Wednesday 22 June 2011

Epic cycling in the Alps

I had intentionally let our food supplies dwindle so we weren’t carrying excess weight over the col de l’Iseron.  It was on Sunday we climbed the pass, so when we arrived in Seez all the shops were closed; we’d have to wait until the next day to get to a supermarket.  In the morning for breakfast I bought us a croissant and pain au raisin (like a chelsea bun but smaller) each from the boulangerie (the only shop open before 7:30am!); and 2 savoury quiches for lunch.  We halved our last satchet of instant coffee.  I was completely unsatisfied with such a breakfast and promptly ate the quiche as well.

We had a big climb ahead and I wasn’t sure what shops we would find along the way so decided to pop to the big supermarket in town a couple of kilometres away.   One day of having an empty larder and I promptly went to the other extreme – I bought tea, coffee, milk powder, hot chocolate mix (500g as it was cheaper that way); plenty of food for the day; second breakfast of yoghurt and bananas; oats for the next day (I wasn’t sure if there would be oats in Italy) – I’m sure if Julie had come to the supermarket with me she would have stopped me from buying so much.  Especially as we had a 1000m+ climb ahead.

We were on our way to circumnavigate Mont Blanc, passing through Italy and Switzerland before coming back into France.

The day was warm as we climbed up the road to col de Petite Saint Bernard.  It was a fairly easy climb, just very long as the road engineers put in so many long switchbacks.


We reached the top and I pulled out my phrasebook to learn some quick Italian before we crossed the border.  ‘Buon giorno’ for ‘hello’ and ‘grazie’ for ‘thankyou’.  I didn’t know how to greet the people we saw on the border – 'bonjour', 'buon giorno' or  just ‘hi’?


We arrived in a cute little ski village, Le Thuile.  We went to a café for a coffee.  All I knew was spanish “café con leche” or french “café au lait” so I asked the italian woman behind the counter how to ask for a coffee with milk, in italian.  She said “cappuccino”.  Oh, of course.

Sitting drinking coffee in the sun was lovely.  And then post-ride fatigue and hunger set in. We didn’t want to move.  We ate the rest of our bread and bananas and muesli bars while sitting at the café table.  It was early afternoon and we’d ‘only’ ridden 40km, we were planning to go a little further that day.  We looked at the map.  Col de Grand  Saint Bernard (even higher than Petite Saint Bernard) would take us into Switzerland.  We really did not feel like tackling that one the next day; so I suggested we take it easy for a day then go up over the col in two day’s time.  Then we checked the weather forecast: sunny the next day but rain the day after.  Col de Grand Saint Bernard was over 2000m; it would be madness to climb it on a rainy day.  The sensible option weather-wise would be to cross it the very next day afterall.   We had to push on.  It was downhill down the valley for 40km to Aosta, but we still felt tired.  We stopped in another small town and bought a Magnum each.  The rejuvenating properties of the Magnum are amazing.  We continued down the pretty Aosta valley; passing quaint churches perched up high; castellos sitting amidst vineyards; villages terraced up the valley walls.  On the outskirts of Aosta we came to Camping Monte Bianco.  There was a pizzeria just up the road, and a supermarket just down the road. Perfect.

While Julie set up the tent I went to the supermarket to get supplies for our big climb.  We needed serious comfort food so I bought chocolate tartlettes, chocolate muesli bars, a block of chocolate; 6 bananas, some apricots and a big packet of biscuits (I should give lectures on nutrition and cycle touring).  And some cheese.

 The helpful guy at the campground recommended the pizzeria up the road so after 7pm with stomachs ready to eat we wandered up to the restaurant. It had a lovely outdoor eating area with pretty flower boxes.  But it was closed.  Perhaps we were too early.   A dutch couple arrived at the same time as us and we stood around wondering when they would open for dinner.  We decided to wander a little further to really work up our appetites and returned at 7:45pm. Still closed.  Oh.  We walked down the road until we came to another pizzeria, called “Il Pirata” with a pirate skull and crossbones on the sign.  Not quite the quintessential Italian pizzeria I had in mind, but we were not in the mood to shop around further.  We stepped into the near-empty restaurant and the dutch couple were already there.

The pizza was fast and good.


We shared a half litre of wine and had semi freddo for dessert.  Suddenly the wine kicked in and we were almost asleep at the table.  I had to almost make a conscious effort to move each leg as we walked slowly back to the campground.

We got up early for our big day ahead.  Starting from about 600m and climbing to 2469m, this would be our biggest climb in a single day.  We had a large bowl of porridge and two milky coffees and felt ready.  The weather was perfect.  We wasted no time gaining altitude – the climbing started immediately from Aosta, a steady unrelenting ascent. I made the mistake of not putting on sunblock before we left; by 8am I was dripping in sweat.  Sweat and sunblock do not mix; trying to put sunblock over sweat is like mixing oil and water.

I was looking forward to buying some fresh italian bread from a panaderia – perhaps a ciabatta – but when we arrived in the small town before the pass the only bread shop was closed; on Tuesdays.  We had to settle with buying commercial long-life bread with an expiry date the end of July.  We had lunch, including 3 chocolate tartlettes each – they were so good! – and continued on up.



  The main traffic went along a big highway and through a long tunnel (bicycles not allowed)

 so we continued along a quiet narrow freshly paved road through the now alpine terrain.  It was magical seeing the road snaking up the mountain ahead.



We arrived at the top and saw the swiss flags over the border.   I was about to get out my phrase book to learn some quick ‘swiss’ when I remembered they spoke french in this part! There were 2 border guards and I had my passport out ready. They waved us through without even checking the passports.  I was a bit disappointed!   We sat on a rock and looked at Italy off to our left and Switzerland off to our right and ate the whole packet of biscuits with the whole packet of brie.  We had done it!


The first part of the downhill on the Swiss side was magic; old snow on the side of the road, few cars.

 Then we joined up with the other end of the tunnel and had to share the road with all the traffic.  Cycling down through the avalanche tunnels was an experience – there was less air resistance through the tunnel so you could feel yourself speeding up.  It was fairly narrow with no shoulder. Full concentration required.

The 60km (all downhill) to Martigny flew by.  We got food at a little Proxi supermarket – they accepted euros but gave change in swiss francs.  Things seemed a bit expensive so we only got the bare minimum for dinner and food the next day.  When we went through the checkout the woman said “you get a second tin of sardines for free” and she pointed out their special ‘buy one, get one free’ deal on all the red-stickered items.  Our eyes gazed over the store and there were loads of red-stickered items – probably a good thing we were already through the checkout as if we had known earlier we would have ended up with a heavy bag of random twin items!

The forecast was for thunderstorms the next day, worse in the afternoon.  Again, it would have been nice to take a day off but the weather was supposed to be even worse the next day and we didn’t want to be stuck in Martigny – Chamonix was only 40km away and we would spend a few days relaxing there.  We had just one last small climb and we would be back in France.  We decided to get an early start to beat the worst of the weather.   We were up before six and enjoyed our staple of steaming porridge and mugs of coffee.  We were ready to go by 6:40am; a record.  We stopped in at a small shop to get some fresh bread – we had our swiss francs to spend.  We felt like kids in a lolly shop, working out how to spend our 7.30 francs (about $10).  First we got bread for 2.90Fr.  Then I chose a jam doughnut for 1.30Fr – unfortunately I fumbled putting it into the paper bag and it rolled on the floor.  I rescued it quickly before it was trampled and put it safely in the bag.  We had 3.10Fr left to buy some cheese.  There wasn’t much cheese for 3.10Fr; the prices started at about 3.20Fr so we just missed out.  However, if I put the jam doughnut back we would have more options.   Brief hesitation as I remembered how it bounced on the floor before placing it back with its buddies.  Now we had 4.50Fr; and chose some Philadelphia cream cheese.  One franc left; “bananas 0.90 each”.  Done.

It wasn’t until we were on the road that I had a closer look at the map – I didn’t realise our starting elevation was only 400m above sea level – no wonder it was so warm and there were terraced grapevines!

 The col we were cycling over was at 1500m; making this a 1100m climb in 13km – our 4th 1000m+ ascent in as many days.  It was a good thing we a) didn’t know about it last night (would have been too demoralising and b) we had such an early start.

It took us 2 hours to reach the top; we were there by 9:15am, which was encouraging.

  It was a downhill into France and then another climb over the final col before coasting into Chamonix.



Because of the bad weather forecast we promised ourselves we would check into a Gite in Chamonix for a few days – it’s not usually much fun camping in a thunderstorm.  If we thought we had been tired previously; we were knackered now.  It was midday yet we’d eaten ‘lunch’ at about 11am due to our early start.  The Tourist Information office gave us a booklet of all the accommodation in Chamonix – ideally we wanted a place that allowed self-catering – there isn’t much point paying big money to be stuck in a hotel with no access to endless cups of tea! The first Gite we came to the reception didn’t open until 4:30pm; the second and third were fully-booked.  By this stage the sun had come out again and it was humid.  We decided camping would be the easier option afterall.  We chose the campsite with the most facilities listed – WIFI, undercover picnic area, shop.  The campground was beautiful. There was an ‘alpine chalet’ theme with all the buildings painted wood brown, and red flowers painted on the signs.   There is a room with computers with free internet and wireless access; and a cute undercover dining area.  We couldn’t be in a better place.  We had nachoes for dinner and chatted with the french climbers to our left and the british walkers to our right.

We have now cycled over 3700km.

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