June 13th: Valloire to Briancon

 We had bought breakfast the evening before from the supermarket down the street. One problem with renting an apartment is that you have to clean up yourself according to pretty strict standards so we couldn’t make a big mess by cooking anything complicated. About the most ambitious thing we could make was fried egg, but between that, some instant ramen (which Boen loved) bread, meat, and cheese, we got plenty of fuel for the ride.

The climb up the Galibiere from town isn’t fearsome at first. The initial grades were gentle, though high enough to grant us views of side valleys that contained hiking passes. Trees disappeared rather quickly, since Valloire was already at 1400m. Because Galibiere was so tall, even at 2000m, we still had half the climbing left.

At that point, the climb began in earnest, earning Galibiere’s fearsome reputation. Switchback after switchback began to have names of famous professional cyclists written on them. We started to see waterfalls. As we rose, I realized that I had never seen Galibiere in good weather before, and it was indeed beautiful, with plenty of waterfalls. We filled up with water at the last restaurant before the summit at around 2000m, and climbed the rest in oxygen deficit, which forced us a stop and rest at every waterfall intersection every 200m of climbing or so.

The summit surprisingly had no restaurants or café, but was instead a massive zoo, with cars, motorcycles, and cyclists all bidding for parking as well as pictures at the summit signs. Mark and Stephan had gotten to the top well ahead of us. We got our summit pictures (some of which were taken by Californians who’d identified the tandem, having seen that unmistakable bike from when we climbed Mt Tam with the Western Wheelers), and then said goodbye to Stephan.

The descent to Lauteraut from Galibiere is a delight—the long straight runs were perfect for the tandem. In fact, I even overtook a beginner motorcyclist down the road! At Lauterat we found Xiaoqin and Bowen eating lunch and joined them. When we were finished, I saw the bus coming and decided that there was no chance I wanted to be stuck behind a silly bus on this fast descent. Boen and I stomped hard on the pedals and cleared a traffic light as the last vehicle through. Since this was an “alternee circulation” traffic light we knew we had a long interval before the next cars could come down, and rather than wait for Mark or Arturo we went ahead.

The first 8km of Col du Lauteraut on the Briancon side do not require braking at all, as you were capable of achieving terminal velocity the whole time. Back in 2005, Mike Samuel and I found ourselves drafting busses and car transporters while descending, spinning out our high gears furiously.

At 1200m Briancon was the highest cathedral town in France, but that was still low enough that when we got to 1400m it was so warm we had to stop and take off our jackets. At that point, the bus that we’d worked so hard to stay ahead of passed us, followed by a stream of cars. The last 200m of descent was punctuated by hills which marked ski towns (as identified by fancy hotels and ski lifts), but we had reservations waiting for us, so we kept pedaling until we got to the Logis de France hotel.

The owner greeted us, showed us the garage and the bike parking space and the apartments which were generously sized and well shielded from the heat. Once the car got to the hotel, we unloaded It and took showers. It had been a few days since the EV got charged, so Arturo and I took the car to the local city parking garage which had an EV charger. On the way back to the hotel we passed a carrefour and I noticed it had laundry machines sitting outside which dispensed detergent as part of a wash, so once I got back I got everyone in the family to give me the dirty laundry after I took a shower and I went and did a load as well as buying cold drinks and breakfast.

It was warm outside, so it was very nice relaxing in our cool hotel apartments. At 6:15 or so we hiked up to old town to explore it prior to dinner, and the walk was exposed and hot. The old town provoked memories as the last time we were here there was  Renaissance fair, which in the surroundings were much more appropriate. The town had lots of nooks and corners, prompting memories of Carcassonne, both the Languedoc city and the board game of the name.  Inside, it was quite steep, with water continually running down channels of many streets.

At 7:00pm, we stood in front of the restaurant which were already seating guests. This was a popular place, since they had sent me a continuous stream of e-mail asking me to confirm I was coming. We were seated quickly, and there were two fixed priced menus that we separated by only 2 euros, the choice between Duck Confit and Duck Breast. Both dishes were very good and being cyclists we put away all the food including dessert with no issues.

We debated choices on the Col L’Izoard tomorrow. We had been riding for 3 days without a rest day at this point. The Col L’Izoard Napoleon refuge had a good reputation, but we would hit it prior to the summit. I noticed there was another Logis de France hotel with a good reputation at around 1400m down the other side. It was a Sunday so I didn’t expect much competition for lodging, plus there were places all the way down the valley. This Logis de France hotel even had a swimming pool!

Walking back to our hotel in the evening, I still felt the need to take another shower to cool down before going to bed.

June 12th: San Francois Longchamp to Valloire

 Breakfast was generous, but as we were eating I received a text saying that to get linens we’d have to pay extra. We would learn that apartment rentals from booking.com weren’t the same as from AirBnB, where the norm was a hotel-like experience. On booking the expectation was that you would arrive with your own linens, towels, and shampoo. Valloire had an open supermarket so we agreed to pay the linen fee, since the apartment rental was non refundable anyway.

The descent from Saint Francois Longchamp was a high speed delight that went on and on, for the Maurienne Valley sat at a mere 500m in elevation. The descents were sweeping and in the morning there was no traffic to impede us. At the bottom, we shed our jackets and put on sunscreen for the valley traverse, which started on a beautiful valley bike path that was shaded.

At Saint Jean Maurienne, however, the bike path transmogrified into a bike lane along a busy highway that was completely unshaded and full of traffic. The highway rose above the limited access freeway and we could see that the highway had much more traffic than the freeway because the freeway required paying a toll but the highway was free. While that made the freeway much faster (it was never clogged up), when both roads were running freely the highway was much more unpleasant to ride on. That 10km stretch between Saint Jean Mauriene and Saint Michel Maurienne was so unpleasant that I would avoid Col de la Madeline in the future in favor of Col D’Iseran in the future.

Saint Michel Maurienne was the site of some major construction, but it had an open supermarket where we could eat lunch in the street before riding through the dusty town center to begin our climb up Col du Telegraf, another pass that was new to me. Col du Telegraf is named after the telegraph tower that’s its name sake. It’s not a difficult climb, and I chose to stay in Valloire because I’d hoped to do some hiking in Valloire if we’d got there early.

It being Friday afternoon, however, the traffic was substantial and unrelenting. “Every time I visit Europe, I relearn my hatred of motorcycles”, remarked Boen as yet another round of noisy Harley Davidsons (many probably modified to make them even louder!) passed us for the umpteenth time. While the ride was shaded sufficiently that we were occasionally spared the worst of the afternoon heat, the initial climb was both low and unshaded that we had sweat rolling off our chins as we climbed.

The summit was commemorated by a pass sign but no restaurants or cafes. We took pass pictures and immediately descended in search of our lodging. Somehow, my route took us past the lodging to the center of town, and when we identified our error we had to climb back up part way to find our lodging. There was no indoor parking for our bikes, but since it wasn’t forecast to rain, I locked up the tandem outside and took the opportunity to re-wax the chain.

We met the linen delivery and then had to make our beds, take showers, and do laundry. By the time all was said and done there wasn’t really time for a hike, but Xiaoqin and I decided to walk to town in search of a restaurant that was opened earlier than the customary French 7pm.

Xiaoqin found a beautiful if challenging adventure path to town that was mostly shaded. Despite it being only mid-June, however, flies and mosquitoes were out in force and we got bitten a couple of times. Once in town, we found a bike shop selling overpriced Col du Galibiere jerseys, and one restaurant that listed their opening hours as 6:00pm! We told everyone and Arturo cancelled his 7pm dinner reservation elsewhere. I always wonder why a country that services so many bicycle tourists don’t have cyclist-specific restaurants that open earlier!

When everyone arrived the restaurant opened but then told us the kitchen wouldn’t open until 6:30pm. Well, 6:30pm was still better than 7:00pm, so we stayed for what turned out to be an excellent selection of food.

Stephan had to leave our tour the next day, so he had to plot his exit. While the opt
ion that gave him the most new roads would be Galibiere, Col du Sarennes, and Alp D’Huez, that would put him in a bad position to return to Munich. After much research, he managed to come up with a combination of bus and trains from Saint Michel Maurienne that would get him back to Geneva by the end of the day while still giving him time to climb the Galibiere with us.

We had our own decisions to make, as one possibility was to visit Le Grave for a couple of days to do that above loop and maybe some additional hiking in what was said to be one of the most beautiful villages in France. But first, the lodging wasn’t cheap, and secondly, I discovered that one of the hikes would have been a very long day, so it wouldn’t have ended up being a rest day.

Briancon, however, had a Logis de France hotel that had a very good price. It would involve no backtracking, and I had great memories of having duck confit in the old town. Arturo and I called both the Auberg de la Paix in the old town and the Logis de France hotel before deciding that the Logis de France hotel was both better positioned (no driving the car into old town) and cheaper.

I looked up restaurants menus and made reservations all of us at La Gravotte in Briancon at the earliest possible moment. I would discover later that indeed Xiaoqin, Phil and I had had dinner precisely at the same restaurant 15 years ago.

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.

June 10th: Arpettaz Loop

 We woke up to sunshine! Well, we’d already committed to stay for 2 nights and the extra rest would let me get rid of the jet lag that was still lingering despite taking melatonin pills. After breakfast, Xiaoqin left to climb Col de la Madeline while the rest of us drove up the road, noting the steepness of the gradient and the sizeable numbers of cyclists who were riding up the road.

The route that Arturo picked started off with a stiff climb, crossing a couple of rivers. Despite the recent heat wave (and what felt like a coming heat wave), there was still unmounted snow in the shadows of the tall mountains. In fact, though we did not know it at the time, this was the last time we would feel cool or even cold at the time.

As the trail rose, we got grand views of the taller peaks around us. The thing about the Col de la Madeline area is that it’s not frequently touristed, so even the ski resort on the other side wouldn’t start running lifts until June 25^th for hiking, long after we had left the area. That made the place isolated. We saw maybe a handful of other hikers the entire hike, and had the place mostly to ourselves.

With vistas abound it was hard to keep a fast pace on the hike, and we stopped frequently for pictures, with me wishing I had charged my Ricoh GR3 the night before and having to borrow a battery bank from Arturo to keep it running.

We finished around 1:00pm and drove down to meet Xiaoqin, who’d made the mistake of ordering a sit down meal at a French restaurant, which despite the occasional sun made her cold while eating since the time between courses was indeterminable. When Boen helped her finished desert she could keep climbing up the pass. The rest of us drove to an EV charging station next to a supermarket. Since it was a medium fast charger, we could get the car charged to 85% during a half hour supermarket lunch.

After lunch, we drove back to the hotel to get our swimming things. Bowen, Boen, Arturo and I went to the swimming pool only to be told that our swim suits were not regulation. We’d have to buy their swimming trunks. It was already 3pm, and the water slides weren’t running either, so Boen opted out and we did a walk to the Siphon waterfalls, which were interesting, occasionally pulsing due to a natural siphon effect that was preserved despite all the mitigation measures that had to be taken to keep the stream from flooding the town.

It was a short but worthy walk. I had time to take the EV for a drive to the laundry machine and use it. We planned to ride the Col de la Madeline the next morning and stay on the other side at St Jean Maurienne or even St Michel Maurienne so we could tackle Col Telegraf the next day.

June 9th: Bourg St. Maurice to Le Lechere

 Waking up I the morning, the skies were cloudy but it looked dry enough to ride. Arturo had made a reservation at Le Lechere and we had a 20 mile ride plotted out. The breakfast at the Base Camp Hotel was very good, and if the town had other attractions we could have stayed another night. After an initial false turn, the route took us down to a bike path along the river. If the entire ride was entirely like that I would have relaxed and enjoyed the day, but instead after a mere 10km the bike path rose and dumped us out onto a main road where we were climbing along with a fair amount of traffic. Fortunately, at the most difficult of the climb what appeared to be a local bike club joined us and gave us company (and confidence) before the road brought us to the SPA town.

The hotel looked popular for dinner and we would have the half pension for our two night stay there. They first had us park our bikes in what looked like a painter’s shed but because they were actually painting something they would move the bikes later into the cellar. The day was still young so Arturo proposed that we drive the car to Annecy for a rainy day visit. Xiaoqin was tired of sitting in the car so she opted to get her bike out and go for a ride instead, leaving Arturo, myself, Mark and the two kids to take the car ride.

The drive took a good 100 minutes because of traffic, and you could see during the drive that the Alps terminated right in Annecy. Of course, the ride from Geneva to Annecy would be a massive pain, and judging from the traffic not much fun. The town itself was rather cute, with lots of cool ice cream shops, Foies Gras for sale, and obviously on days with better weather than what we had we could have taken boat rides. But on days with better weather we probably would have been riding instead! It sprinkled here and there while we were walking around town and admiring the various bridges over the Thiou river which would eventually join up with the Rhone. Annecy is frequently called “The Venice of the Alps”. I’d never been to Venice but I wasn’t sure if the comparison was apt—the river was certainly not the transportation between buildings!

It was another 100 minute drive back, so by the time we got back to Le Lechere and showered it was dinner time. Dinner turned out to be rather good, but we were worn out to do much more than a cursory walk. Xiaoqin thought she could do Col du Madeline the next day while the rest of us planned a hike. Stephan would take the day to work while he was on tour so the car had room for all of us who wanted to hike.

June 8th: Flumet to Bourg St Maurice

 Waking up to a sunny day, we showed up to breakfast 5 minutes late. Despite that, it was clear that most items weren’t ready. The owner showed up a little later, frantically saying that everything would be ready soon. Either Arturo, Stephan, or Mark would tell me later that he’d just bought the hotel and hadn’t gotten the hang of everything yet.

When the breakfast was ready it was decent, and we ate our fill to prepare for our 2000m day. The climb up Sassies switched back frequently but unlike Columbiere was never super steep. The real climb would be up the Roseland in the afternoon. The descent was fast and at the bottom it was warm. When we got to Beaufort it was very warm. We got fruit, cold drinks, and bread at the supermarket and then ice cream.

Thus fortified, we started the climb up the Cormet de Roseland, our first 2000m high pass of the trip. A steady 8% grade, once we got into the forest it was warm but the trees shielded us from the sun’s burning rays. 

Plodding along, we saw a tall waterfall. The thing about climbing in the Alps is that whenever you see a waterfall, you know that you have to climb above it eventually if it’s anywhere near the road. In this case, once we were above the waterfall, we almost were at the Roseland lake just before the summit. Xiaoqin joined us there, and we rode up the pass together. Stephan had already gone ahead with his superior power to weight ratio. She had more energy than we did, so took a lot of pictures. At the summit we regrouped, got a pass photo, put on our jackets and began to descend. By this time we started to feel the occasional rain drops. Fortunately, we would stay ahead of the rain this time.

The top part of Cormet Roseland was composed of long straightaway segments and the tandem showed off its top end speed before the chain of switchbacks slowed us down and allowed Stephan to catch and then over-take us. By the time we got to the Bourg St. Maurice city limit sign it was warm and we stopped to take off our jackets and start looking at lodging.

It being a Monday, there was plenty of availability, and we in the end decided on riding to Base Camp Lodge to negotiate in person, since it looked intriguing and had dining options as well as an onsite washing machine. Getting there turned out to be a climb on top of already tired legs, but we managed it. Once there, we got rooms and I discovered a free EV charger provided we made a reservation with the hotel. The “reservation system” turned out to be the receptionist writing down on a piece of paper that we’d taken one of those spaces. When Xiaoqin arrived we parked the car in the spot and plugged it in without fuss or messing around with payment options, which was great.

By the time it was dinner time, rain had started in earnest, but we were indoors and I’d discovered the secret elevator to the restaurant that did not require that we walk outside. The meals were good, and the laundry machine while it required coins came with detergent. We got laundry done while having dinner, and after dinner the rain even let up sufficiently for us to take a walk.

There was no question that we needed a rest day. The question was whether to take a rest day here in Bourg St. Maurice or to take it in Le Lechere and commit to riding Col de la Madeline. With the rain forecast, we decided that it was a fool’s errand to wait until July 12^th for Col D’Iseran to open. I pointed out that there was Hotel Radiana in Le Lechere which was a SPA hotel. Arturo pointed out that their rules precluded Boen from using the hot springs.  There was a town swimming pool, however, and he found a well rated hotel (La Cabriere) with good food. We’d take a transfer day the next day, and another rest day to avoid the rain and also give Xiaoqin a chance to ride.