Yesterday, me and Lukas spent a pretty crazy day in the french alps ... Well, I seriously think that the word ''crazy'' isn't strong enough to qualify the intensity of our journey.
Let's put it that way:
On Friday night we decided that we would be going for a bike ride to Col du Galibier (2646m) - One of the most famous HC climbs of the tour the France. From the bottom of the ascent it is a 35km climb witch goes trough Col du Télégraphe, another famous peak. Since my my arrival in the region I got to climb Alpe d'Huez, Col de Chambrousse, Col de la Croix de Fer, Col du Glandon and many others ... The Telegraphe&Galibier were the only major ones missing. Although the route to the summit had been closed for car traffic since last month because of snow issues, our determination to go up there took over as we said - ''How can a little snow stop us from going there?...'' The answer was to come.
So we took a train on Saturday morning at 7:30 to go to Saint-Jean de Maurienne. This village is 15k away from the ascent. Our plan was to go up to Galibier, down on the other side of the mountain and back to Grenoble witch is 140km ride. It was a cool plan and we would've reached the city by 4:30 if everything happened according to plans. Anyways the train arrived around 9 and we immediately hopped on our bikes. We started climbing in Saint-Michel de Maurienne, another nearby village. We arrived at the top of the Télegraphe 12km later and in Valloireat the 15k mark. Valloire, by the way, is an extremely popular ski resort where the Slalom World champ Jean-Baptiste Grange started racing (he's a real rock star over there!). + I got super exited because they where actually making snow on the runs !
 |
| Col du Télégraphe - 1556m |
The Galibier climb started at the 17k mark and let me tell you; its famous for good reasons. Its starts softly but then the average jumps to 9% in the last 9k. After 27k of climbing we were not looking forward to this steep section ...
Ok ! Now the real fun started ... Maybe the gods weren't in a good mood yesterday but they decided to put snow on our way when we only had 6km left to the top.
- ''What should we do Gab? Turn around or walk?'' Lukas asked.
-''Mmmmm.... Lets walk there's not that much snow!'' I replied.
- ''Ok!''
So we started walking (bike shoes on ice suck btw). We thought the situation was really funny for about an hour ... Then it got nasty. The snow was getting a lot deeper. + It was the crappy hard top snow that breaks when you step on it and shreds your shins. You know ? The one that leaves you with one leg stuck in knee deep snow and ice... It sucked. We also lost the road at one point cause it was totally covered. Seriously it was hell. Walking in deep hard snow on a insanely steep hill for 6km with our bikes on our back in -5 temperature.
I couldn't feel my feet/ankles/fingers anymore and my shins were a little beat up. We still managed to reach the top - 2646m of pure happiness. It's incredible up there ! We took a couple of fast pictures because it was already 3pm.
 |
| Why is the tunnel closed !? Merde ... |
To tell the truth, me and Lukas were super optimistic about going down the other side of the mountain because we thought there would be less snow ... Unfortunately it was worst. We did the hole descent (8k) from le Galibier to Col du Lautaret (another famous one) walking in snow. By 5, the darkness was coming and we still had to get to a non-covered road and ride 90km to Grenoble (the sunset was breathtaking but I didn't give a f*** about beauty at this point; just saying). We finally reached Col du Lautaret and its road at 6. It was kind of dark so we hopped back on our useless frozen bikes for another 40km of descent to Bourg d'Oisans witch is the city at the bottom of Alpe d'Huez. On our way my Czech friend was bad lucky and hit a patch of loose gavel ... He bailed pretty hard but we managed to get Bourg d'Oisans by 7:50.
So ... At this point it was way to dark to finish our ride to Grenoble and we missed the last bus going there by only a few minutes. Lol, I was not stocked at all. We then had to choose between finding an hotel room or hitchhiking in the dark with two bikes. We decided to hitchhike. There was nobody going to Grenoble ! I had my thumb up for 45minutes dressed in my soaking wet bike clothes - all of this in the darkness of the French Alps. 8:45 is the time when I started chatting with a local who was ending is work day. He said it was a bitch to go to Grenoble at this time at night but that he loves Canadians so he would do it. We warmed up in his bus - yes he was a bus driver - and his wife took care of cleaning the small cuts on my friends face. We then jumped in his car and he did a 60km drive to drop us in front of our apartments in the city.
People like this are incredible and they make the world a lot better. Some people here can be really annoying but in general they are so nice. By the way... I probably saw 8 cars when I was hitchhiking and 4 of them stopped to see how I was doing. That is a huge ratio of people who actually care about others !
Thanks to Vincent & Lise for closing on this ''crazy day''.
- 70km of train
- 85km of road cycling
- 2km of cyclocross
- 14km of mountaineering with carbon bikes
- 45minutes of hitchhiking
- 60km back to Grenoble with great people
- 8 granola bars, 3 sandwiches, 1L of drinkable coconut yogurt and a shit load of rice
- 14 hours of pure pleasure away from home ... I loved it !
Gabriel
wow gab t malade :p
RépondreSupprimer