Alps Multi-Day Ride
training plan
An adaptive multi-day tour plan for a mountain course on road, run in unpredictable August conditions, built around the three things Alps Multi-Day Ride actually asks of you: thin air, one long sustained climb and riding in a pack. Eighteen weeks written two at a time, from what you actually did in the two weeks before, and rewritten the moment you travel, get ill or something starts hurting.
This page describes the race and what its course, climate and date ask of a build. On Pro, the plan itself is written for you, from your experience, your weekly hours and your date, so two athletes entered in this race get different plans.
Free plan available · Paid from $7.50/mo billed annually · iOS, Android & web
Three demands, three answers
A generic 18-week multi-day tour plan gets you to the start line. It has no idea about thin air, one long sustained climb or riding in a pack.
On the ground, Alps Multi-Day Ride is a mountain course on road, with 19,000 m of climbing in it. It is usually held in August, when the weather is genuinely unpredictable, and two editions running rarely feel the same. So over a multi-day tour, the vertical is the event and the distance is how long you are out in it, and the weather is the variable you prepare for, because nobody can plan around it. There will be a few hundred to a thousand starters out there with you.
- Profile
- Mountainous · road
- Climbing
- 19,000 m
- Usual conditions
- August · unpredictable
- Race season
- Summer, northern hemisphere
- Field
- Small · a few hundred to a thousand
The air is thinner than the pace you trained at
At altitude the same effort produces a slower pace and a higher heart rate, and no amount of sea-level fitness argues with it. Going out on flatland numbers is the classic way to ruin the day.
The plan works in effort and heart rate rather than pace for Alps Multi-Day Ride, keeps your goal honest about the elevation, and never asks you to hit a sea-level split on a course that will not give it to you.
One climb long enough to change the race
A sustained climb is a different engine from anything you meet on rolling ground: twenty minutes or more at an effort you cannot back off from, with the rest of the course still to come.
Sustained climbing intervals at threshold rather than short punchy reps, built to the length Alps Multi-Day Ride actually asks for, and rehearsed with the fatigue you will be carrying when you reach it.
You will be riding in a group whether you planned to or not
A big field means wheels, surges out of every corner and an effort profile full of spikes. Riders who only train solo burn matches they never meant to light.
Variable-effort intervals that mimic surges and recoveries rather than long steady blocks, so the punchy demands of Alps Multi-Day Ride are trained rather than survived.
Getting in, and getting to the line
Adaptlete has no involvement in entry, allocation or ballots for any race. This is what the format asks of your planning.
Open entry
Entry usually stays open close to the day, which sounds relaxed and is exactly why so many people start their build six weeks out. Eighteen weeks back from August puts the first week in mid April.
Small field
A small field means no pens and no queues, and nobody to tuck in behind when it gets hard, and on a mountain course the queue forms at the first singletrack and never fully clears. Over a multi-day tour, that is a long time to be running somebody else's race.
Road
Road, which is the easy part to train for and the easy part to get wrong: the same shoes, the same socks and the same drink you intend to race in, used often enough that race morning contains no first times. The peak week puts sustained climbing on the bike on it, months before August.
You will be training through the northern summer
Work backwards and a eighteen-week block for an August race opens around mid April, running April through to August. That is the northern summer, and it is the half of the job most plans never mention. Long sessions get pushed earlier and earlier to dodge the heat, the calendar fills up with weekends away, and two weeks of vacation land somewhere in the middle of the block whether the plan wants them or not. And the last block lands in August, with mountainous ground, unpredictable conditions and a small field waiting at the end of it.
So the plan expects the interruption instead of pretending it will not happen: sessions move to the cool hours, and two weeks away is rewritten around what you will actually have, whether that is a hotel gym, a rental bike, or a pair of shoes and nothing else. Whatever the season takes out of two weeks, the work for thin air, one long sustained climb and riding in a pack is what the rebuild puts back first.
- Weeks 1-7 April-May the weather turns mid-block; the ramp holds steady anyway
- Weeks 8-12 May-July early starts and heat; the long sessions move to the cool hours
- Weeks 13-18 · peak and taper July-August
Months assume Alps Multi-Day Ride keeps its usual August slot and that you take the full 18 weeks. Adaptlete builds from the date you enter.
A real week from an Alps Multi-Day Ride build
This is the shape of the biggest week in 18: 5-6 rides a week, 12H 15M of training, and one session that matters more than the rest. Two of them are here because of this course and not the distance: sustained climbing on the bike for the mountainous profile, and a weather rehearsal for conditions that are usually unpredictable. The key session itself is written for one long sustained climb. For an August race, week 13 lands in July. Your version is written from your hours, your history and how far out you are.
- Every session says what it is for, in plain language
- Intensity you can scan down the week without reading
- Move any session to any day without breaking the block
| Day | Intensity | Session | Distance and duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| MON | Rest | Rest | |
| TUE | Zone 4, threshold | Bike: 2 × 20 min sustained climbing at threshold | 39 km1H15 |
| WED | Zone 2, easy | Weather rehearsal: it goes ahead in whatever the day hands you | 32 km1H05 |
| THU | Zone 3, steady | Strength: legs & trunk | 45' |
| FRI | Zone 2, easy | Easy ride with efforts | 35 km1H10 |
| SAT | Zone 3, steady | Long ride, day one: a sustained climb at threshold | 121 km4H20 |
| SUN | Zone 3, steady | Long ride, day two | 100 km3H40 |
Something will go wrong.
That is the part we built for.
Nobody finishes an eighteen-week build without missing a week, and April through to August is a long time to stay lucky. The plans that fail are the ones that carry on as if nothing happened.
A work trip in week 10
Hotel treadmill, nothing else? Those days get rewritten around it.
Flu in May
The block rebuilds and ramps you back. Nothing is deleted.
A niggle at week 14
Loading comes off it, the rest of your week stays. And go see someone.
Questions people actually search
How many weeks do I need to train for Alps Multi-Day Ride?
Eighteen weeks is the usual build for a multi-day tour like Alps Multi-Day Ride, at 5-6 rides a week. Counted back from an August race that opens the block around mid April and runs it April through to August. Coming from a lower base, give yourself longer. With fewer weeks than that the plan compresses. It builds what it can from where you are, protects the work for thin air, one long sustained climb and riding in a pack first, and tells you plainly what it had to leave out.
When should I start training for Alps Multi-Day Ride?
The date does not move: 17 to 23 August 2027. Count back eighteen weeks from it and that is when a full-length multi-day tour build opens: around mid April for an August race, April through to August. If you are reading this later than that, the plan fits the block into what is actually left and names the sessions it dropped. Entry runs on a separate clock (places here are on open entry), and the training deadline is the one you control.
Do I need hills to train for Alps Multi-Day Ride?
There is 19,000 m of climbing in it. That is mountainous ground on road, over a multi-day tour, and it is trainable without moving house. The peak week carries sustained climbing on the bike and loads the long session the way the course does. Train somewhere flat and the plan substitutes sustained-effort and eccentric work that loads the same tissue, and tells you it has done so. It is one of thin air, one long sustained climb and riding in a pack, and none of the three gets dropped to make room for the others.
How long are the long rides in an Alps Multi-Day Ride plan?
They build towards the day rather than matching it: for a mountain course at this distance the peak long ride is the biggest single session in the eighteen weeks, and the peak week carries sustained climbing on the bike alongside it. The course carries 19,000 m of climbing. You tell Adaptlete how many hours you genuinely have across 5-6 rides a week and the block is fitted inside them.
Do I need to train at altitude for Alps Multi-Day Ride?
It helps and it is not available to most people, so the plan does not pretend otherwise. There is 19,000 m of climbing in it. Over eighteen weeks the answer at sea level is sustained work at controlled effort rather than pace, arriving in August with a pacing plan that assumes you will be slower than your flat numbers say. Altitude affects people very differently; if you have a condition it touches, speak to a professional.
How do I train through the summer for Alps Multi-Day Ride?
A eighteen-week block ending in August runs April through to August, which is the northern summer. Expect long sessions pushed into the cool hours, a diary full of weekends away, and a vacation landing somewhere in the middle whether the plan wants it or not. Tell the app what you will actually have (a hotel gym, a rental bike, or shoes and nothing else) and the next two weeks are rewritten around it instead of written off.
Is this an official Alps Multi-Day Ride training plan?
No. Adaptlete is an independent training-plan service with no affiliation to the organizers of Alps Multi-Day Ride, and none is implied. We name the race because the plan is built around what its course, its format and its date ask of you.