Wikipedia: Joggers in the Fossil Record.
You know those dinosaur footprints that you see in rock that was once the sea shore or a river bank? Well there were a certain two fossils out for a lunchtime run around the uni campus and to get back to the buildings they had to run through the car-park of the golf club, a public footpath. The car-park encroaches on the path a bit at this point and one gentleman golfer with a flash Porsche was getting into his car, with the aid of a shoe horn to prize his grossly fat backside into the unfeasible bucket that passes for a seat. Naturally he had his door wide open and it took up most of the path. As the elderly joggers got to this point they had to step aside from the path and one elderly fossilised jogger, a guy with receding frizzy grey/brown hair, had to step on the doorstep of the groundsman's shed to get by. This was an interesting and novel experience as yesterday the groundsman had no step to his shed. It turned out to be a mass of wet concrete and the grey haired jogger sank in to the top of his expensive trainers, leaving a fossil record of the day two prehistoric runners passed through. The prehistoric runners felt obliged to scarper quickly despite the taller one (he with the grey/brown hair) wanting to claim for cement damage to a pair of Nike Air Pegasus Trail shoes. The shorter jogger, with almost no hair and laughing like a drain, said that it had added new miles to the shoes which, in scientific parlance, were said to be sh*gged months ago anyway.
One day those footprints will be in a human museum - proof of the existence of the fabled Laughing Jogger or Joggus Fossilus. Until then it would be best to stay out of reach of the groundsman who is probably hoping to give the Nike Air Pegasus Trail shoes a decent burial in a sixth hole bunker, ideally with the tall grey/brown haired jogger still wearing them.
Wednesday 8 October 2008
Wednesday 12 March 2008
A race called Grizzly
I took part in the 2008 Grizzly. It's a race across a variety of terrains (all of them horrid) which is now about 19 miles in length, though the race varies from year to year for operational reasons. There were about 1400 starters. The race is always fully subscribed so you have to enter quite early to stand a chance of getting in. The question that burns a hole in your head is why would 1400 people develop such insanity simultaneously?
The start is on the sea-front at Seaton, Devon, a quiet and pleasant place to be on a sunny morning in March. I travelled down to Seaton with Allan Cox, a member of Corsham Running Club and also one of my work colleagues. Seaton was still quiet when we arrived though the streets were quickly filling up with people in strange attire and talking loudly about PBs and racing flats etc.
Then the real noise started and the sleepy residents of the town were shaken from their slumbers by the Tannoy.
Soon the front was rather full and people were gathering at the start line (still being hastily marked on the road with a chunk of rock-chalk) I managed to bump into a few of the other Chippenham runners who had entered, Bumble, Nelo, Dave Jones, Sue and Tom and there was time for a crafty 'pee' in the sea (working on the theory that there is no-one out there whose decency I might outrage - it works at Weston Super Mare too) Looking around me on the start line, there were all the usual suspects but worryingly most were carrying drink bottles, wearing 'bum-bags' and sporting gel sachets pinned to their racing vests. In contrast I was not carrying anything edible. This did little to calm my nerves, though the nerves were soon forgotten as someone sounded the 'off' and we were all tripping over each other to get going. The race immediately turned left onto the beach, a shingly affair with a steep slope and big waves crashing against it. We turned through 180 degrees and headed east for about a quarter mile, some of the runners so far down that they were almost in the sea (some were even less lucky) while some runners were high on the shingle trying to run on the very biggest of the stones. Which is best? - I never found out but soon we were leaving the beach and pounding amongst small craft over-wintering high above the water on the 'hard'. Then we came back through the start area and set off for Beer, which means a wicked steep climb over into the next bay.
I had never been to Beer before which is odd, given that it has a youth hostel and sports a name I might normally be attracted to. It was a steep and slightly worrying place. Off-road shoes are quite poor when worn on tarmac and the road was slippery.
Beer is a small place and we were soon through it and on our way up through a static caravan site, a steep place with a huge view. (The whole area has a similarly comprehensive view of the caravan site which is a bit of a shame but it brings in holiday makers in a place with no industry)
Above the caravan site is a flatter area, agricultural in nature, which was hugely enhanced by a Scotsman (to judge by his attire) playing the bagpipes to everyone in the neighbouring fifty square miles. Excellent! I forgot to suffer briefly though we were all breathing quite heavily after the first few minutes of the Grizzly.
The fields continued and we were treated to superb views of the Devon coastline stretching way ahead of us. Then we started to descend quite sharply and we arrived at a beach; it is Branscombe where the course had been crafted to send 1400 willing idiots through almost waist deep water. Luckily my waist is higher than most...
At Branscombe a man was standing on the roof playing a saxaphone. We ran past,trying not to look surprised.
The next hour or so was spent up hill and down dale through woods and fields with all-too-frequent visits to boggy morasses. In one bog I pulled myself out using the over-hanging branch of a small tree which cracked and collapsed under my weight, making me no friends at all amongst my fellow strugglers.
We ran into a farm-yard where there was a drum band playing a thunderous but unrecognisable tune. Shortly after this the sky darkened and it grew colder. Hail started to beat down like machine gun fire. I could hear squeals and groans from all around. It really was painful and it went on for quite a while. Of course it did end eventually as we dropped down into a wooded valley, having passed the farm with the drummers again.
The miles passed by, many with mileage markers -useful, if only to tell how much more hell to expect. A sharp descent led to a dash through the patio area of a pub and for a few short seconds applause filled our ears and it was necessary to dodge someone carrying a loaded tray of drinks. Beyond the pub was tarmac but that was one of the hardest parts of the course, a serious climb which saw all around me walking.
A woodland climb had me puzzled. I could smell incense, not a normal woodland smell. As we mounted a sticky wooded track there was a Buddhist temple complete with prayer flags, incense burners and Buddha himself. The 'monks' handed me a couple of jelly babies as I grafted my way past and up round to the left and more woodland climbing.
In a while the runners emerged onto Branscombe beach where we ran past the wreck of the Napoli, a ship which had achieved some fame the previous year when it was wrecked there. Certain of the locals discovered that the ship contained a fortune in imported products, even some brand new BMW motorbikes. By the time we arrived all the goodies had been 'saved' from the ship and it was in the process of being broken up to remove it from the beach. The beach turned out to be memorable in other ways, most notably that once again it was necessary to run across the slope of nasty shifting shingle, hard at the best of times but evil as we tired in these later stages of the race. This shingle section seemed to go on for some while, certainly not less than a mile, before the marshal pointed the way off the stones...and up the cliff!
During the climb of the cliff I was caught up by Jason, a newly joined member of the Harriers. Jason lives for these odd off road epics and runs a diet of Long Distance Walking Assoc events, some of which are as much as 100 miles long. Given that he had taken about 14 miles to catch me, he seemed strong and on the cliff, while I increasingly looked like 'the deceased', he strode up purposefully and was quickly lost to sight. The ascent of the cliff was windy and steep, single file all the way, so we all went at the same speed up that bit. (Sorry to all behind me; you went at my speed!)
At the top of the cliff was, not suprisingly, a cliff top and some mercifully easy running for a short while. This is shortly followed by descent through the caravan site and return via Beer to Seaton. By this time I had started to really fade, so much so that I couldn't run down the slopes and was more or less walking up and down hills with a sort of jogging-like-a-statue on the flat bits.(What flat bits?) The beach had one last nasty go at us all as we ran in to the Start/Finish line. Within seconds of crossing the line, Bumble, a pretty and phenomenally tough member of the Chippenham, was telling me that she had almost caught me - it was down to just a few seconds after almost 4 hours.
to be continued
The start is on the sea-front at Seaton, Devon, a quiet and pleasant place to be on a sunny morning in March. I travelled down to Seaton with Allan Cox, a member of Corsham Running Club and also one of my work colleagues. Seaton was still quiet when we arrived though the streets were quickly filling up with people in strange attire and talking loudly about PBs and racing flats etc.
Then the real noise started and the sleepy residents of the town were shaken from their slumbers by the Tannoy.
Soon the front was rather full and people were gathering at the start line (still being hastily marked on the road with a chunk of rock-chalk) I managed to bump into a few of the other Chippenham runners who had entered, Bumble, Nelo, Dave Jones, Sue and Tom and there was time for a crafty 'pee' in the sea (working on the theory that there is no-one out there whose decency I might outrage - it works at Weston Super Mare too) Looking around me on the start line, there were all the usual suspects but worryingly most were carrying drink bottles, wearing 'bum-bags' and sporting gel sachets pinned to their racing vests. In contrast I was not carrying anything edible. This did little to calm my nerves, though the nerves were soon forgotten as someone sounded the 'off' and we were all tripping over each other to get going. The race immediately turned left onto the beach, a shingly affair with a steep slope and big waves crashing against it. We turned through 180 degrees and headed east for about a quarter mile, some of the runners so far down that they were almost in the sea (some were even less lucky) while some runners were high on the shingle trying to run on the very biggest of the stones. Which is best? - I never found out but soon we were leaving the beach and pounding amongst small craft over-wintering high above the water on the 'hard'. Then we came back through the start area and set off for Beer, which means a wicked steep climb over into the next bay.
I had never been to Beer before which is odd, given that it has a youth hostel and sports a name I might normally be attracted to. It was a steep and slightly worrying place. Off-road shoes are quite poor when worn on tarmac and the road was slippery.
Beer is a small place and we were soon through it and on our way up through a static caravan site, a steep place with a huge view. (The whole area has a similarly comprehensive view of the caravan site which is a bit of a shame but it brings in holiday makers in a place with no industry)
Above the caravan site is a flatter area, agricultural in nature, which was hugely enhanced by a Scotsman (to judge by his attire) playing the bagpipes to everyone in the neighbouring fifty square miles. Excellent! I forgot to suffer briefly though we were all breathing quite heavily after the first few minutes of the Grizzly.
The fields continued and we were treated to superb views of the Devon coastline stretching way ahead of us. Then we started to descend quite sharply and we arrived at a beach; it is Branscombe where the course had been crafted to send 1400 willing idiots through almost waist deep water. Luckily my waist is higher than most...
At Branscombe a man was standing on the roof playing a saxaphone. We ran past,trying not to look surprised.
The next hour or so was spent up hill and down dale through woods and fields with all-too-frequent visits to boggy morasses. In one bog I pulled myself out using the over-hanging branch of a small tree which cracked and collapsed under my weight, making me no friends at all amongst my fellow strugglers.
We ran into a farm-yard where there was a drum band playing a thunderous but unrecognisable tune. Shortly after this the sky darkened and it grew colder. Hail started to beat down like machine gun fire. I could hear squeals and groans from all around. It really was painful and it went on for quite a while. Of course it did end eventually as we dropped down into a wooded valley, having passed the farm with the drummers again.
The miles passed by, many with mileage markers -useful, if only to tell how much more hell to expect. A sharp descent led to a dash through the patio area of a pub and for a few short seconds applause filled our ears and it was necessary to dodge someone carrying a loaded tray of drinks. Beyond the pub was tarmac but that was one of the hardest parts of the course, a serious climb which saw all around me walking.
A woodland climb had me puzzled. I could smell incense, not a normal woodland smell. As we mounted a sticky wooded track there was a Buddhist temple complete with prayer flags, incense burners and Buddha himself. The 'monks' handed me a couple of jelly babies as I grafted my way past and up round to the left and more woodland climbing.
In a while the runners emerged onto Branscombe beach where we ran past the wreck of the Napoli, a ship which had achieved some fame the previous year when it was wrecked there. Certain of the locals discovered that the ship contained a fortune in imported products, even some brand new BMW motorbikes. By the time we arrived all the goodies had been 'saved' from the ship and it was in the process of being broken up to remove it from the beach. The beach turned out to be memorable in other ways, most notably that once again it was necessary to run across the slope of nasty shifting shingle, hard at the best of times but evil as we tired in these later stages of the race. This shingle section seemed to go on for some while, certainly not less than a mile, before the marshal pointed the way off the stones...and up the cliff!
During the climb of the cliff I was caught up by Jason, a newly joined member of the Harriers. Jason lives for these odd off road epics and runs a diet of Long Distance Walking Assoc events, some of which are as much as 100 miles long. Given that he had taken about 14 miles to catch me, he seemed strong and on the cliff, while I increasingly looked like 'the deceased', he strode up purposefully and was quickly lost to sight. The ascent of the cliff was windy and steep, single file all the way, so we all went at the same speed up that bit. (Sorry to all behind me; you went at my speed!)
At the top of the cliff was, not suprisingly, a cliff top and some mercifully easy running for a short while. This is shortly followed by descent through the caravan site and return via Beer to Seaton. By this time I had started to really fade, so much so that I couldn't run down the slopes and was more or less walking up and down hills with a sort of jogging-like-a-statue on the flat bits.(What flat bits?) The beach had one last nasty go at us all as we ran in to the Start/Finish line. Within seconds of crossing the line, Bumble, a pretty and phenomenally tough member of the Chippenham, was telling me that she had almost caught me - it was down to just a few seconds after almost 4 hours.
to be continued
Wednesday 5 March 2008
Good Samaritan or suspicious Brit?
Have you ever wished you weren't such a kindly sort? I sometimes do, wishing I hadn't got involved or getting duped by someone a bit less scrupulous than me.
Last night I was driving home from work and as I came up the slope from Chapel Plaister to Rudloe, I caught sight of a figure desperately waving, flagging me down to stop. Initially I thought there was debris in the road or something like that but as I slowed I sensed that the man wanted my help and I jumped to the conclusion that he was broken down and needed a lift. Easy, and my humane duty too, except that this encounter lead to a situation which plumbed my suspicions and prejudices and caused me to question myself and whether I live up to my own ideals.
I opened the car door and the man outside pointed to himself and said "Turkey, Istanbul!" So we had established his nationality in the first two words, (and liking Turks, I had already accepted him as friendly - why?) but what was his problem? Basically the story went that he needed money to refill his petrol tank to get to London. Whether London was home or whether he wanted to get to the airport I never found out but he claimed to be so desperate that he was willing to part with his very large gold ring, "18 carat Turkish gold!" he told me, in exchange for £20. I have little experience of rings but this was huge and under the car's interior light it did indeed feel and look like real gold but I am a suspicious old soul and have no great desire for Turkish gold. The other snag here is that it is a rare day when I actually have £20 in my pocket. It took me five minutes or more to persuade him that I really could not or would not help him and the last I saw was of him walking dejectedly back to his estate car, an elderly white Peugeot 405.
It could of course have been a scam, or he could have had a whole estate car's worth of big vicious mates hiding behind a bush, or he could have grabbed my wallet and run with it (it's not heavy so that would have been easy but hardly lucrative) but somehow it just seems such a mad place to launch such a scam and he really seemed very genuine and very desperate. So instead of helping a man in need I just feel that I slammed the door in his face.
His car wasn't there this morning.
Last night I was driving home from work and as I came up the slope from Chapel Plaister to Rudloe, I caught sight of a figure desperately waving, flagging me down to stop. Initially I thought there was debris in the road or something like that but as I slowed I sensed that the man wanted my help and I jumped to the conclusion that he was broken down and needed a lift. Easy, and my humane duty too, except that this encounter lead to a situation which plumbed my suspicions and prejudices and caused me to question myself and whether I live up to my own ideals.
I opened the car door and the man outside pointed to himself and said "Turkey, Istanbul!" So we had established his nationality in the first two words, (and liking Turks, I had already accepted him as friendly - why?) but what was his problem? Basically the story went that he needed money to refill his petrol tank to get to London. Whether London was home or whether he wanted to get to the airport I never found out but he claimed to be so desperate that he was willing to part with his very large gold ring, "18 carat Turkish gold!" he told me, in exchange for £20. I have little experience of rings but this was huge and under the car's interior light it did indeed feel and look like real gold but I am a suspicious old soul and have no great desire for Turkish gold. The other snag here is that it is a rare day when I actually have £20 in my pocket. It took me five minutes or more to persuade him that I really could not or would not help him and the last I saw was of him walking dejectedly back to his estate car, an elderly white Peugeot 405.
It could of course have been a scam, or he could have had a whole estate car's worth of big vicious mates hiding behind a bush, or he could have grabbed my wallet and run with it (it's not heavy so that would have been easy but hardly lucrative) but somehow it just seems such a mad place to launch such a scam and he really seemed very genuine and very desperate. So instead of helping a man in need I just feel that I slammed the door in his face.
His car wasn't there this morning.
Thursday 17 January 2008
French Alps 2005
Composed originally after a tour in 2005, an incomplete account that I wanted to save.
I've started to feel human again after the holiday tour of the French Alps..
We flew to Geneva from E.Midlands (Easy Jet) (That's Hugh, Dick, Colin, Martin White, Fred Gascoigne & me. ) and made a bee line for the French border on the SE eastern side of the city, making sure not to buy anything at Swiss prices! It is possible to get into France straight from the airport gate but we were going to the Alps and that meant crossing Geneva. (Fun that was as well!) Finally escaped into a suburb of Geneva called Annemasse which is actually in France. A quaint place, think Croydon. This was our first and last night's stays.
Next day Dick had to go back into Geneva to get a front mechanism as his had not survived the ride on an hairyplane. (Mostly down to extreme old age - you should see Dick's bike; it's a modern day miracle) While it took four of them to go and get a front changer, Colin and I cleared off up the valley towards the mountains. We took the opportunity to buy the first of the picnic lunches which we always eat. This saves money that might more readily be used for alcohol. Then we sat in a bar and waited for the others. They never arrived as they had overtaken us while we waited at one junction and they were at another. After a while I remembered the mobile phone I no longer use much and we got in contact and arranged to meet at the top of the first big hill through a huge gorge, the Gorge des Eveaux, so we sat and ate our belated picnic outside a bar where we had supped a few bargain price French beers ( bit of irony there - it was great to get back to the British £2.40 pint!) The ride took us eventually via the Col des Aravis, to a small town called Flumet, distinguished by me having forgotten everything about the place! The reason for this was that we found nowhere to stay and so were directed to the nearby village of St Nicholas la Chapelle. Here we stayed in a chalet beside a Hotel which was stuffed full of English walkers from Kent, most of them in their sixties and raring to get up the next alp. Their walks were bus assisted to the high land then walking on to places inaccessible by road then down to a rendezvous (presumably with a couple of glasses!)
The walkers overtook us in their minibuses the next morning as we rode the first hard kilometres of the Col des Saisies up through the ski village of Notre Dame de Bellecombe. I had quite a hankering to walk with them in the quiet paths up near the snow line, looking out for chamois and eagles but there were miles to be covered and the beautiful Cormet de Roselend to cross, a pass with lakes and reservoirs and beautiful views. A few days later the Dauphin, the local paper showed Lance Armstrong riding past the same chapel at the top of the Cormet, but we had got there first.
After the descent of Roselend we found ourselves in Bourg St Maurice, a bustling place with narrow interesting streets and sprawling modern outskirts, in which we found a supremely unmemorable night's digs on the main 'drag'.
Had little to do with the town but bought a new map as I had fallen clean off of the Michelin sheet 328 and now needed sheet 333, the two maps overlapping frustratingly so that I only ever got three 3 euros worth, not the full 6!
The new map showed our way out of town, heading towards the Col de Petit St Bernard. I quite fancied seeing this little Saint Bernard with presumably a little barrel of brandy hanging from it's collar. This is undoubtedly an eccentric place to store spirits. However we turned off before this mighty climb as we were off to climb a still mightier one. Lunch was sought, and not found, in the depressing and empty Val d'Isere, a place I had seen full of clamour as it hosted various winter sports events on the TV but today a useless and ugly blot on the landscape where even the Spar shops were closed for the summer. So we climbed the Col de L'Iseran on empty stomachs. At least that kept the weight down! At 2764, (nearly 9000ft.) Col de L'Iseran is the highest tarmac pass in the French Alps and by the top we were passing snow drifts higher than our heads though the summer sun had got the snow well and truly on the run and it was pouring itself into the mountain streams as fast as possible. Until that morning we had kept Mont Blanc to our left, hardly glimpsing it despite it being one of the bigger items in the general area. Now we had our backs to it though with the twists and turns of a mountain climb it is behind you, in front of you, now to the left, now to the right. A a sign of my general lack of condition and encroaching age I found myself walking stretches of the pass, a habit which I never got out of in the whole holiday but which kept my back and knees from getting too sore. I'm not proud. The pass top came at last and as with all passes, if there is a view to be seen, which is rare, you are too cold to linger and look at it and I was away almost immediately in a quest for warmth.
I can't resist mountain pass descents and I was well into my stride down this one when I saw something in the road ahead of me. An animal. My initial reaction was "badger" but it wasn't a badger; it was a marmot. Marmots are actually members of the squirrel family, as you realise when you see them in their characteristic sitting up pose, but a squirrel that you can confuse with a badger? That is one big squirrel!
The southern side of the Col is steeper and bumpier and dropped us quickly down to a quiet valley where, after a couple of beers as a reward for all that hard pedalling, we found accommodation in a village called Bessans in a comfortable and quiet gîte.
The ride in the morning took us on downhill for many a mile but the first village provided amusement as we could see a huge clamour of people milling around in the middle of the N6. Initially I thought that we had stumbled into some violent scene like a political demonstration gone out of control. But as we entered the main street of the town we realised that the village was having it's communal photo taken with all sorts of people gathered on the church steps and such a huge throng of onlookers that they were being man-handled off of the road by desperate marshals.
100 metres each side of this odd event there was the usual alpine peace and quiet.
From there the road got busier as we neared a town called Modane, the entrance to the Frejus Tunnel. At Modane the road meets a motorway and the railway twists and turns to find it's own tunnel . The trains were busy, scurrying under the mountains into Italy but the motorway was almost empty; a fire a few days earlier had closed the road tunnel. We headed out of town expecting a quiet time of it on deserted roads but came to a place were the main road was blocked by 'Route Barré' signs which ordinarily we ignore. On this occasion the presence of a two gendarmes made us follow the diversion. In fact they were quite insistent. This turned out to be hilly and by the time we reached the end of the diversion, a significant pass in its own right, we had lost Fred. After much seeking he turned up, unaware that we had been concerned, having punctured. It was to be the only puncture of the tour. A picnic was had on the side of the deserted dual carriageway with trains behind us and, in front, a very few cars. Not the most idyllic of sites but we had got hungry in the morning's confusions.
Following this valley we rode on an empty road beside and under the deserted motorway, beside the River Arc and the very steep railway until we reached St Michel du Maurienne. Here we were able to abandon this modern concrete ribbon and start the climb of the day, the Col du Telegraphe.
The Col du Telegraphe is a steep pass and, frustratingly for the photographers amongst us, almost entirely wooded so that opportunities to take pictures were few. I always enjoy the wildlife and the flowers on these passes so it was no hardship to be pedalling along through orchids and butterflies on a hot summer's afternoon. The top came at 1566 metres. We treated ourselves to a beer (more than one actually,) and then dropped quickly down to the town of Valloire. By one of those foibles of my memory and the onset of fatigue, I can't remember a darned thing about Valloire! I must have slept well.
The next morning we climbed the Col du Galibier. It is a magnificent road, climbing to 2646 metres. Actually we didn't climb very far as Valloire had been so high anyway that we had done most of the work during the climb of the Col du Telegraphe. But the bit we did climb was so spectacular, with the road glimpsed as bridges and buttments above us, hairpins hanging out into space above more hairpins and the view below of the road stretching away below us like a narrow grey ribbon, snaking all over the hill side. The road cuts through a tunnel near the top which probably keeps the pass open for quite a few extra weeks each year. Bikes are banned from the tunnel and quite right too. Who wants to miss the roof of the world? At the top is a rather surreal gift shop selling the usual knick-knacks including road racing vests, T. de F. tee-shirts and very welcome coffee. Nearby is the monument to Henri Desgranges, 'inventor' of the Tour de France. Had 'mon courage' complimented by various Belgian lady motorists for having ridden up one hill (didn't feel very courageous; I save that for the crazy descent) Maybe it was a Belgian chat up line, a bit late to find out now.
The descent was, of course, delicious but surprisingly not very long. At the BOTTOM of the pass is a sign telling us we are at the TOP of a pass, the Col du Lautaret. This seems a joke to have descended to the summit. We started to descend again, aware of a great convoy of trucks, with trailers, all carrying caravans and motorhomes. I let them get ahead; I didn't want to mix it with tons and tons of HGVs. What I hadn't realised was that the Col du Lautaret was the best alternative for many of the trucks and cars that couldn't get get through that fire damaged tunnel.
As we sat and ate our picnic in a purpose made area and a large number of trucks hurtled as hard as they could to, or from, Lautaret, we realised we were all sitting directly opposite a glacier, the first I had ever seen. To be honest it was nothing to write home about, just a streak of very mucky ice 5 miles away. Still, I can cross that off the list...glacier, yeah, seen one of those!
That evening we stayed in Briançon, a bustling town made more bustling by the road being so abnormally busy. The Tour de France would finish a stage here in July. One has to hope they sorted the tunnel out by then!
Next morning we woke to the only rain of the holiday and this caused a flurry of sight seeing around the old town of Briançon, with narrow streets and a gloomy and austere cathedral. Around 11 am it dried up a bit but we had already decided to cancel our assualt on the Col d'Izoard. None of us had any appetite for climbing for two hours in the cloud with no views to enjoy so we rode down the Durance valley instead. The main road is fairly busy but we found a pleasant way out of town and it was 10 km before we were forced to join the main road. The rain had stopped and all was fresh and cool; how soon you miss that when you are in sunshine every day.
I've started to feel human again after the holiday tour of the French Alps..
We flew to Geneva from E.Midlands (Easy Jet) (That's Hugh, Dick, Colin, Martin White, Fred Gascoigne & me. ) and made a bee line for the French border on the SE eastern side of the city, making sure not to buy anything at Swiss prices! It is possible to get into France straight from the airport gate but we were going to the Alps and that meant crossing Geneva. (Fun that was as well!) Finally escaped into a suburb of Geneva called Annemasse which is actually in France. A quaint place, think Croydon. This was our first and last night's stays.
Next day Dick had to go back into Geneva to get a front mechanism as his had not survived the ride on an hairyplane. (Mostly down to extreme old age - you should see Dick's bike; it's a modern day miracle) While it took four of them to go and get a front changer, Colin and I cleared off up the valley towards the mountains. We took the opportunity to buy the first of the picnic lunches which we always eat. This saves money that might more readily be used for alcohol. Then we sat in a bar and waited for the others. They never arrived as they had overtaken us while we waited at one junction and they were at another. After a while I remembered the mobile phone I no longer use much and we got in contact and arranged to meet at the top of the first big hill through a huge gorge, the Gorge des Eveaux, so we sat and ate our belated picnic outside a bar where we had supped a few bargain price French beers ( bit of irony there - it was great to get back to the British £2.40 pint!) The ride took us eventually via the Col des Aravis, to a small town called Flumet, distinguished by me having forgotten everything about the place! The reason for this was that we found nowhere to stay and so were directed to the nearby village of St Nicholas la Chapelle. Here we stayed in a chalet beside a Hotel which was stuffed full of English walkers from Kent, most of them in their sixties and raring to get up the next alp. Their walks were bus assisted to the high land then walking on to places inaccessible by road then down to a rendezvous (presumably with a couple of glasses!)
The walkers overtook us in their minibuses the next morning as we rode the first hard kilometres of the Col des Saisies up through the ski village of Notre Dame de Bellecombe. I had quite a hankering to walk with them in the quiet paths up near the snow line, looking out for chamois and eagles but there were miles to be covered and the beautiful Cormet de Roselend to cross, a pass with lakes and reservoirs and beautiful views. A few days later the Dauphin, the local paper showed Lance Armstrong riding past the same chapel at the top of the Cormet, but we had got there first.
After the descent of Roselend we found ourselves in Bourg St Maurice, a bustling place with narrow interesting streets and sprawling modern outskirts, in which we found a supremely unmemorable night's digs on the main 'drag'.
Had little to do with the town but bought a new map as I had fallen clean off of the Michelin sheet 328 and now needed sheet 333, the two maps overlapping frustratingly so that I only ever got three 3 euros worth, not the full 6!
The new map showed our way out of town, heading towards the Col de Petit St Bernard. I quite fancied seeing this little Saint Bernard with presumably a little barrel of brandy hanging from it's collar. This is undoubtedly an eccentric place to store spirits. However we turned off before this mighty climb as we were off to climb a still mightier one. Lunch was sought, and not found, in the depressing and empty Val d'Isere, a place I had seen full of clamour as it hosted various winter sports events on the TV but today a useless and ugly blot on the landscape where even the Spar shops were closed for the summer. So we climbed the Col de L'Iseran on empty stomachs. At least that kept the weight down! At 2764, (nearly 9000ft.) Col de L'Iseran is the highest tarmac pass in the French Alps and by the top we were passing snow drifts higher than our heads though the summer sun had got the snow well and truly on the run and it was pouring itself into the mountain streams as fast as possible. Until that morning we had kept Mont Blanc to our left, hardly glimpsing it despite it being one of the bigger items in the general area. Now we had our backs to it though with the twists and turns of a mountain climb it is behind you, in front of you, now to the left, now to the right. A a sign of my general lack of condition and encroaching age I found myself walking stretches of the pass, a habit which I never got out of in the whole holiday but which kept my back and knees from getting too sore. I'm not proud. The pass top came at last and as with all passes, if there is a view to be seen, which is rare, you are too cold to linger and look at it and I was away almost immediately in a quest for warmth.
I can't resist mountain pass descents and I was well into my stride down this one when I saw something in the road ahead of me. An animal. My initial reaction was "badger" but it wasn't a badger; it was a marmot. Marmots are actually members of the squirrel family, as you realise when you see them in their characteristic sitting up pose, but a squirrel that you can confuse with a badger? That is one big squirrel!
The southern side of the Col is steeper and bumpier and dropped us quickly down to a quiet valley where, after a couple of beers as a reward for all that hard pedalling, we found accommodation in a village called Bessans in a comfortable and quiet gîte.
The ride in the morning took us on downhill for many a mile but the first village provided amusement as we could see a huge clamour of people milling around in the middle of the N6. Initially I thought that we had stumbled into some violent scene like a political demonstration gone out of control. But as we entered the main street of the town we realised that the village was having it's communal photo taken with all sorts of people gathered on the church steps and such a huge throng of onlookers that they were being man-handled off of the road by desperate marshals.
100 metres each side of this odd event there was the usual alpine peace and quiet.
From there the road got busier as we neared a town called Modane, the entrance to the Frejus Tunnel. At Modane the road meets a motorway and the railway twists and turns to find it's own tunnel . The trains were busy, scurrying under the mountains into Italy but the motorway was almost empty; a fire a few days earlier had closed the road tunnel. We headed out of town expecting a quiet time of it on deserted roads but came to a place were the main road was blocked by 'Route Barré' signs which ordinarily we ignore. On this occasion the presence of a two gendarmes made us follow the diversion. In fact they were quite insistent. This turned out to be hilly and by the time we reached the end of the diversion, a significant pass in its own right, we had lost Fred. After much seeking he turned up, unaware that we had been concerned, having punctured. It was to be the only puncture of the tour. A picnic was had on the side of the deserted dual carriageway with trains behind us and, in front, a very few cars. Not the most idyllic of sites but we had got hungry in the morning's confusions.
Following this valley we rode on an empty road beside and under the deserted motorway, beside the River Arc and the very steep railway until we reached St Michel du Maurienne. Here we were able to abandon this modern concrete ribbon and start the climb of the day, the Col du Telegraphe.
The Col du Telegraphe is a steep pass and, frustratingly for the photographers amongst us, almost entirely wooded so that opportunities to take pictures were few. I always enjoy the wildlife and the flowers on these passes so it was no hardship to be pedalling along through orchids and butterflies on a hot summer's afternoon. The top came at 1566 metres. We treated ourselves to a beer (more than one actually,) and then dropped quickly down to the town of Valloire. By one of those foibles of my memory and the onset of fatigue, I can't remember a darned thing about Valloire! I must have slept well.
The next morning we climbed the Col du Galibier. It is a magnificent road, climbing to 2646 metres. Actually we didn't climb very far as Valloire had been so high anyway that we had done most of the work during the climb of the Col du Telegraphe. But the bit we did climb was so spectacular, with the road glimpsed as bridges and buttments above us, hairpins hanging out into space above more hairpins and the view below of the road stretching away below us like a narrow grey ribbon, snaking all over the hill side. The road cuts through a tunnel near the top which probably keeps the pass open for quite a few extra weeks each year. Bikes are banned from the tunnel and quite right too. Who wants to miss the roof of the world? At the top is a rather surreal gift shop selling the usual knick-knacks including road racing vests, T. de F. tee-shirts and very welcome coffee. Nearby is the monument to Henri Desgranges, 'inventor' of the Tour de France. Had 'mon courage' complimented by various Belgian lady motorists for having ridden up one hill (didn't feel very courageous; I save that for the crazy descent) Maybe it was a Belgian chat up line, a bit late to find out now.
The descent was, of course, delicious but surprisingly not very long. At the BOTTOM of the pass is a sign telling us we are at the TOP of a pass, the Col du Lautaret. This seems a joke to have descended to the summit. We started to descend again, aware of a great convoy of trucks, with trailers, all carrying caravans and motorhomes. I let them get ahead; I didn't want to mix it with tons and tons of HGVs. What I hadn't realised was that the Col du Lautaret was the best alternative for many of the trucks and cars that couldn't get get through that fire damaged tunnel.
As we sat and ate our picnic in a purpose made area and a large number of trucks hurtled as hard as they could to, or from, Lautaret, we realised we were all sitting directly opposite a glacier, the first I had ever seen. To be honest it was nothing to write home about, just a streak of very mucky ice 5 miles away. Still, I can cross that off the list...glacier, yeah, seen one of those!
That evening we stayed in Briançon, a bustling town made more bustling by the road being so abnormally busy. The Tour de France would finish a stage here in July. One has to hope they sorted the tunnel out by then!
Next morning we woke to the only rain of the holiday and this caused a flurry of sight seeing around the old town of Briançon, with narrow streets and a gloomy and austere cathedral. Around 11 am it dried up a bit but we had already decided to cancel our assualt on the Col d'Izoard. None of us had any appetite for climbing for two hours in the cloud with no views to enjoy so we rode down the Durance valley instead. The main road is fairly busy but we found a pleasant way out of town and it was 10 km before we were forced to join the main road. The rain had stopped and all was fresh and cool; how soon you miss that when you are in sunshine every day.
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