There’s always another great climb. You could spend a month in the Alps and not ascend all the great climbs. The Alps are the most mammoth buffet you might ever belly up to. You can either eat strategically and pace yourself, or binge for one magnificent meal and pay the rest of the week.
I was at a crossroads and had a decision to make. This wasn’t some existential crisis; I was literally at a crossroads. To my left was the climb up the Cormet de Roselend, the top of which was some 24 kilometers away; to my right, just more than 18 kilometers was the town of Albertville and my swimming pool-equipped hotel. Behind me were the last five-plus hours of roads I had ridden since leaving the town of Annecy early that morning.
I sat down on my top tube and took inventory. Gorgeous vistas?
Check. Three categorized Alpine climbs (the Cols des Aravis, la Croix de Fer and Saisies)? Check. A remarkable lunch of omelettes and frites? Check. Thrilling descents? Check. Fatigue? Major check.
By any measure, I had enjoyed a full day: more than 100 kilometers of riding, more than 7000 feet of climbing, a delightful outdoor lunch with four strong and funny riders and two dra-matic switchback descents through dense forest that I would have gladly paid money to repeat.
Back to the question: Should I turn left to climb the Cormet
de Roselend? Miss a climb used in the Tour de France? Wasn’t that why I was in the Alps—to ride the great roads of the Tour?Despite the fact that this was my second trip to the Alps, I still didn’t get it.
That’s when I had a Joycean epiphany. There’s always anther great climb. You could spend a month in the Alps and not ascend all the great climbs. The Alps are the most mammoth buffet you might ever belly up to. You can either eat strategically and pace yourself, or binge for one magnificent meal and pay the rest of the week.
So, convinced that I’d had a good and full day, I turned right.
At the pool late that afternoon I spent some time perusing the Michelin map Glenn Erickson, my tour guide, had provided me, rather than studying the pink line he had highlighted over the photocopy of said map. Giving Glenn a map of the Alps is like handing a guitar to Eric Clapton. He’ll make it sing, entertaining you with the turns and twists of his ingenuity.
In studying the map I was struck by the fact that many towns are surrounded by mountains-literally surrounded. For some towns, every road out ascends a pass of at least 4500 feet.
TOO BIG TO BORDER
In some places, mountains serve as a border region-this side is mine, that side is yours. The Pyrenees are a great example of this; to the south, Spain, and to the north, France. And somewhere in there the Basques, a people who inhabited the mountains themselves, got the geopolitical shaft.
The Alps are much too large to be a border region for any one place. They occupy portions of France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein and even Slovenia. They are subdivided into 11 different regions, and the cols raced in the Tour de France come from the Chablais, Cottian, Dauphiné, Graian and Maritime alps.
Complicating matters are several mountain ranges sometimes called Préalps that sit to the west and include the Chartreuse, Jura and Vercors. Climbs in these ranges are usually called Alpine in Tour de France coverage, but strictly speaking, aren’t.
Elevation-wise, the milder stuff is to the west. Move east, toward the Italian or Swiss border, and the elevations get higher, and the population more sparse, which results in fewer food stops between climbs.
For Tour de France purposes, the Alps begin just south of Lake Geneva and run south all the way to the coast-the Cote d’Azur.
They extend west from the French border to a lazy arc that can be drawn, more or less, south from Geneva through Annecy, Chambery and Grenoble, then due south to Toulon.
Michelin is the map of record for France, and this is especially so for the Alps. The maps are so good and the insight into nature’s beauty so unerring that one really needs nothing more than a Michelin 200-series map to find the best the Alps have to offer. Just follow the green line. If you see a squiggling road with a green highlight on its shoulder, it’s an E-ticket ride of such beauty you’ll interrupt the most entertaining descent you’ve ever ridden just to take pictures.
ALL MORNING
Our next day’s ride contained the tour’s first name-brand attraction: the Col de la Madeleine. We were to climb the mountain’s longer, northern side. At nearly 27 kilometers in length and ascending just shy of 5300 feet, this would be our first bona fide Hors-Categorie climb. The fact that the Madeleine doesn’t rise a full 2000 meters means in the French mind it’s a sort of runner-up, kinda like being only five-feet, 11-inches. But do the conversion and you get the mountain’s full measure. The pass sits at 6539 feet. (Insert Keanu Reeves-like, “Whoa.”)
Thanks to a two-kilometer descent not quite mid-way through the climb, the Madeleine’s average gradient is a seemingly reasonable 5.8 percent-on paper. What that doesn’t tell you is that five kilometers, including the next-to-last, average 9 to 9.5 percent.
The words of a friend rang in my ear. I had asked him how long it took to him to climb the Madeleine: “All morning. By the time we finished the descent, it was time for lunch.”
With some mountains you can tell when the end is near; a ridge in the distance curtains your view, and it offers a light to the end of your tunnel. Such is the case with most of the Pyrenees.
Unlike its younger cousins to the west, the Alps are more rounded and worn on top, and what may seem like the pass-or col, in French-may be just another saddle coming into view. The reality is, with the Alps, the end is almost never in sight. It comes at you as a surprise; out of a turn you’ll see the parking lot ahead and say to yourself, “Oh thank heaven (or perhaps something a little stronger), I’m finished!”
The good news is that with few exceptions, there is at least a bar on top. Coca-Cola never tasted so good. Now, that may be because it’s made with real cane sugar in Europe (instead of high fructose corn syrup) or it may just be that after a two-or three-hour climb, any soft drink tastes really good.
Within staggering distance of the bar (one beer hasn’t been this powerful since high school-stick with sugar and caffeine) will be a sign marking the pass and its elevation. Photos are obligato-ry. The French work hard to make sure everything is well-marked, from the signs marking each kilometer and its gradient on the way up, to the fact the signs are mounted at a height suitable for tourist pictures. The recent proliferation of American bike tours has seen a rise in a new behavior, though: cyclists putting stickers on the signs marking the col. Want to upset a Frenchman? Put a sticker on his sign. (Please don’t.)
Our day was to finish with some little climb we’d never heard of. Correction: We thought it was little because we’d never heard of it. It may have been smallish by Alpine standards, but the climb up to our hotel in Albiez-le-Vieux required us to ride the Col du Mollard, a 21-kilometer ascent to more than 4500 feet elevation.
A TOWN FOR TORTURE
Below us and at least 15 degrees warmer was the town of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. It’s a tiny commune of about 10,000 people with some good restaurants and a great weekly market.
Its real attraction is that it offers more of the Tour’s most famous climbs within a day’s ride than any other town in France.
Riding west directly out of town is the climb up la Toussuire (first category) and southwest is the Col de la Croix de Fer (H.C.). To the northwest just a little is the Col du Glandon (H.C. or first category, depending on the direction of approach), a little further northwest is the Madeleine, and to the southeast is the Col du Telegraphe (first or second) followed by the Col du Galibier (H.C.).
Continue southeast past the Telegraphe and you reach the Col du Mont Cenis (H.C.). Once south of the Croix de Fer and Galibier lie ‘Alpe d’Huez (H.C.), the Col du Lautaret (first or second) and les Deux-Alpes (first). Turn right after descending the north face of the Madeleine and you can pick from Val Thorens (H.C.), Meribel (second) and Courchevel (first).
The famed La Marmotte cyclotourist event begins just south of Saint-Jean-de Maurienne in the town of le Bourg d’Oisans, which sits at the base of l’Alpe d’Huez. The event takes in the Cols du Glandon, Telegraphe, Galibier before scaling l’Alpe d’Huez.
With Erickson, we were given an opportunity to do a similarly challenging loop. After dropping down the east face of the Mollard, we would climb the Col de Telegraphe, followed of course by the Galibier, a stop for lunch at the Henri Desgrange memorial a couple of kilometers from the top of the climb, descend the Galibier and Lauteret, get a snack in le Bourg d’Oisans, ignore l’Alpe d’Huez, continue on to the Croix de Fer, and then descend to the turnoff for the west approach of the Mollard. It was to be a 110-mile loop with more than 15,000 feet of climbing.
Simply put, it was one of the most challenging rides I’ve completed. The opening descent through a rapid-fire succession of switchbacks was so entertaining I wanted to do it again. With one exception-navigation proved truly simple; life in the mountains does tend to offer few paved choices.
I was surprised by the abrupt ramp of the Telegraphe think 737 at takeoff. Climbing through the forest, I was afforded only occasional glimpses of the changing perspective on the surrounding mountains. Some 12 kilometers into the climb I reached the 5178-foot top and rolled into a welcome 4-kilometer break (descent) into the ski village of Valloire. The respite ended rudely, and despite the fact that I’d already climbed more than 2800 feet, I had 15 kilometers and 2200 feet left to climb to reach the top of the Col du Galibier. Rising above the treeline was unnerving, though the view of surrounding peaks provided an ever-changing delight with each turn. Some 34 kilometers after hitting the base of the Telegraphe | rolled into the parking lot. Total elevation gain: 6881 feet on the way to attaining an altitude of 8668 feet, which explained why I needed my very lowest gear on a nine percent grade-not much air.
I posed for a photo with the sign at the top and then made my way to our picnic at the Desgrange memorial. I tried to eat a sandwich, but the temperature was in the 40s and the wind was pushing me around like an invisible shoving match, and I had long since lost. I abandoned my food in favor of pedaling the descent to warm up. Except for 3 kilometers broken in two sections, the road is downhill from the top of the Galibier to le Bourg d’Oisans, an incredible 48 kilometers of gravity assist. Were it not for the uphill, I would have descended nearly 6900 feet in an hour. It gets warmer the whole way, which was nice until I was about six kilometers outside of le Bourg d’Oisans and the thermometer nicked the 90-degree mark.
I grabbed a snack in town and immediately hit the road for the Croix de Fer. The climb’s western approach measures 31 kilome-ters, and while the opening eight kilometers are largely flat, I still had to cover each and every one of them.
Frankly, with less than five kilometers to go, I thought I was riding well; my rhythm felt good, and while I was nearly out of water, I wasn’t actually out of water. Then, I heard the sound of a chain.
I turned my head just in time to see a baby giraffe ride a bicycle by me. The giraffe was spinning a 39×19. I know, because I looked down and could see the chain behind his hooves. Minutes later, three more giraffe passed me, followed by a minivan with three Dutch zookeepers offering me water.
Merci, non. Je suis bon. (Nah, I’m good.)
Vous étes un plus fort coureur! (Dude, you’re way strong.)
Non, je suis le stupide Americaine. (You’ve heard of stupid Americans? Here I am.)
Riotous laughter.
The escaped giraffe were juniors from Team Sweet Parade, a Dutch candy company. Perfect. Together, they had the mass of a ball bearing and folded properly would have fit in my carry-on bag. Their jerseys were crafted from tube socks.
By the time I arrived at the bar, the juniors were fully recov-ered. In plain sight of all, I walked up to the first kid that passed me and announced:
Tu est Lance Armstrong.
Even his pimples and braces blushed.
They bought me a Coke, and when they learned my route for the day, they bought me another.
Halfway down the 30-kilometer descent I found the turnoff to the Col du Mollard. Thank heaven. The final eight kilometers of climbing were so insanely hard it was sort of anticlimactic. When I rolled up to the hotel, nearly everyone was in the bar working on at least their second beer. On my way to the shower, I considered the proposition that Glenn planned this day as part of a vacation.
I then considered Glenn’s definition of fun. Maybe it included waterboarding.
CHOICES, CHOICES
One night at dinner I asked Glenn how he selected roads, and he confided, “I go for the scenic.” Then I flashed on a conversation wed had the previous year in a region to the south called the Vercors.
It was a radiator-hot day in July. The Tour de France was looping through the Pyrenees to the west of us, and we were tearing up the roads before the crowds came caravanning.
The Vercors sits just southwest of the city of Grenoble at the western edge of the Alps. It is best known for impossibly difficult rock climbs in its granite gorges. Upon seeing climbers on its overhanging walls, one can be forgiven for thinking the slabs are carpeted and the people have cat’s claws.
When people talk of breathtaking, this is what they have in mind. We would stop periodically at a lookout, grab the railing to brace ourselves and spit. And if our hearts didn’t stop-to a per-son-I can pay the national debt. The views usually included drops of 1000 feet or more. Looking west you see the Rhone River Valley.
Following a hairaising descent of a road that hugged the wall of one of the gorges, we made our way along the valley floor as we headed south to take a new road back up the 3000 feet to the ridgeline that separated us from our hotel.
And then I had a mechanical. Armed with a Leatherman’s tool and 20 minutes of cloudless noon sunlight, Glenn tightened my unwound BB cup and we began our ascent and a conversation that made Glenn both more mysterious and visionary.
With temperatures registering somewhere in the Dutch oven range, we rode a set of switchbacks that conformed not to the contours of the road itself, but rather between shadows cast on the road surface by nearby trees. Sometimes the shadow was on the right, sometimes the left. Some lasted a single pedal stroke, some eight or ten pedal strokes.
As we spun our way up, Glenn said to me, “The big mountains, the Madeleine, the Galibier, l’Alpe d’Huez, those sell the tour; that’s what brings people over to do this trip. But this, the Vercors, these tiny roads and gentler climbs and fun descents, that’s what brings them back.”
And while I heard his words, it would take a few years before I could embrace his point of view. When I told another rider more experienced with the Alps what Glenn said about the Vercors, he responded, “Totally.”
This feature originally ran in Road Bike Action, November, 2009.