Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas. It’s a heat-wave here, so no white Christmas but plenty of good cycling.

I took advantage of the warm weather to do my annual Santa ride to the top of my home mountain: Mont Salève. I do a version of this loop from home often, usually in the opposite direction, but I decided to take the steep route via Le Coin. Much of this route (above Croisette) is usually closed due to snow by November. But today I could have worn short sleeves. Wow.

For details of all five road bike routes up Mont Salève, see here.

This steep side has a bunch of brilliant hairpins, the last being my favourite:

Here’s an old photo showing 6 of the sexiest hairpins on this super steep climb:

The Salève has two high points. At Col de la Croisette I turned left to visit the first, the well named Panorama des Alpes:

After enjoying the views of Mont Blanc and the north edge of the Alps, I doubled back to Croisette, and headed up to the second high point (both labeled on map below), Col des Pitons.

I love this mountain, especially how the road rides along the top for several kilometres giving views of the ALps on one side and Geneva and the Jura on the other.

The “King of the Santas” wanted a Col photo for Christmas:

For the locals, note that they have recently added another Col sign, Col du Plan, further along the road – see map.

I didn’t take any more photos, but here is a gallery of some recent one’s all on or around this great mountain:

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, bonne année, and safe pedalling. 🙂