Author: Will

Col des Glieres starts only about 15 miles from home. It’s a beautiful hair-pinned route up the side of a mountain past a superb cliff waterfall. Steepish in parts with 6 kms at 9% or more. Up top is the Plateau des Glieres. During WW2, this plateau was generally inaccessible in winter and the Maquis (French resistance) used it as a base and for weapon drops from the English. It was the site of one of the biggest battles between the Nazis and The Maquis, with 149 of the French resistance killed in a March 1944 battle. Doreen gave me…

The French Department of Ain (north-west of Haute Savoie) has about thirty cycling routes well sign-posted at all degrees of difficulty. Today I tried a tough route through the Jura mountains that passed 4 mountain Cols (and a 10 km detour made it 5 Cols). Net, 91 kms and 1,500 metres ascent along wide and quiet roads through mountain forests. I was pretty tired but a Peanut Butter sandwich at 50 kms helped. Although I passed 5 Cols, three were approached from easy sides. But the other two were good climbs. Col de Berentin: 14 kms and 700 metres ascent…

Well, March had its ups and downs. The first 2/3 of the month I rode almost every day, and the mild weather allowed 8 big climbs – where I found lots of snow. The last 1/3 was less fun as minor surgery sidelined me. The active beginning of the month means I am still on course in the challenge. I am almost back to full health, so bring on April.

11 days without cycling. I had minor surgery and the recovery is slower than I hoped. Grouchy. 🙂

Forclaz is only an 8km climb but its very steep. Note the 13% grade road sign on the right side of Martin in the photo below. Great ride and pizza and frites in old Annecy afterwards. Stunning but very Hazy view of the lake below.

Mont Revard towers above Lac Bourget (the biggest lake in France). I had climbed this a couple of year’s back, with Doreen on her birthday, from Aix-les-Bains. Today, I climbed from the other main route starting in Chambery. Click here for Mont Revard – North Route It’s a long, not too steep, climb (26 kms, 1270 metres vertical). I skipped the first turn (D206a) to Revard to climb Col de Plainpalais (at 1,173 metres) which is just a bit past the second turn (D913) to Revard. The little ski stations up higher have been devastated by the warm weather, and…

I checked the webcam for Manigod ski station and the roads looked clear enough. So I drove to Thones and climbed the Col de la Croix Fry. This was the last climb in stage 17 of the 2004 Tour de France when Armstrong beat Kloden by about an inch. The stats don’t look too hard on this Col (850 metres over 12.8 kms) but its irregular grade makes it hard to get a good rhythm. And there are some short steep stretches especially after the flat middle near Manigod with 2 kms averaging 10%. It’s a beautiful ride and is…

Well I still haven’t Learned my lesson. It snowed last night up higher and I failed to notice a very strong Bise (north wind) in the forecast. Today was a great 50 km loop in the Vallée Verte over the Col de Cou, Col de Saxel, and a detour up to 1450 metres on a little road above Saxel. Climbing was great, it’s a nice route. But we ran into snow around 1,000 metres and, with the strong wind, descending the 1,116 metre Col de Cou was scarily cold. Despite that, Martin was game to try my 6km detour to…

The plan was a loop starting in Taninges, up to Col de la Ramaz, down the other side (which I climbed last April), and back to Taninges. Good Plan! The secret of this route is to take the tiny route D307 out of Taninges and not the far busier D902. The routes run parallel for several kms on either side of a big river valley, but the D307 is far quieter. They then connect as you turn left up to Ramaz. Parts of this route are quite steep as it winds up to Le Praz de Lys ski station, with…

I mentioned back in January that part of my challenge involved some weight loss. I have lost 5 pounds since January 1st, and would just like to lose a few more before the snow melts up high and the big climbing season begins. So to keep the momentum up, I have a one month mini-challenge to avoid alcohol – beer being my main poison (hopefully I can celebrate on April 1st). Quick hilly loop today as the heavy winds finally subsided.