Blog Posts

More planning for our tour of the Alps

Posted on by elliebees in Alps, News, Planning

So with our 6 cycling stages roughly planned, it was time to sort out, transport and accommodation.

Our current plan is to drive from Bristol down to Dover to catch a ferry over to France. The best way seems to be to hire a van for the bikes and a people carrier or minibus for, well for the people.

Small issue. Brexit. Currently no one can tell us if we can take a hire vehicle over to France this summer. So we have put the transport issue to one side for now.

Accommodation was a slightly easier task. Online hotel booking tools are so much help with this. Hannah and Eloise sat down on Sunday and booked almost all our overnight stays. There was a bit of juggling involved when a place couldn’t be found in exactly the right town. It was important to check what difference it would make to our planned routes. It might only be 3 miles from the town we want to stay, but its no good if its 3 miles off route.

The biggest issue we found was trying to find accommodation in L’Alpe d’Huez. It is one of the bigger places we wanted to stay. It wasn’t until we received a helpful email from one of the chalets we had contacted about availability that we found out that it is Alpe d’Huzes Dutch Charity week . This a major Dutch charity event that happens every year, competitors either compete as individuals or in teams with the aim of cycling up the 21 Bends at least 6 times in one day.

We are now currently planning a bit of a re-route so that we don’t need to stay in L’Alpe d’Huez overnight.

Our first challenge of 2019

Posted on by bristolmilemonkeys in Alps, Challenges, News

This years first challenge is to conquer as many of the famous alpine climbs as we can in 6 days.

Where is the challenge taking place?

This year we are basing our challenge in the French Alps. We will be doing a clockwise circular tour taking as many of the climbs as we can. Due to logistics we will be doing the whole route on our bikes rather than getting a mini bus between the climbs.

On average we will be doing about 65 miles a day and about 10,000 ft of climbing.

Some of the climbs we will be tackling are Col d’Iseran, Col du Télégraphe, Col du Galibier, Alpe d’Huez, Lacets de Montvernier , Col de la Croix de Fer, Col de la Madeleine.

When is the Challenge?

We are planning to do this at the beginning of June, hopefully the conditions will be good and all the snow will have melted.

Who is taking part?

We currently have 6 riders taking part, some from our previous mountain challenge and some new faces.

So it’s that time again!

Posted on by lola1331 in News, training

The snow is on the floor outside, I have a dreadful cold and as I have a lung scrub I can’t risk training again, until it’s gone and off my chest. I have worked really hard on my fitness and TT riding style since the autumn of 2018 and now my mind is telling me that I have lost all that hard work since not being able to train or even sit on a bike for two weeks!

However something else is keeping my drive and determination to get back to full fitness in check.

“GETTING THE BAND BACK TOGETHER”!!!!

You see the Monkeys and I live very separate lives and though Mitch and I ride together quite a bit even when not on Florence, the other guys and girls go off do their thing and then much to my constant surprise return to “Rock Out” with me as the urban collective that is “The Bristol Mile Monkeys”.

I am putting the band back together this year for not 1 but 2 massive adventure challenges and these challenges will be in support of not 1 but 2 amazing non corporate charity’s that are very relevant to us and hugely important to the masses !

There will be a couple new Monkeys which is not only exciting but brilliant to think that others “get it and us” !

So while I do the rounds and put the band back into the training studio, take care people, “Out” .

~ Nick

Winter training miles

Posted on by bristolmilemonkeys in News, training

View on Instagram http://bit.ly/2RgdmvL

Mitch and Nick banking more important training miles today for the year ahead 😎

It’s so brilliant to see Mitch back on a bike ! 👍

Sadly an awful lot of dreadful stuff has happened to someone very close to him 😔 When he is good and ready to talk about it he will do his best to explain how this will drive him and the other Monkeys through this year’s challenges and why him and Nick want to give a little back to the trust that has so brilliantly supported his loved one 👍

Stay tuned there is loads of good stuff and announcements to come in the next month or so 😎

👍 “Monkeys See Monkeys Do”

👍 “Don’t Forget To Breathe” 😍

#trainingmiles
#cycling
#wintermiles
#keepbreathing

Merry Christmas from all the Bristol Mile Monkeys⠀

Posted on by elliebees in News
We would like to thank you all for your support this year, what we do wouldn’t be possible without our sponsors, our supporters, our friends and families, you have been there for us not only for the challenges but also for the training and the preparation. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️⠀

View on Instagram https://ift.tt/2LuIMbD

Route Planning

Posted on by elliebees in Alps, Challenges, News, Planning

One of our first steps in planning is our routes.   We need to work out where we will be stopping each night so we can book our accommodation.  We also need to make sure that the distances and climbing each day is achievable.  There is a difference between challenging ourselves and being broken on the second day.  Its not just the riders we have to consider but also our support crew.  Their day doesn’t stop once the cyclists have finished, so we need to make sure the days aren’t too long for them as well.

So this week we sat down with the Strava website to create our routes.  We have now 6 days of routes planned with some amazing and iconic climbs.   Most of the days will be about 65 miles with 10,000 feet of climbing.  We will be doing some of the classic cols such as Col du Galibier, Col de la Croix de Fer, Col du Telegraphe, Alpe d’Huez, Lacet de Montvernier, Col de la Maderleine.

Next step will be planning on how we get to ourselves and all the bikes over to the Alps.