Late last year, Anne Jones went to see a doctor regarding a bout of Lyme disease that had struck her down. He told her to stay active, keep exercising, and, if she felt up to it, head outside on her bike. “I said I wanted to go up a mountain,” she recalls. “He just laughed and said, ‘Yeah, if you think so…’ There was not a question of, ‘You’re too old for that sort of thing’, which I get quite a lot at my age.”
Jones is 84 years old. In the last two years, she has climbed three of the Tour de France’s most gruelling climbs: Mont Ventoux, the Col du Tourmalet, and her latest feat, Alpe d’Huez, which she scaled on Wednesday. The 14km ascent took her three and a half hours, during which time she stopped regularly to catch her breath and admire the mini waterfalls pouring down the rocks.
“It was a wonderful day. It couldn’t have been better,” Jones tells Cycling Weekly, still “walking on air” the morning after, having woken up in a chalet at the foot of the climb. “I’d almost say I’d do it again.”
A regular feature in the Tour route, Alpe d’Huez is famous for its 21 hairpins that snake up to 1,850m altitude. The climb’s average gradient is over 8%, but the first 2km are the toughest, tilting in excess of 11% at points.
“I so wanted not to let people down, not to give up at the first bend,” Jones says. “Everyone said the first bit is the hardest, which was quite good in a way, because when you get to the end of the Col du Tourmalet, the end is so difficult. To have the worst bit at the beginning is a bit of a relief, really.”
The hardest section over, Jones quickly found her rhythm. She rode alongside friends from Amos Trust, the human rights organisation for which she has set out to raise £21,000 – a thousand for each bend on the mountain. She has so far raised £16,000 of her target, with funds destined to support children affected by the war in Gaza. “It’s a very dire time for them,” she says.
Fittingly, Jones was also joined on her Alpe d’Huez ride by para-cyclists Alaa al-Dali and Mohammed Asfour, two members of the Gaza Sunbirds who had to evacuate their homes in Palestine amid Israeli airstrikes. “To be riding alongside them was wonderful, overwhelming really,” Jones says. “What an honour.”
Jones has now raised more than £56,000 for Gaza across her three mountain rides.
Asfour, Jones and al-Dali at the summit of Alpe d’Huez.
(Image credit: Amos Trust)
Based in London, Jones trained for her Alpe d’Huez challenge by doing reps of Box Hill (4.3km at 4%) in Surrey, a climb she describes as “relatively easy – but the hills around it are quite tough, so I practised there, learning how to adjust gears and push myself to the limit.”
She was introduced to cycling by her father when she was a child, and rediscovered her love for the sport again in her fifties, when she began taking part in charity rides. She has since ridden from London to Paris 10 times. “Having done it once, I couldn’t stop,” she says.
What do her family and friends think about her riding up mountains in her mid-eighties? “My son is 100% behind me,” Jones says. “My daughter’s totally supportive in a very caring way: ‘Be careful, watch the heat, eat enough, rest enough, drink enough.’ Most of my friends are supportive but they think I’m completely mad.
“And then some people look at me and think, ‘What’s she doing at her age? Who does she think she is?’ It’s a whole spectrum. Old age is something you don’t have to just succumb to. I really feel quite strongly about that.
“When you get old and a bit achey, don’t give up. Keep hopeful. Hope is what really matters, more than anything.”
The 84-year-old isn’t letting her age hold her back.
(Image credit: Amos Trust)
Having now conquered three of France’s most famous climbs, Jones has no concrete plans for her next mountain challenge. She’d like to do an annual peace ride in support of Gaza. She’s also been asked to join a fundraising trek in Morocco next spring.
“[For now] I shall just go home, find ways of raising money, paint my pictures, water my garden, think nice thoughts, and see all my friends and family,” she says.
“I’ve had quite an isolated existence these past few months, just concentrating on getting this training done. I’ve been thinking, ‘I’ve got to really do this and not be a complete fraud.’”
The photo of Jones at the summit, flanked by Asfour and al-Dali, is proof she is far from it.
Donations to Anne Jones’s Alpe d’Huez Gaza fundraiser can be made via her JustGiving page.
