First morning. We gather unbidden in the dining room between six and seven. Laptops are all over the big table. Dave is on Facebook, Hans retreats to the stairwell seeking a better connection.
Mick briefs us over breakfast and issues ‘call signs’. He is The Iceman, Kath is Doc, Peter is Hoags, Frank is Robocop. There’s Virgil, Hulk, Rambo, Dutch, Wingnut, Percy, Crash, Scarface, Mrs Tourette’s, Ink, and The Pirate. I am Legs.
At 9:30 we roll out of Le Verney in two groups. The slow group heads for Bourg d’Oisins, the main town and the gateway to Alpe d’Huez. Our ride today is a steady 12km climb at six per cent to the Col d’Ornon.
A section of the road is tacked onto the side of the mountain; at certain angles you can see the struts holding it onto the cliff-face. Flip over the low concrete barrier on a fast descent and there’s no return.
Vertical walls of rock thousands of metres high line every narrow valley. Surely no road can find its way out of such places, but they do, and we ride them, swarming ant-lines of cyclisti from everywhere on the planet. They ride to the col and back, or over the pass into the next impossible-to-exit valley.
On my slow steady way to the col I say bonjour to Germans, Niederlander, and a woman from Grenoble with strong brown legs and a twelve year-old son she is shepherding up the climb. The fast boys come past—Frank (Robocop), Stuart (Virgil), and Adrian (Rambo)—having set out 20 minutes after the rest of us.
We top out at 1371 metres. Coming rides will lift us at to the Col de la Croix de Fer (2067m), Alpe h’Huez (1860), and the Galibier (2645). Bourg d’Oisins sits in the valley at 730 metres, our chalet at Le Verney is at 825.
After lunch in Bourg d’Oisins the fast boys motor up to Villard-Reculas and the village of Huez. I set off solo to the ski staion at Oz-en-Oisins, seven and a half kilometres in double figures—gradient—and single figures—speed.
Second morning. From tentative hellos in a bar at Grenoble station we form friendships and alliances. On the road we sort into compatible bunches, and by our second breakfast we banter raucously and reach across each other for rolls, pains chocolade, and plates of ham and salami.
Sunday’s forecast rain arrives straight after breakfast. Cycling gear is peeled off expectant bodies, the cloud thickens over the lake, rain spills out of gutters and the thunder is brontosaurian. Only Hans, HansSolo, mounts a cycle. The Shot Properties Group hop in a car and head for the Alpe.
The rest of us peer into the mist, read tour mags, and watch German Eurosports.
[ 73.01kms @ 21.2kph. Montage 1495m, Max alt 1371m, max climb 12%]
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