Over the last eight years I have spent a few weeks each summer in Chamonix, steadily increasing the amount of vertical meters on my road bike. When I first started cycling, I didn’t really understand the difference between flat kilometers and vertical ascent, but now I know it's the ascent that counts, and that’s what I count down over the day. The thought of cycling the Tour de Mont Blanc has both challenged me and excited me, but more than anything , it sounded quite dau