Hors Categorie
The Col de Pré was crazy steep by any standard.
When I think back on the coldest, wettest and, ultimately, hardest days I’ve had on the bike, I can’t come up with any where I was seemingly inches from disaster the whole day. This is one of those stake-in-the-ground days. Spoiler alert: It hasn’t made me feel more PRO.
Wednesday, we rode from our hotel in Albertville to the top of the Col de la Madeleine via the northern route. A whopping 26 kilometers to 2000 meters of elevation. I’d forgotten that more than a few of the kilometers tick by with average gradients of nine or 10 percent. It’s a climb of a level of difficulty that other than the Rocky Mountains, very few places in the United States have climbs that can compare. There’s just no way to prepare for a climb this hard unless you live in the shadow of a mountain, a big one.
And in one of the only events of my life where I found a flat to be a relief, after we had finished our Cokes and slices of pie, I grabbed my bike and discovered—Quelle surprise!—I had a very flat tire. Suddenly, the soft rear tire I had imagined was slowing my progress over the last 4km wasn’t so imagined.
So that’s why I was so slow at the end.
Thursday’s route was simple enough on paper. Leave the hotel in Albertville, climb the Cormet de Roselend, descend into Bourg St. Maurice and then tackle the gentle ascent to Val d’Isere. But paper is for fiction and toilets.
Our group decided to climb the Col de Pré before hooking up with the last 7km of ascent to the top of the Cormet de Roselend. For the record: When someone tells you, “The Alps aren’t as steep as the Pyrenees,” what they are telling you is that they’ve watched Versus and they’ve heard Phil and Paul say that the climbs in the Alps used by the Tour de France aren’t as steep as the climbs used in the Pyrenees.
I’m here to tell you that the Col de Pré is one of the toughest climbs I’ve ever done. Category 1 or not, there were sustained pitches of 10 and 12 percent. What passed for a false flat was six percent. And as I mentioned, it was raining. As a matter of total fact, the higher we climbed, the harder it rained. I don’t know how that works in cold weather. I’ve been places that were hot and the rain evaporated before getting to sea level and I’ve seen snow at 2000 feet turn to rain by sea level, but I’ve never experienced no rain at 2000 feet become driving rain at 5000 feet. There’s a mechanism to this and I need it explained to me.
The red kite is always good news, as was the easier grade.
We reached the pass and headed for the van for food and other assistance. At the time, I was wearing bibs, base layer, jersey, arm warmers and rain cape. My legs were slathered with an embrocation from Sportique that I’ll be reviewing soon. I pulled on knee warmers (knee warmers over embro is a first for me) and one of our guides who was driving the van gave me his Campagnolo wind breaker to add on top of my rain cape. I was still cold—numb toes, even.
The descent of the east face of the Cormet de Roselend was almost recklessly fast because my brakes didn’t work too well. It seemed to take an extra 100 feet to get them to bite. I was sleeted on for several kilometers, which added a novel sting to the rain. Think of it as a cold sandblast at 40 mph. And then there was the Peugeot Clio that raced me down the first pitch, passed me and then left me no room to pass and half the braking distance I needed upon entering each turn. With each successive turn I wondered if I’d have my own personal Davis Phinney moment with its back windshield.
Eventually I did find an opportunity to pass the Clio but by this time the descent was even steeper and what I had yet to realize was that I had so thoroughly burned through my brake pads that the reason my fingertips hurt was because I was bottoming out the lever against the bar. Who knew?
I approached one right-hand switchback only to see a camper swing into view; I braked even harder, to little avail. Just as I was to breathe again a motorcycle swung into view, and another, and another. I realized that my choices given my tepid drop in speed were to turn hard and hope I don’t end up on my hip—which seemed unlikely—or shoot for the outside of the switchback and pass—no matter how hazardously—between motos two and three.
The driver of moto three shook his head at me just as you would for anyone after they had committed an act that, if deliberate, would qualify as the dumbest thing you’d seen this year. I suppose he was a bit frightened. Not half as much as I was.
In Bourg St. Maurice I found a bar and ordered chocolat chaud, twice. My companions arrived during my second, ordered one each and before I could get a sandwich and Coke, were out the door. The caloric math for me wasn’t good. With roughly 30k to ride—and all uphill—I knew my tank didn’t have the reserves, but I vowed to stick with the boys (the buddy system is smart, right?) and make for the hotel. It wasn’t long before I’d downed the last of my Shot Blocks and an Accel Gel.
As expected, I did have to turn to one of my companions with 10km to go and announce that my personal idiot light was on. I made for Tignes, just 4km for our hotel and marched into the first bar I found. Despite the tobacco fog, I marched in and two Cokes and one Nestlé crunch bar later I was big-ringing it through the last four tunnels.
As tough a climb as the Col de la Madeleine was, when I think hors categorie, I will forever associate that phrase with today’s ride, not yesterday’s. I’m told (and I have to rely on others because my Garmin isn’t working) the ride was 60 miles and not the 8500 feet of climbing I tweeted, but a whopping 10,000. That’s 133 feet of climbing per mile—the highest ratio I’ve ever personally encountered.
I assumed at some point I’d reach an existential curiosity about what I was doing. ‘Why bother?’ is a fair question. What I didn’t expect was that I’d be so close to hypothermia for hours on end and that I’d encounter a descent so dangerous that I’d wish, simply, for it to end. When you can’t enjoy one of your favorite pursuits in the world, the questions start coming. And while the questions might be troubling, the answers are even more so. I can’t trust a sun dial built for anything that rises in the west.
An Ideal Day
Climbing the lower slopes of the Col de la Colombiere.
The descent off of the south side of the Col de Saisies is a terrific drop with switchbacks and gentle chicanes. However, for those looking for more impressive views and a descent worthy of Mel Gibson’s career, there’s a small road at the end of town that takes a different, far more switchbacked route to the valley below.
I’ve been dreaming about riding this road since the first time I rode it, back in 1999. It’s a double-chevroned affair, pitching between eight and 10 percent most of the way down.
After Monday’s ride, an amusement park attraction like this road was just what we needed.
You won’t see any pictures from Monday’s 80-ish miles and more than 8000-feet of climbing (over the Col de Cou and the Col de Feu) because it rained the whole day (though there were a few minutes here or there in which water stopped actively falling from the sky). I was well prepared, but it’s not the sort of ride I’d want to do for two straight weeks, nor was I willing to sacrifice my camera.
The top of the Colombiere is just ahead.
Light rain greeted us at breakfast but by the time we were ready to pull out of Taninges, the rain had stopped and the streets were beginning to dry.
We rolled from the hotel and headed for the Col de la Colombiere, a Category 1 climb used in this year’s Tour de France. In fact, we rode a fair chunk of stage 9’s course. At 16.5km, the Colombiere was tough, but the worst was reserved for the final few kilometers at the top, enough so that the climb averages 6.7 percent. We made a quick stop at our van for food and drinks and began the drop, which, all things considered was probably my favorite descent of the day.
The view of the descent off the Col des Saisies.
Coming over the top of the Colombiere, I was amazed at just how quickly the road sank and I was reminded of this Graham Watson shot of Dag-Otto Lauritzen coming over the top of the Col du Glandon in 1988. The look on his face says it all.
The next climb we tackled was the Category 2 Col des Aravis. On the whole, it wasn’t so bad; at 7.6km and an average gradient of 5.9 percent, it reminded me of a fair number of climbs I do in Malibu. It was chilly at the top, and we spent just a short time at our van before heading down to the town of Flumet for lunch.
Immediately upon crossing a bridge in Flumet you begin the ascent of the Col des Saisies. This Category 1 climb averages only 5.1 percent, but that figure is deceptive. There are kilometers that average three percent while other kilometers average eight percent. The changes in pitch were disruptive to my rhythm, but honestly, the flatter pitches were welcome.
The best news of the day was that Albertville—no, we didn’t continue on to the Col de la Madeleine—where out hotel was located, was 26km away and nearly every meter was downhill.
We’re taking some liberties with the actual Route des Grandes Alpes. When we ride out of Albertville, the route heads up the Cormet de Roselend, some 24km uphill from the point we finished the descent of the Col de Saisies. That’s not what we’re doing Wednesday.
