As it will mostly be mountain riding (flat itineraries are far more limited and may be less relevant too!), you need to enjoy riding hills back at home. You also need a decent level of fitness. However you don’t need any previous experience of riding in the mountains. Yes some ‘hills’ round there can be quite big but if you cycle regularly at home, nothing is out of reach. The first day or so you need to acclimatise to the altitude and longer climbs but it all falls into place quickly.

Some of us at Epic21 who know the area well will be there that week and you are welcome to join us for rides or you can just ride with your friends or other participants you will meet during Epic21. This is what happened during our first edition in 2026. Small groups of similar level and expectations formed during the stay and they did their own rides using some of the many suggestions we had for them. Note: you will ride in self‑selected groups at your own pace, this is not a led ride.

If you are familiar with VAM, our Founders aim to ride in the 500-700 range even if they have managed to climb Alpe d’Huez at around 1,000 - this was still one hour and 3 minutes of climbing!  

To give a comparison, record holder (pre-Strava!) Marco Pantani went up Alpe d’Huez with a VAM of about 1,740 and 6.6 w/kg

GCN Legend Andrew Feather, who joined us for Epic21 2026, completed the slightly shorter Strava verified segment in 37:42 back in 2022 at a VAM of 1,667

When Tom Pidcock won his Tour de France stage up Alpe d’Huez back in 2022, he did the climb at 1,627 according to Strava, whilst Sepp Kuss who was one of the most recent pro KOM did it at 1,742.

During Epic21 2026 the times up the Strava verified segment ranged from 47’ for Andrew Feather and Russell Powell to 1h32 so quite a range of abilities.