The day off at Lake Geneve was wonderful. We all agreed we could have stayed there a couple more days, sandwiched between the vertical mountain cliffs above, and Lake Geneve below. Perfect weather. Good food...great company.
Time to push on.
The next stage from Morzine is extremely difficult, covering about 140 miles with almost 15,000' of vertical. We were up for a big day. We started at the route beginning in Morzine with a long steady unrated uphill, went through a couple of picturesque valleys spotted with villages, chalets, green grass pastures, lots of cowbells (connected to cows, of course), and, of course, the ever present high mountains.
We began to climb. And climb, and climb. We passed through mountain villages with, first, a Class 4 climb, then down a bit and up a Class 5, then started the infamous Class 1 Climb to Col de La Columbiere. This is about a 3500' climb in 12 miles of steady up. The first half is picturesque with lots of chalets and cows sprinkled through the landscape, but the second half gets really serious with only a long steep road surounded by ravines and mountains. We could see the hut at the top as we rounded a curve, still several miles ahead along an 8% grade. Roy cried "no mas" about 200 yards from the top, and as I pedaled by him I was going so slow I feared he would beat me to the top walking. I made it, but had that hill been another 400 yds. I would have been toast. Roy was right behind me to the top and we celebrated with a very long downhill with sweeping curves and a couple of S curves thrown in. Reached 40 mph. Yahoo!!! Very glad I had invested in those very nice Campy brakes before the trip. They give me a lot of confidence if I do need to slow down.
When we reached the bottom of this decline in about 5 miles, we had to face another very tough Class 2 climb to Col des Arives. 1500' climb in 5 miles. But, what a view all the way. Winding through villages and fields, this was a tough ride, but we were totally surrounded by chalets and cattle. (See my picture of my friendly neighborhood cow). We were very glad to reach the top, look back down on what we had accomplished, and enjoy the ride downhill to Flumet and our meet up for lunch with Gwen. As we began our descent, the rains arrived, slowing us a bit during the first rather slick portion, but we got below the rain, had dry weather and could really move (30-35mph) to Flumet. By the time we met with Gwen and had lunch, we decided that tackling the remaining portion of the ride would be too time consuming and would force us to backtrack from the end back west about 80 miles to our lodging and the start of the next day's Stage. So...we missed the final "unclassified" hill on this stage, an amazing steady climb of 5500' over 16 miles to Col de la Madeleine. We were saving our strength for the Pyranees. As it was, we didn't reach our hotel in Chambery until 7pm. Another good day, we had seen some great French Alps countryside, and were ready to hit the hay.
Time to push on.
The next stage from Morzine is extremely difficult, covering about 140 miles with almost 15,000' of vertical. We were up for a big day. We started at the route beginning in Morzine with a long steady unrated uphill, went through a couple of picturesque valleys spotted with villages, chalets, green grass pastures, lots of cowbells (connected to cows, of course), and, of course, the ever present high mountains.
We began to climb. And climb, and climb. We passed through mountain villages with, first, a Class 4 climb, then down a bit and up a Class 5, then started the infamous Class 1 Climb to Col de La Columbiere. This is about a 3500' climb in 12 miles of steady up. The first half is picturesque with lots of chalets and cows sprinkled through the landscape, but the second half gets really serious with only a long steep road surounded by ravines and mountains. We could see the hut at the top as we rounded a curve, still several miles ahead along an 8% grade. Roy cried "no mas" about 200 yards from the top, and as I pedaled by him I was going so slow I feared he would beat me to the top walking. I made it, but had that hill been another 400 yds. I would have been toast. Roy was right behind me to the top and we celebrated with a very long downhill with sweeping curves and a couple of S curves thrown in. Reached 40 mph. Yahoo!!! Very glad I had invested in those very nice Campy brakes before the trip. They give me a lot of confidence if I do need to slow down.
When we reached the bottom of this decline in about 5 miles, we had to face another very tough Class 2 climb to Col des Arives. 1500' climb in 5 miles. But, what a view all the way. Winding through villages and fields, this was a tough ride, but we were totally surrounded by chalets and cattle. (See my picture of my friendly neighborhood cow). We were very glad to reach the top, look back down on what we had accomplished, and enjoy the ride downhill to Flumet and our meet up for lunch with Gwen. As we began our descent, the rains arrived, slowing us a bit during the first rather slick portion, but we got below the rain, had dry weather and could really move (30-35mph) to Flumet. By the time we met with Gwen and had lunch, we decided that tackling the remaining portion of the ride would be too time consuming and would force us to backtrack from the end back west about 80 miles to our lodging and the start of the next day's Stage. So...we missed the final "unclassified" hill on this stage, an amazing steady climb of 5500' over 16 miles to Col de la Madeleine. We were saving our strength for the Pyranees. As it was, we didn't reach our hotel in Chambery until 7pm. Another good day, we had seen some great French Alps countryside, and were ready to hit the hay.
No comments:
Post a Comment