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.
