Dev, I wouldn’t expect the website to updte from this year’s race much before Christmas, Bryce and I are going to do the Oly next year and are still waiting for dates to be released. I tried emailing ahead to get details for this year’s and couldn’t get anything for some considerable time. As for non-tri activities there as a nice 50m pool with a glass boom across in Le Duez Alpe and there is snowboarding and skiing available in the mornings through the summer if that’s your bag. Oops, should have added downhill skiing not sure about the XC variety.
Are you serious that Les Deux Alpes has a 50m pool? What a cool place for a tri Training camp, as you would have great swimming, good running and after every ride, you’d have to end the workout with a half hour climb (not crazy but tough) to your condo.
In 2004, on the day of the Tour de France ITT Up to Alpe d’Huez, I spent the morning in the relatively tranquility across the valley doing a 3xLes Deux Alpes workout. Then I rode back to Bourg d’Oisans (where I was staying), spent the first 170 riders in the town, watching the teams warmup (even got to play as translator for Phil White at CSC-Cervelo when he was being interviewed by a French Journalist from Lyon about Ivan Basso’s rig for the TT) and then after rider number 30 which was Erik Zabel, I hiked up to the 5th switchback amidst thousands of crazy drunken TMobile, Rabobank and Gerolsteiner Camper/RV’s to watch the front runners roll by…what a day!
Dev
Quite a lot of tourist villages/towns in the Alps have 50 swimming pool. Morzine is another place to check if you want great riding, very good swimming (there is also a lake nearby to swim open water), plenty to do for families too.
Yep, not my imagination, they had one there when I would go semi-regularly up to 1999. As Fix suggested Morzine would be a better choice for a training camp as the hills are there but it’s at the foot of the cable car to Avoriaz. As such you don’t have to climb to get home, there also used to be a bar which served fantastic draft Guiness, we used to pile in there to watch the 5 nations (as it was then) matches with quite a few Black pints!
I used to have a good contact in the town, if you are interested I could ask around to see if they still operate out of Morzine. Maybe, we’ll meet next year.
If I organize a camp it has to be in the near vicinity of Alpe d’Huez. Unlike myself, most North Americans have no clue about Morzine, Avouriaz or most relatively obscure ski towns in France which have excellent riding and have historically played a role in the TdF.
What they know is Alpe d’Huez, Galibier, Ventoux, Tourmalet. So if I want to market such a camp to people in this part of the world, it needs quick access to the base of Alpe d’Huez :-). From Bourg d’Oisans, there is access to Alpe d’Huez and various famous Hautes Alpes cols, and even Ventoux is short drive away to get into the vicinity in Nyon (Provence) or right at the base (Bedouin). If guys are going to drop $$$$ and vacation days, they will want to have legendary climbs of Tier 1 pedigree to show as “trophy cols” from their trip 
Dev
Make sure your clients have the legs to “bag” those thorpy cols! I hear what you say about the limited geographical knowledge especially in the week that it was revealed that over 1 in 5 Americans can’t locate the US on a map! I thought you were talking about Canadians ;-).
If you would also be opening the camp to those of us on this side of the Pond, let me know as I would be interested if the timing was right.
Julian, the first time I do it, will just be renting a house, getting a bunch of guys together and riding. The second time will be more formal. The purpose of the first camp (aside from riding) will be to sort out logistics to productize the entire production :-).
As for geographical knowledge, it really is a function of the education system and the legacy of North America’s relative economic and trade isolation from the rest of the world. European economies going back 400+ years grew by using the rest of the world’s resources, controlling them and then selling finished products back to those far flung reaches of the their imperial expanse…North America in the last 100 years has generally had enough local resources and a large enough domestic market that the average North American did not need to really know that much about the rest of the world. Witness the US strategy early in the second world war…OK, now I am going into Lavendar room talk and it is time to shut up…
Dev
As for geographical knowledge, it really is a function of the education system and the legacy of North America’s relative economic and trade isolation from the rest of the world. European economies going back 400+ years grew by using the rest of the world’s resources, controlling them and then selling finished products back to those far flung reaches of the their imperial expanse…North America in the last 100 years has generally had enough local resources and a large enough domestic market that the average North American did not need to really know that much about the rest of the world. Witness the US strategy early in the second world war…OK, now I am going into Lavendar room talk and it is time to shut up…
That sounds a well considered and logical explanation, far more than the usual argument of insularity and arrogance. It’s still a startling statistic given that the end of WW2 was 62 years and two generations ago! It certainly is a better response than that given by the Miss Teen USA contesant who said that the reason more than 20% of Americans couldn’t locate the US on a map was because many houses didn’t have maps!!!
Can anyone tell me if there is a cut off time for the long course event at Alpe d’Huez?
I’m afraid I can’t, I didn’t do that race and hence didn’t look to see. We did see a number of people still “running” as we ate in a restaurant on the run course around 2100! I would suggest you check the race site for info.
I just checked our race instructions. No mention of a cut off is evident and like Julian said, some were coming in extremely late
I did the race last year and I don’t remember there being a cut off time. I had a pretty bad race (it’s hard to have a “good” race on that course) and I was well into my second bottle of vino while the final athletes were finishing. I can get pretty dark out on that run course though–the sun sets extremely early on top of the mountain. If you plan on being out there late, stash something with long sleeves in your T2 bag–it can get really cold at night.
Brad Culp
Triathlete magazine