The last day of vacation.  Climbing Alpe d’Huez is a great way to end a great trip.  I woke up early and descended to the bottom of mountain.  I tried to ride a few flat kilometres to warm up before the ride but it is the biggest travel day of the year and so I [...]

 
What a ride.  It started as a quiet, flat ride along the beautiful Lake Annecy bike path with Doreen.  But after 20 kms we came to the start of the Col de la Forclaz.  I had watched the 2004 Tour de France up this Col.  Its a short (8.5 kms) but terrific climb along a [...]

Today was a bit warmer and much sunnier.  I decided to climb Col de la Croix again — starting at Villars - but using mountain bike paths as much as possible.  There is nothing like the Swiss Alps when the sun is shining.  The first half of my route was on a beautiful, tiny, steep [...]

My first time cycling in the Chartreuse region of the Alps (surrounding Grenoble).
Grenoble may be at the bottom of more major climbs than any other city.  Today’s route passed 4 mountain cols and THEN the hard part started. 
The first 10 Kilometres were pretty hard along beautiful quiet roads.  I passed 4 riders at the [...]

We drove to beautiful lake Annecy to ride the bike path and found that it was closed due to the annual marathon. And the park beside the lake was a zoo, so we got on our bikes and went exploring the other way. And we discovered a great national park forest route up [...]