The etape

Which Etape? Etape Caledonia? Etape du Tour?

Or indeed L'Etape Australia 😉 (if they run it again)

A good friend did the french one ... his tip would be to not over indulge in the plentiful food available on course. He is a prize glutton and reckons he ate about 100 apricots and consequently couldn't control his bowels for a good 48 hours afterwards. He tells a very funny story about it whilst stating it was not at all funny at the time.

Which Etape? Etape Caledonia? Etape du Tour?

There is only one THE Étape. Despite what all the pudding shaped men coming into Scottish bike shops to get their bike tuned up for "the eeeeee-tap" and thinking it gives them the right to special treatment and for the staff to be amazed at their talent may think.

Yes THE Etape du tour in actual France

Apricots are a favourite bike snack for me

Did the Etape du Tour in 2012 = Albertville to Le Toussuire.

In 2012 there were two events. The first event was from Albertville to La Toussuire on 8 July, following the 140 km route of stage 11 of the Tour de France and including the Col de la Madeleine and the Col de la Croix de Fer, finishing at La Toussuire, part of the Les Sybelles ski area.[3] The second event held on 14 July followed the route of stage 16 from Pau to Bagnères-de-Luchon, crossing the Col d'Aubisque, Col du Tourmalet, Col d'Aspin, and Col de Peyresourde for a total distance of 197 km.[4] Only about 60% of entrants finished either event within the official cut-off times.

Took the plane to Geneva (with bike) and hired a car and drove to Chambery and stayed there until the start.

Stayed in hotels and hired a car so could stay where i wanted. Had a friend who rode with and they left their car at the end of the stage so could drive us and the bikes back.

I think nowadays there are busses which you can get back the the start for additional cost if the Etape isnt a loop.

I looked at the packages back then but didnt suit, and had Mrs SSS with me. We did see loads of other entrants in Chambery awaiting the start.

Id self arrange myself again.

As to the feed stations etc, i took my own food and only topped up fluids at the feed stations.

Pedant_mode: shouldn’t it be L’etape du Tour anyway?/pedant_mode

I did it in 1999 when there was still a slim chance of getting an entry via a ballot but did it with Graham Baxter Tour - joining the party were Brian Robinson, Tony Doyle and a neo-pro called Rob Hales. These days entries are pretty well all limited to organised tours, plus all the local accommodation gets block-booked well in advance. Like regular tour stages, having a different start and finish locations could be a hassle for independent travellers.

How hard it is really depends on the stage which gets announced the same time as LeTour route. Another option would be to do one of the reknown 1-day sportives like LaMarmotte or Marathona de Dolomites.

These days entries are pretty well all limited to organised tours, plus all the local accommodation gets block-booked well in advance.

They're not any more - they did used to be and for a while the entry website was all in French but now it's pretty open to all. You just have to be very organised about entering the second it's available and booking your accommodation almost immediately too. The issue isn't the riding, it's the logistics.

Worth making a week of it too - when I did it we flew out a couple of days before and as a result everything going into Geneva was overwhelmed with bikes. My bike got there, my mate's didn't and we ended up sitting in Geneva airport for a further 3hrs waiting for his to come along on the next flight. If you're flying, do it well in advance! Some other friends (we were all staying in the same chalet just above Megeve) had driven out from the UK over 2-3 days.

We rented a car from Geneva and then the day before the ride (Megeve to Morzine), we drove it out to Sallanches and rode back. After the Etape, we rode from Megeve via Les Gets and down to Sallanches to collect it. However, if wither of us had failed to finish for whatever reason, it would have become a huge pain to get the thing back so possibilities like that should be given due consideration.

The weather can be literally anything. The one I did was baking hot. A couple of the friends we were out there with have done various Etapes and the next one they did was sleeting, hailing, sideways rain and bitterly cold. The route actually went past their hotel so they stopped off, jumped in the shower to warm up and then put on another few layers of fresh clothes to carry on!

Definitely worth doing, it was an amazing experience. But plan it well and book everything (flights, hire car, accommodation and the event) as early as possible!

I did L'Etape in 2019 from Albertville to Val Thorens.  A group of us stayed in an apartment  in Bourg St Maurice and booked transfers to the start.  This all worked well, but if I was doing it again, I would try to travel to arrive on the Thursday before if possible, just to allow some time to get over the travelling and get things sorted.

As crazy-legs says above, the weather is completely unpredictable.  The day we did L'Etape, it was 38 degrees and there were people cramming into any bit of shade on the final climb.  The climb was about 36km and 1,800m on its own and it was absolute carnage.  Cut to four days later, you may recall that the stage of the Tour had to be cut short due to hailstorms and a landslide, and the Tour did a shortened stage from Moutiers to Val Thorens.

I found the experience of riding over mountain passes on closed roads absolutely fantastic. I would love to do it again, but would want to make the whole thing as logistically straightforward as possible.

I think nowadays there are busses which you can get back the the start for additional cost if the Etape isnt a loop.

Apparently this is particularly awkward if you’ve eaten far too many apricots and they’re attempting to evacuate from your derrière…

I did it in 2000, Carpentras to Ventoux, 155km with 2 big climbs (2nd cat, maybe?), a 4th cat then Ventoux. We went with Graham Baxter, who didn't impress  me at all. One of the hotels thought it was ok to serve plain boiled pasta with no sauce as an evening meal. The rep couldn't speak any French, neither could the coach driver, so we kept getting lost.  Other complaints lost in the mists of time...

The event was easy enough, until I hit Ventoux, where I struggled, eventually getting a silver medal, 6 minutes outside a gold medal time. (I think I rode the 130ish km to Bedoin in dead on 4 hours, then took 2hrs 20min to reach the summit!) It was a lovely summer day in Provence, but the summit of Ventoux was around freezing point, and the descent to the coach was a little hellish, with people so frozen that they couldn't reach their brakes, crashes everywhere, ambulances.

I keep meaning to go back to that part of France - it was gorgeous. I never used Graham Baxter again. It was a memorable event and a lovely few days, despite the problems with the operator.