the privilege to do my fourth climb in his company. He was in between treatments then. Herman decided that while his doctors were battling his disease, he would fight cancer on another level. The man raised a lot of money and inspired many to join him. A fine human being and now he’s gone.

We try to make some sense, or find some balance, in misery. We do that in all sorts of ways and I’m no different. I tell myself that it is the driving force, my motivation, to keep climbing. You know what? I’m plenty motivated, so enough already. There is no need, none.

And then Anna tells me that Piotreks’ doctors can’t operate on his tumor. He’s been in and out of hospital throughout his teenage years. What will happen now, no one knows yet.

Axel, Klaas en Herman, Ven2-4Cancer 2009

Not what I'd call perfect riding weather

Yes, that’s my bike. In front of my house. Since the picture, it snowed some more. The good news is, they ran out of road salt, so the environment can rejoice. As can all objects metal. Meanwhile, I’m on the rollers, taking it easy, as I appear to be stuck with the obligatory New Years Cold. That reminds me, best wishes everyone, here’s to good health! And to thaw. The ice on the lakes isn’t much good for skating and as you can see, we’ve got the pictures, so we’re done. Thank you, go away.

Luckily, it’s tracktime tomorrow. I’ll explain later.

That’s what you get for volunteering. Getting the teammembers registered took most of the afternoon. Perhaps more on that subject some other time. But 8 riders can now begin their race, for hard cash, that is. More stuff to do, but it’s a good start. Of course, I’ve run out of daylight, so I missed a rare rainless day. To give an idea of recent weather; November had exactly 2 days without rain. So it’s a ride inside, tonight. Or actually, an InsideRide . This thing is …awesome. I guess that’s the  word to describe something really good and (hand)made in the USA. It’s a set of rollers, as you can see in the link, but different. Normal rollers can be a bit of a nerve wrecking experience, particularly if you’re trying to use them for something other than a short warm-up. The first time you try it, you fall off and you’re convinced it’s impossible (the majority of road cyclists are not exactly acrobats). It isn’t, but it does take practise and concentration. So much concentration that any ride at any intensity leaves most of us mentally exhausted after about 45 minutes. The indoor training alternative most end up with is something like a TACX ergotrainer. Very easy to ride, because the rear wheel is clamped into the trainer and a magnetic brake applies resistance to the tire. It’s also very unnatural, because the bike can’t move in any direction. I’ve got one and I’ve used it a lot, it’s a ‘virtual reality’ model that connects to your PC. You can race computer opponents or climb Alpe d’Huez. Very nifty; you’re looking at an actual video recording of the climb while the computer adjusts the resistance according to the grade of the climb you are on. But there’s something missing. I love climbing, but I never use this feature. There’s one thing about the Tacx trainer I don’t want to do without; pre-programmed training sessions like intervals. They’re great. Well, they’re not, because they really hurt, but you set up a ‘ride’ where the computer hits you with something like 4 minutes of high wattage, then low wattages to recover. Then repeat ad nauseam (sometimes quite literally). You don’t have to time yourself or think, you just have to keep up. But training on this thing too long, too often, it feels like my braincells are leaving my body with the sweat. Mind-numbingly boring.

The InsideRide rollers allowed me to do out-of-the-saddle efforts at high intensity on my first ride, last night. You can set the intensity from free-spinning to cry-for-your-mother hard. There’s nothing to clamp/attach/install onto the bike. No cables. I can use my trackbike as well as the roadbike. It doesn’t require electrical power. Put bike on and go. It feels like you’re actually riding your bike (which you are). And best of all, I will never again have to abort a training session because of compatibility issues with Windows…

The  Team is go. Ten colleagues have signed up for the challenge. And we’ve got a lot to do. €30.000, in fact. There, I’ve said it. A lot of money, really. Damn Coen and his love for unrealistic goals. It’s contagious. But it’s like Peter said to himself, when after first riding up the Ventoux, he went back down and started running up the 22km climb; “You dumb son of a …”. Too late, of course, because you never, ever quit. Damn him, too.

Well, I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to put me in charge (sort of), but I’m teamcaptain. That basically means that apart from spamming would-be sponsors, I get to spam all my teammates. Choice. On a sidenote: If you’re reading this and wondering what I’m talking about, click the “About” tab and read up. It’s a simple story.

First thing was to activate the teampage, and here it is: The Transavians
Work in progress, obviously, but the donations can be made at the above link already (with Ideal direct banking). Or you can click here if you can’t use Ideal. I’m not saying you should donate just because I’m going to climb that mountain, again. I’m saying you should donate, because of reasons I don’t know. But you do. Everyone has a story. Some hit close to home, others you take in from a distance. But it’s a certainty that has to end.

Where I’m from, that’s a lot of money. Tonight we handed that amount over to KWF Kankerbestrijding, the Dutch cancer fund. There, amidst an amazing group of people, I realized something. We just set another record in fundraising, completed a year of much hard work, we were, quite simply, more than successful. But the celebration was fairly short. I looked at faces and saw more determination than pride, more concentration than relaxation. Don’t get me wrong, there is pride in all this, and seeing that insane number gives everyone a kick. Sense of achievement is an understatement. But the cold hard facts were there, for all to see. This year, 80.000 people in the Netherlands will get cancer. 8 million human beings will die of cancer this year. That does nothing to belittle our efforts.  It’s just simply unacceptable. ‘Understanding Life’ is the global project that’s going to change these numbers. Cancer as a chronic disease, instead of fatal. In 10 years. Of course that’s a dream. Now we need a lot of people, working their ass off to make it happen. I just signed in the Transavia.com team. Some awesome colleagues of mine will be giving it all on June third next year. What are you going to do?