Author: Will

One of my favourite cycling hobbies is to ride up to high Alpine dams/lakes – see here. But this was my first ever ride to one in Italy. Starting from Aosta, this long ride starts in the same valley as the road to Col du Grand St. Bernard. Note, my route started on the right side of the gorge when leaving Aosta — it is a much quieter stretch of road than the main road signed for the Grand St. Bernard. Most of the ride is on a fairly big road, but there is not much traffic — or many…

On Strava.com, the social cycling tracker web-site, 2000+ people have cycled up Col du Glandon, but only one person has cycled to Le Fremezan. These two tough climbs share the same first 9 kilometres, but while the masses continue up to Glandon, I decided to first take a peek up the little known side road to Le Fremezan (named as the road ends below the Pic de Fremezan). First, a little perspective: Col du Glandon: 19.9 kms; 1460m ascent; 7.3% avg Col du Tourmalet: 19.0 kms; 1404m ascent; 7.4% avg Mont Ventoux: 21.4 kms; 1639m ascent; 7.6% avg Le Fremezan:…

Not well known, this fabulous climb to Plateau de Solaison is next to Tour de France regular: Col de la Colombière. It’s a dead end, which helps explain why it has never been used by the Tour, but it will appear in the 2014 Tour de l’Avenir. Ignoring the first and last kilometres, the middle 11 kilometres average 9% – it’s steep. The climb starts near the little village of Thuet. North facing, this climb gets little sun in winter and it can be extremely cold. An old snow post here. From the Autoroute, I always glance at the great…

Doreen and I spent the weekend in Rome. And our visit included a 4 hour bike Tour. We had a fun guide – he was certainly a character – but enthusiastic. While we may not be the fastest cyclists ever, we seemed to be almost Olympian compared to his usual clients. But after a while he understood that we could ride faster than 5 km/h. 🙂 On the map at the bottom I’ve highlighted a few of the many historic sites we passed. It was a great way to get a feel for the city and helped us plan the…

Fu&*, I forgot my camera. All photos below taken with my iPhone. Sorry. The Vallée d’Aulps is the little valley that enters the Alps from La Vernaz up until Morzine. On each side of the road are steep mountains with few roads. But there are several great climbs here, both paved and unpaved. I wanted to see if I could get my bike up to 3 unpaved Cols and make a 6 col loop. I started near Les Gorges du Pont du Diable and almost immediately started up the steep (paved) climb to Col du Corbier. This Col has appeared…

There are 4 ways up the monstrously steep Grand Colombier. Sunday’s route from Culoz is the second or third hardest, but easily the most scenic. This is the side that appeared in the Tour de France in 2012. For details of all four sides of Le Grand Colombier, including the +20% madness from Artemare, see here. After a couple of tough kilometres out of town, the best part of the Culoz side is the hairpin-filled stretch perched high above town. Great views of Lac du Bourget and the Rhône river. Here is a video I took cycling Le Grand Colombier…

The Venice of the Alps. Here are my top 10 Cycling Climbs from beautiful Lake Annecy.

Yesterday: Col du Galibier opened early this year, giving me the good fortune to cycle it in May for the first time. I realised I already have ten or so Galibier posts, so I thought I’d write one master post: Below I will discuss all three sides up this great mountain – with a map at the bottom. But first, here are a few links to other posts: A slightly crazy 4th way up – bypassing Télégraphe A Brief History of Col du Galibier Cycling Galibier to see the Sun Rise La Marmotte Cyclosportive – Glandon/Alpe d’Huez/Galibier. Watching the Tour…

On Saturday, I enjoyed the 1st annual Monte Grappa Bike Day climbing two sides of the sacred Monte Grappa, and descending a third. See here. In Daniel Friebe’s great book Mountain High, he describes five routes to the Cima Grappa (summit). Sunday, my plan was to see the two I had not visited the day before. Friebe had called the side starting in Possagno one of the toughest climbs in Italy. The profile made me nervous but I wanted to see the Tempio Canoviano near the start. It’s an impressive Neoclassical structure built in the early 1800’s inspired by the…

Cycling up the legendary Monte Grappa on bike-only day. Maps, profiles and details of five routes up.