Isle Of Wight Cyclist Competes In World's Hardest Amateur Race

Local cyclist, endurance coach and nutritionist, Joe Staunton, recently competed in the Haute Route Alps, a 7-day mountain stage race through the French Alps, which is considered to be the worlds hardest amateur cycling stage race.

Joe finished 12th overall on the general classification while gaining two top-10 stage finishes in the process.

In total, 350 of the world's elite amateur cyclists descended upon the starting line in Megeve to compete over seven gruelling stages that worked their way down through the French alps, to finish in Nice.

The race covered 750km of road, over 20,000M of climbing (2 x up Mount Everest), featured 14 mountain passes and a time trial up the famous Alpe D’Huez.

The most testing day involved being on the bike for more than six hours and riding up three mountains in 30c heat.

"I’ve wanted to do this event for a long time. Racing the Tour de France climbs is a special thing to experience as a cyclist," said Joe.

"It was an exceptional experience and brilliant opportunity to test and develop training and nutritional strategies I can now help athletes I coach utilise".

Training for an event of this magnitude is no easy task, and Joe designed training methods and nutritional approaches to help simulate riding in the French Alps, while living and training on the Isle of Wight.

He continued:

"We don’t have any mountains, altitude... or heat on the Island, and almost all of the racing in the Alps was 2,000 metres above sea level, where the air is really thin, on climbs lasting well over an hour and in temperatures often in excess of 35c.

"I spent a fair bit of time on my indoor trainer, looking rather silly wearing a hazmat suit with no cooling to get my body used to riding in extreme temperatures and at altitude."

Joe is supported by Wightlink and is an endurance coach and sports nutritionist for Ceyreste Performance, a coaching company that helps athletes of all levels train and prepare for sporting events.