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news
Mike Cotty on the Croix de FerMike Cotty smashes 674km epic Alpine challenge
Mike Cotty has completed his epic Alpine challenge, 674km of riding and 16,066m of climbing, in 33:39hrs.
Mike started the ride in Evian les Bains, on Lake Geneva, on Monday morning at 9am. He then rode 17 mountain passes, including some the most famous climbs in the Alps: Col de la Colombière, Madeleine, Glandon, Croix de Fer, Télégraphe, Galibier, Izoard, Vars, Bonette and Madone. Five of the passes took him up to over 2,000m.
Mike finally finished his mega-ride on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, yesterday evening.
When he finished, Mike tweeted, “I'm going to start by having the biggest pizza & ice cream in Nice! I'm sure I wasn't this skinny 33 hours ago!!”
We’ve given you details of the route before and shown you the Cannondale Evo Hi-Mod bike that he was using for the ride.
For comparison, Mount Everest is a height of 8,848m, so Mike’s elevation increase over the course of his ride was nearly the equivalent of scaling the world’s highest mountain twice over. Or, keeping things closer to home, it's about the same as riding the height of Ben Nevis 12 times.
Mike rode more or less continuously with just occasional essential short stops, with vehicle support provided by one of his sponsors, Mavic. He completed the ride well inside his original estimate of 36hrs, at an average speed of around 20kph.
Congratulations to Mike from road.cc.
Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.
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35 comments
Amazing 34 hour ride, knowing how tough a few hills can be and Mike went on for that long under intense physical activity.
I don't think I could sit on a stationary bicycle that long!
well done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow...
Brilliant ride Mike, proper inspiring stuff.
Well done Mike, an amazing effort!
Amazing effort..... respect!
Pizza and ice cream? Sack that! Steak and chips... twice!
@Docroddy He's a vegetarian though...
Just a stunning achievement, wow!
About the same time for my Haute Route alps 2012 - except I had 6 sleeps!!!!!! Fantastic stuff Mr Cotty
Read a bit deeper and discovered this was an organised race. I was under the impression it was a solo effort:
Final update: Mike finished in 10th place in exactly 27 hours - top work fella! and only five hours back on the winner, Maurizio Vandelli...
# Vandelli Maurizio (1) @2009-06-20 10:05:00
# Dörschlag Ekkehard (49) @2009-06-20 10:45:00
# Zörweg Heinz (2) @2009-06-20 11:45:00
# Strebel Thomas (19) @2009-06-20 12:00:00
# Fischer Rene (4) @2009-06-20 13:00:00
# Lindner Paul (3) @2009-06-20 13:28:00
# Ratschob Thomas (41) @2009-06-20 13:51:00
# Huber Armin (29) @2009-06-20 14:34:00
# Settimio Guidio (42) @2009-06-20 14:54:00
# Cotty Mike (33) @2009-06-20 15:00:00
That was a different ride from 4 years ago.
Les Alpes was a solo challenge with support car this week.
This was from June 2009. A great event but very tough day in the saddle. 22 out of my 27 hours were spent in the rain. This week made up for that pain!!
CCC2014 = Cotty's Crazy Classic.
Anyone want to arrange a hypersportive?
I'm in!
wow. man points. good to see it done on a class bike as well.
Remarkable personal achievement, that amount of climbing is jaw dropping, whenever i read about ultradistance riding and the incredible stats it unearths i think of Tommy Godwin,who in 1939,cycled 75,065 miles – an average of 205 miles per day on a steel 4 spd bike that weighed over 30 pounds
http://www.tommygodwin.com/
It's about the bloke, not the bike
amazing achievement, I'm so jealous
Well done Mike. Absolutely amazing achievement.
Absolutely mad. I wish I had the courage to do just one third of it!!! Congratulations!!
There's only one word to describe Mike, Beast.....
Well done for completing the ride in such a quick time, I'm lucky to do 20kph on the flat
Mike, remember to post that as a Strava segment so we can all have a go at beating that time....
my thoughts exactly - i reckon you can be looking back at that one in several years time & you'll still hold the KOM
Inspirational stuff, congratulations. I will remember this and 'man-up' when I go to the Alps in a few weeks!
Wow. Respect!
excellent work Mike, i think you've earned two pizzas
Congratulations. Looking forward to hearing your loopiest thought that kept you going.
I think having the voice of Phil Liggett resonating around my head for quite a few hours could be close to the top spot Colin!!
Hats off Mike - you're utterly insane but properly hardcore!
Well done!
Superb effort, one that many of us could only dream of conquering. Chapeau.
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