Le Tour: Part 3 Bourg d'Oisans via Villard-Reymond


The next ride I had planned was yet another mountain climb.  I started by descending into the valley town of Bourg d'Oisans which happened to be the starting point of Stage 19.  I managed to get a few snaps over the crowd.




The loop I had planned was another mountain pass, although this one was along a mountain pass overlooking the river valley, super narrow roads with long unlit tunnels.






As you can see it involved a bit of climbing...


The first ascent was quite tough, gradients were in the 10% range, and the road was super narrow with a series of unlit dark narrow tunnels.  There is something really quite frightening cycling into complete darkness surrounded by rock inside a mountain.  I was more afraid of giant potholes that I couldn't see, as you could hear oncoming cars a long way off.



However the effort was worth it for the amazing views over the valley.  This was only one side of the mountain, once I reached Villard-Notre Dame the ascent should have mostly finished.


After reaching Villard-Notre Dame I headed to Villard-Reymond through an unsealed gravel road which was mostly flat but at high altitude.  At this point I was starting to get cold, it was about 22ºC in the valley and a good deal cooler this high up. Also it started raining and I had no rain gear whatsoever.



The descent was a little hairy, being mostly gravel not as bad as the first day's route as it was a lot harder packed, however the verge was very steep, and about 1000m down or so...  Suffice to say I took it easy around the corners.  Boy was I glad to have a bike with 28mm tyres rather than little 23mm skinnies.  Even then I was a wee bit wary.


Finally I reached Villard-Reymond and the paved road came back, not the smoothest of roads but greatly improved.  At this point I was starting to get quite cold, only having a jersey and knicks and starting to get wet from the rain.  The descent was nice and quick, each few hundred metres I descended it started to get warmer and warmer.





Finally I reached the valley and found a whole lot of other cyclists going through there.  I started striking up a conversation with another guy about Mr Ramen.  What I wasn't looking forward to was ascending Alpe d'Huez again to get to where I was staying on the 16th hairpin, which meant climbing the first 5 hairpins, also the hardest...  Still I made it back in once piece.  I have a few more rides planned so stay tuned.


2 comments:

  1. Wow. Your photos are spectacular. I feel like I'm riding with you. Any way to enlarge your photos (other than clicking each one) in your posts? They are way too lovely to enjoy in tiny view.

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  2. Thanks! Yep thanks for the feedback, I think the default setting for photos are medium which end up too small, so I've now put them all on x-large. Should make it easier to see the pics without having to click.

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