Tour de France 2001, Alpe d'Huez An IVCA member's memories of the legendary climb at the end of the 10th stage of the Tour, on 17th July 2001.

That's the top, way way up there! The devil. Now we just have to wait 4 hours. Laurent Roux, the lone echapée, with a lead of over 6 minutes at the start of the climb. God. Armstrong made his move just 150 metres before us ..and looked very focused and strong. Ullrich leads the attempt to keep up.. ...but looks a little rattled. Daniele Nardello Masimiliano Lelli A later group, including the polka dot and yellow jerseys Stuart O'Grady, in yellow for one last day. Laurent Brochard. Benoit Salmon

Leaving our holiday base in Haute Provence at 6 a.m. it took us close to 4 hours to drive to the bottom of Alpe d'Huez. We joined thousands of others walking up the climb, and found ourselves a really good spot on top of a wall between the first and second hairpins. We followed the progress of the stage on French radio as best we could as the riders climbed the Col de la Madeleine and Col du Glandon before reaching us, and we managed to make out that Laurent Roux and Eladio Jiminez were away from the peloton and that Lance Armstrong appeared to be suffering a little. We also used the mobile phone to call home to get information from another family member watching the stage on Eurosport! The caravane passed by (we managed to get a Cofidis keyring) and eventually the race arrived. First was Laurent Roux, with a 6 minute lead on the peleton. When the chasing riders appeared around the corner we were astonished to find that they were led by Lance Armstrong, with Jan Ullrich and a rapidly dwindling peleton about 10 seconds behind. Armstrong was going very strongly, standing in the saddle and turning the pedals at a high cadence for the whole time we could see him. In front of him, Jean-Marie LeBlanc stood out of the sunroof of his car and waved urgently at the leading motorbikes to go faster. Ullrich did not look comfortable, and was obviously unable to match Armstrong's speed on the climb. As the rest of the riders went past us in small groups it was difficult to spot the riders who were competing for the various jerseys. Stuart O'Grady, the holder of the yellow jersey, was in one of the later groups and was obviously not going to keep it after the stage. Some of the riders looked absolutely exhausted after two HC climbs already that day, and they were still only starting the Alpe d'Huez. We followed the finish of the stage on the radio, as Armstrong caught and passed Roux and laid the foundation for taking the yellow jersey a couple of stages later. BR.