Col de Recon is a quiet, steep, scenic little climb in the beautiful Abondance valley – famous for “Abondance” cows and cheese. It’s an adequate surface for a road bike for 11.7 kms from Abondance. But the last 1.3 kms to the Col requires a hybrid/VTT – as it’s a gravel farm road.
It’s not the longest climb, but has several very steep kilometres.
The very top ridge is at the French-Swiss border, and I could see well down into Switzerland (photo at left). Don’t turn around as an extra kilometre or so leads to a little farm and Col de la Conche – also on the border.
I’ve marked a few other climbs on the map that can all start in Abondance. I have never done Chalet d’Ubine or the Chalets de Bise, but both are dead-end climbs smilar to Recon but not as high.
Edit: Here are details for Chalet d’Ubine and Chalets de Bise.
More interesting is the Climb to Col de Bassachaux (do-able by Road bike) – with the option to cross over into the Vallée d’Aulps (requires mountain bike. Details here.
3 Comments
Hi Will,
That looks like a good ride! If you were there on Saturday then by coincidence my wife and I were a stones throw away at the Col du Savalene, eating our sandwiches and looking down on the Lac d’Arvouin!
We were walking, but it would also make a good ride: from Vionnaz the road climb up to La Jorette (1’200m) is quite a tough road climb, and then from there you can go by MTB up to about 1’700m altitude. To get to the top of the Col you have to get off and walk but it’s not far at all. There are also many more MTB tracks around La Jorette and Torgona, all well signed.
On Sunday I went from Martigny up to Emosson: truly memorable, amazing weather, great views of Mt Blanc. The road over the dam is indeed closed to normal traffic, so it was not possible to get up to the Vieux Emosson by bike. However, there is a bus service, so one can still visit the dinosaur tracks etc. sans velo.
I guess you have done the Emosson climb from the Chamonix side. I found the climb from Martigny very nice indeed: the views of Valais are amazing, although there was a bit too much traffic for my liking. The round trip was 62km, 2’300 ascent.
Thanks for another great recommendation!
Simon, Fantastic. Big ride. It’s a beautiful place – maybe my favourite alpine dam/lake. It’s a shame the higher road is closed as it’s really fun (for hiking too).
Yes, I have always done Lac d’ Emosson from the Chamonix side via Col des Montets. I have yet to do the harder side of Forclaz that you did.
For anyone else, it’s a beautiful place:
PS – thx for the La Jorette tip
magnifiques paysages, encore exempts de toute neige !