One of many pleasures of street biking is our means (admittedly generally wanting breath) to journey the identical well-known climbs which have turn into synonymous with he Grand Excursions–names that resonate just like the Alpe d’Huez, the Galibier, Mont Ventoux or the Tourmalet—within the wheel tracks of professional racers. For amateurs there are methods to get that race feeling by collaborating in organized Gran Fondos, like l’Ėtape du Tour or the Alpenbrevet, competing in opposition to different riders because the clock runs. However these are single day occasions. What would it not be like as a superb novice to be racing (not simply using) in every week lengthy stage race on those self same cols? An fascinating sequence of YouTube movies by Dutch rider Jasper Verkuijl recounts his expertise on the Haute Route Alps final yr.
Whereas using up the Alpe d’Huez has at all times been (considerably) simple to do, producing movies and having the ability to distribute them to a worldwide viewers was an unimaginable problem for people till the arrival of companies like YouTube and Vimeo. No matter your curiosity, there seems to be a content material creator prepared to share tales and the world of biking is not any totally different.
Jasper Verkuijl has 100,000 subscribers to his channel of biking experiences. His biography signifies that he started biking on the age of 5 and raced within the BMX self-discipline, collaborating with appreciable success on the nationwide and world ranges. In 2013 he switched to street biking and in 2017 started racing. A household man and an airline pilot in actual life, his enthusiasm for racing and all the pieces associated to it’s palpable. He has coated coaching, weight loss program, gear and so forth from the angle of a mid-30s novice who has the dedication wanted to profit from his expertise.
The Haute Route sequence gives a number of multi-day occasions every year, designed to offer individuals the texture of using in a professional race. All the trimmings are there, together with day by day briefings, professional mechanics, marked routes, feed zones, medical help and even gendarmes on bikes for escort. The levels fluctuate and within the longest, the seven day Haute Route Alps, there’s even an uphill time trial.
From pictures of the Haute Route occasions it appears that evidently individuals should not all there for a similar cause. Driving via among the most lovely landscapes within the biking world is cause sufficient for a lot of however there’s additionally a hardcore contingent eager to race and decided to win. Jasper Vekuijl, whereas loving the rides, additionally loves the competitors and his movies could be helpful for anybody taking a look at this aggressive side of the Haute Route.
(A very unrelated observe: The 2017 Netflix documentary “Icarus” begins with the American director Bryan Fogel describing the Haute Route and the way he deliberate to enhance his time via full-bore doping, shamelessly admitted. The movie then went off on a totally totally different path and is nicely value viewing however that opening is simply an indicator as to the lengths some Kind-A folks will go to beat others in a race the place there isn’t any prize cash or fame however you really pay 2100 Euros simply to register).
In every of his six half hour movies of the occasion, Jasper Verkuijl begins with an introduction protecting a selected side. For instance, within the first he tells of his preparation upon arrival on the occasion, whereas within the second the opening is about planning diet, not solely what to eat however when. He speaks of his objectives for every of the levels, talks about his bike and his clothes—in all, just about all the pieces that somebody eager to do this type of occasion may need to know.
Not like what we see in actual Grand Excursions, the rider on this case has no crew assist however has to do his personal planning for the day, organize his meals and gear, and work out his technique. That is already an accomplishment in an occasion that has six levels totalling over 700 kms and almost 20,000 meters of climbing. Simply as spectacular as is Meneer Verkuijl’s sturdy using is the truth that he produced these movies—from capturing to enhancing to narrating to including music—completely by himself. Though the Haute Route Alps is held in August it’s arduous to think about that there are sufficient hours within the day to finish these very arduous rides AND nonetheless produce programming for a YouTube channel that’s each informative and entertaining.
A fluent English speaker, Verkuijl shares his enthusiasm for biking in an irresistible and generally (significantly for somebody who flies Boeing 747s) in an engagingly goofy method. YouTube movies can wildly fluctuate in high quality however these are nothing like unhealthy house motion pictures. There’s high quality content material right here, with sturdy pictures and a structured and nicely thought-out narrative. This isn’t about skilled racing however moderately about looking for the perfect elements of that professional expertise. And if not the perfect, nicely at the least essentially the most memorable as a result of, boy, a few of these levels look brutal!
- Jasper Verkuijl’s sequence on his 2023 Haute Route Alps expertise will be discovered on this playlist on his channel: www.youtube.com
- For extra details about the Haute Route sequence: https://hauteroute.fr/
# All pictures taken type the video. #
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