Cyclopaat, an alter ego with a twist
Coming from a basically pancake-flat country – he actually lives below sea level, on the world’s largest artificial island – it’s amazing how much Cyclopaat likes cycling the Alps.
Even on a good day, he’s an average climber at best, but he claims it’s all about the views.
That is, he isn’t bad at it, but as he’s insane, he cycles multiple passes every day, for up to two weeks.
On this page you can find all information about my participation in the Alpe d’HuZes challenge 2012, Bike Rebel WITH a cause for once.
(Nederlandse versie hier)
Alpe d’HuZes is an initiative to raise funds for cancer research; the participants help fight cancer by cycling up the Alpe d’Huez a maximum of six times one day. They raise funds by finding sponsors that are willing to donate money; this can be either a fixed amount or for instance an (increasing) amount per climb they accomplish.
The name, Alpe d’HuZes, is a contraction of the Dutch word for six – ‘zes’ – and the name of the mountain. It is endorsed by the KWF Kankerbestrijding (the Dutch Cancer Society), LiveStrong Foundation and Inspire2Live.
The dream – the ultimate goal – is for cancer to evolve from a deadly disease into a chronic illness. The guys from Team AD6 Tweets share this dream and for that they participated in Alpe d’HuZes 2012.
“If at first an idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it” – Albert Einstein
As the offspring of a bunch of spinning (RPM) fanatics, The Bike Rebels called themselves Spin Doctors at first.
After they bought hybrid “ATB” bicycles by the end of 2003, they expanded their activities – much like the mob – into the outside world.
Despite the much enjoyed activities they undertook together, the group fell apart after a while…
Since that time, Robert and his beloved Paula keep the legend alive, especially Robert’s half-witted alter ego Cyclopaat1, the ultimate Bike Rebel…
After ravaging the south of the Netherlands, the Ardennes and the Eifel, he wandered off into the high mountains in South-Eastern Germany (Berchtesgaden), Italy, Austria, Switzerland and France for some serious mountain climbing vacations…
He also participated in the Alpe d’HuZes challenge in 2012 – a fund raising event to help cancer research, climbing the alp several times in one day – and obtained the “Cinglé du Mont Ventoux” and the “Brevet des 7 Cols de l’Ubaye”.
In retrospect, it probably all was a midlife crisis that went horribly wrong 🙂
1 Cyclopaat is the nickname he carries like a badge of honor. It’s actually a contraption of the words cyclosportive and psychopath (or sociopath – he was in doubt about that). The Dutch words are ‘psychopaat’ and ‘sociopaat’, hence it’s Cyclopaat instead of Cyclopath…
(Dutch here)
Between May 11 and 17, we were with all but one members of Team AD6 Tweets on a training camp for Alpe d’HuZes in the French mountains.
We were stationed in Les Ménuires – Réberty, 10 kilometers north of Val Thorens, a beautiful albeit almost completely deserted area, because the (winter) season ends mid-May here.
Paula and I picked up Stefan on Thursday and we arrived on Friday, a day ahead of the rest.
So, after settling into the apartment, Stefan and I went out for a first ride.
From the apartment we headed down towards Moutiers, where we turned around to make our way back up again: a solid 1500 altimeters to ‘warm up’.
Not that we needed to warm up in the true sense of the words, because the temperature was well above 30 degrees down in the valley…
The first altitude training for Alpe d’HuZes this year would be in Berchtesgaden.
A trip booked back in October 2011, long before I crashed and disrupted my schedule towards Alpe d’HuZes.
But training routine has been resumed and in the Berchtesgadener Land the Kehlsteinstrasse awaited, so off to Berchtesgaden we went!
Upon arrival, I choked on my first deception: my plan to conquer that “Zoncolan of South Germany” would have to wait until some other time.
The Kehlsteinstrasse was in fact still closed, as there remains a lot of (snow) clearing and road repair work to do.
In short, the road cannot be cycled until the end of May…
