BRAINTREE Velo Cycling Club's Ian Dougal led a group of local cyclists to the French Alps to compete in the iconic Marmotte race.

The annual event saw over 7,500 participants riding in without doubt one of the hardest European sportives, covering 174 kilometres with over 5,000 metres of climbing finishing at the top of the legendary Alp d’Huez climb as tackled last week by riders in the Tour de France.

Conditions on the day for the Marmotte were extremely tough with temperatures over 30 degrees on the Alp and sprinklers had to be erected at various stages to cool the cyclists off.

All of the Essex cyclists finished the event in some amazing times but Braintree Velo's Steve Fairchild, who is from Halstead, finished in a gold medal position in a incredible time of seven hours 18 minutes.

Plans by Dougal are afoot to take a even bigger group back next year to break even more personal records.

Braintree Velo is a cycling club based at Indoor Revolution in Silks Way in Braintree and caters for all abilities with the emphasis on encouraging ladies and over-16s to enter road cycling.

The club has a time trial evening every other Thursday at Blake End, while a chain gang runs every Tuesday evening from Rayne cafe and trips are also arranged to the Olympic Velodrome in London along with weekend club rides with various groups.

The club has also announced that it will be running its second sportive on Sunday, September 30, with two distances of 100km and a 60km starting from the Indoor Revolution studio in Braintree.

For more information on the club, visit their page on Facebook.