France Sep 5, Glandon and Croix de Fer

Today was a misty rainy day to start. We planned to leave Saint Jean de Mauriene, ride down the valley to the next town, turn left, then ride up to the Col du Glandon.

This route has very nice blocks which tell the route, the route number (D927), distance to top, and the percentage grade (7 average) for the next km.

Opps!! It just got a lot tougher and stayed that way to the top of the climb. Lots of standing on this one.

Here are Jim and Susan Sproull gliding easily up the bottom part of the climb. They are both quite strong riders.

Jim on the top... in the fog!

Looking up the Croix de Fer. Easy climb and really wild countryside. Beautiful in its own way. Lots of ski lifts, although you can't see them from here. The Tour de France uses this col and the Col du Glandon to transition from the High Alps to Alpe du Huez and the more southern Alps.

A view down the northwest side of the Col del la Croix de Fer. That is actually a ski resort at the bottom of the valley. You can only see about one forth of the way down here. You descend for 26 km down to the town of Saint Jean de Mauriene.

On the descent these incredible gorges occur. Jim Sproull, a former earth science teacher, says these are formed by millions of years of water eroding a crack that formed in the crust of the mountain when it was uplifted to form the raw mountains.

France Sep 3, Col de la Forclaz

This trip was designed to allow us to climb as many of the Cols (mountain passes) of the Tour de France as we could during a three week trip to France. The first week was spent in the Alps, the second in the Pyrenees, and the third partial week in Provence. We flew into Geneva, Switzerland on Friday morning, 2 Sep 2011. We spent the day getting the bikes ready, the car rented, and recovering from the overnight flight from Denver and Seattle.

On October 3rd, we started south into the Haute Alps to do some of the climbs. The first stop was by Lake Annecy for the Col de la Florclaz, a short steep climb the Tour De France did in 2010.

Had excellent lunch at the typical Hotel-Resturant just off the Lac D'Annecy.

We started our climb after getting Co2 cartridges. Just to the left of this sign a small sign said 8 km to the top. We were only about one mile from the car. No time to warm up.

Beautiful House below the cliffs on the way up. Besides the scenery, the climb is horrendous. Much of it was a 10-15% grade. Only leveled off to 8-9% a few times.

A look back. Mountain houses were common. I would not want to drive up this road all the time.

The top with tourists and cows. No view, which was supposed to be spectacular, due to rain moving in. In all, we gained 2,000 feet in 5.6 miles. Really steep. Very difficult descent with heavy

rain. It was the only time in my life I enjoyed climbing at 10% more than descending at 10%.