Congratulations

Congratulations to Owen O'Flaherty and John Lanigan who completed both La Marmotte and the Etape du Tour Acte 1 on consecutive days on Saturday and Sunday last!

With just a few hours' sleep between both events, combined with 4am starts on both days, the mental and physical challenge was considerable!

Both events clocked up just shy of 5,000m each of elevation; covering the legendary climbs of the Col du Glandon, Col du Telegraph, Col du Galibier and the Alpe d'Huez (La Marmotte) and the Col de la Madeleine, Col du Glandon, Col de la Croix de Fer, Col du Mollard and the Cat 1 La Toussuire climb (Etape du Tour). All done in the baking heat of a July sun!

John L even managed a gold medal in La Marmotte and Owen got silver. Both did very good times in the Etape.

Well done!

That's an incredible achievement alright...especially when we don't have any equivalent hills to train. A big "Chapeau" to you both!

Truly fantastic cycling guys...you must be both mental but well done to both of ya!

Wow! Well done guys!! And to all the rest of the Orwell crew out there!
Chapeau!!

Thanks all. There was no beauty whatsoever in the Etape the day after the Marmotte I must say, just a grim exercise in survival. John, however, is a specialist in finding an extra gear at the end of the day and fairly shot up both the Alpe and La Toussuire.

It was tough enough, but still wouldn't approach some of the stuff the audax lads seem to do regularly, like the Milles and PBP.

Shout out back to Emma and Rosie, who both monstered the Etape themselves on a day where less than half the registered participants actually managed to finish.

It was a great weekend for the club as we had a lot of riders in both events.

Those that I am aware of who also finished the events were John Twomey, Denis Gleeson, John Hannin, Damian Ryan, Peter Gargan & Gert Conradie in the Marmotte and Leo Casey, Brendan Canning, Donnacha McCormack, Paul Brosnan, Peter Kearns & Patrick Santini in the Etape.

The girls also did the club proud with Emma Convey, Rosie McArdle, Siobhan O'Connor & Catherine Downes all completing the Etape. Out of an initial registration of 8500 cyclists for this years Etape, only 6000 riders started due to the poor weather in the morning and of the 4400 finishers there were only 156 women so we were well represented in that group!!

Final word of thanks from me would go to Patrick Santini in OnYourBike who organised a fanatstic trip for the week including some great training spins up the mountains in the days before the events.

Congratulations to you both, that is a great achievement! (and just a little mental)

Congratulations one and all - fantastic achievements

Good work everyone. Could ye manage 20 stages in a row?