June 11: Le Lechere to Saint Francois Longchamp

 During breakfast, I spotted on booking.com that there was a hotel open on St Francois Longchamp, the ski town on the other side of Col de la Madeline. Now, I’d been warned that nothing was open on St Francois Longchamp, but this hotel offered a restaurant offsite, and if it was serving a half pension at least, we could stay high for more altitude acclimation and avoid the heat of the afternoon.

We packed and got started riding. Arturo called the hotel on the phone but didn’t get a reply until Boen and I had reached the second hairpin. When he confirmed that there were options for dinner, we committed to the hotel and continued up the climb.

This was my first time up the Madeline, but we had scouted the route before, which identified which fountains we wanted to stop at, and which were in awkward places. The climb was uneven, with relatively easy sections punctuated by some hard grades where we would have to grind up in our lowest gear. Once out of the treeline, however, the views opened up and we could see snow covered peaks.

At the top, we stopped for drinks and ice cream. We should have eaten lunch as well, as we would discover that Saint Francois Lonchamp had no food available even though restaurants were open at the summit!

Riding down Col de Madeline we followed our route to the hotel, which was a mistake, as It took us down some dirt roads and eventually resulted in a climb to the hotel proper. The hotel manager and staff were very excited to see a tandem, asking to take pictures of Boen and I for their Instagram account. To our disappointment, the swimming pool was not open as the person who was supposed to sign off on it hadn’t inspected and signed off on it as well. Stephan would comment that our search for swimming pools would not pay off.

Xiaoqin arrived with the luggage and assembled her bike t ride up this side of Col de la Madeline to the summit. That was a good idea. Since there was no food anywhere in town, Arturo, Boen, Mark and I drove the car to the summit to grab lunch. Stephan had already eaten and got a chance to work.

Dinner was a choice between their half pension, burgers, or raclette. Arturo and Boen opted for the raclette while the rest of us opted for the half pension. The food was delicious.

I looked on booking.com for Valloire. There was a classic car event on the 13^th, but since it started at 2:00pm I was confident that we would reach Col du Galibiere by the time it got started if we got an early start. Valloire had a couple of hotels opened but the cheapest option was an apartment rental that offered a swimming pool so we grabbed it.