TL;DR: finished ride within time limits, had fun, route was beautiful. Last year's Etape du Tour was fun, but I didn't make the time cutoff after the second mountain pass. My friend Julien K talked me into trying again. This time I wanted to have fun and finish. The challenge was to clear the 15,000ft elevation spread across 4 mountain passes within the 10:30h time limit. Over the winter I shed some weight and started Nordic skate skiing with coach Chris C. In the spring I trained on fire roads in the northern Cascades range near Seattle. Two weeks before I did a final altitude training session in Boulder CO, with good advice from my friend Eric S. I flew in through Geneva, met up with Julien K. We thought we'd have a good shot at finishing if we could make it to the third pass by 4pm. I started with group 4 out of 16 at 7:30am. I felt really good on the first two passes. There were crowds on the roadside, whole families wnd schoolchildren cheering on riders. It certainly lifted my spirits. The climb to the third pass included col du Pré, 9 steep miles at about 9% incline. I arrived at the top of the third pass around 1pm, three hours ahead of plan. By that point I felt confident about finishing. The route was among the prettiest I've ever seen. Highlights were the valley around from the cheesemaking town of Beaufort, and the breathtaking 17-mile descent down the summit of Roselende. The last climb to La Plagne made up about 1/3 of the total elevation. I felt OK so I decided to go for time and skip the last feed station. That wasn't a great decision, the last 3 miles were tough. I had just enough energy left to sprint the last 100m across the finish line. Official time is 9h 30m 51s.