Tour
du Mont Blanc Road Bike Trip |
Although
we are mountain bikers through and through we too have been seduced by
the raw speed and purity of road biking. We had requests from a few of
our regular visitors who ride both mountain bikes and road bikes. They
said if you can do a Tour du Mont Blanc on mountain bikes then you must
be able to do it on road bikes! So in July we got them together and circumnavigated
the Mont Blanc Massive on road bikes in just three days. And just like
a 10fifty mountain bike holiday it was lots of fun with a fair bit of
sweat!
Road Bike
Tour Du Mont Blanc Story - Day One
I must say I was pretty surprised that myself and a select few were to
do the first road bike Tour du Mont Blanc. Mountain biking has always
been "The" sport for me, but slowly and surely I had gotten
into the whole road bike thang and the prospect of riding the TMB in three
rather than five days was all of the encouragement I needed to get it
organised. With fresh shaved legs and jersey pockets full of gels, me,
Nick, Stevie and Andy set off to the first col of the trip the Montet.
An easy few hundred metres of climbing later and the col was in the bag
and with Switzerland beckoning and the ridiculously fast descent down
to Martigny very much on our minds, we flew up the Col de Forclaz to our
first refueling stop.
The descent to Martigny was an absolute blast, braking hard into the bends
and then sprinting back out of them was pretty close to the thrill of
riding some choice singletrack. I know there will be some people that
would disagree but fast push bikes+two inches of rubber on the ground+mental
French and Swiss drivers= a pretty exhilarating ride.
Next up it
was the steep as you like climb up to Champex and lunch. This is where
just about everybody agreed that having a tripple or a compact chainset
on your bike for the Alps is a must. Luckily I did and had a right old
masochistic time of it, beasting up the climb. Lunch of chips and strong
coffee was the way to go, especially as we had the beast that is the Grand
Col du Saint Bernard ahead of us.
The Grand col is about a 1600m climb that apart from the tunnel section,
gets steeper and steep the higher you go, oh good! The bottom section
is a combination of big long drawn out straights with the odd hairpin
all at a fair old gradient. We all regrouped just before the tunnel entrance.
All of the metres climbed up to this point were certainly apparent on
everyones faces, that combined with the 30 degree heat meant there wasn't
much left in the energy bank. The tunnel itself is not too bad as it is
mostly open on one side, letting at least some light in.
Through the tunnel and it was the start of the 10km last leg to the col,
and the start of the hardest 4km climb that I have done on the road. The
last section is all classic Alpine road, tight hairpin corners and steep
gradients. Stevie and myself set the pace and after what seemed like an
age, came to the 4km to the top sign. 4km, fantastic not much further
to go. Well thats what you would think, however the col had other ideas.
Climbing on the steepest roads yet for at least 30 mins we thought that
the col must be "just around the corner", naye lad, the 2km
to the top sign was just around the corner. We couldn't believe it all
there was were rows of armaco barriers up the side of the mountain. Another
30 mins brought the top insight and with that Stevie made the effort to
end with a sprint, one I might add I was more than happy to loose. Nick
and then Andy all got to the top, all with the same hellish tales of the
4 and 2km to go to the top signs. The view was superb and even in the
heat of the beginning of June there was still snow on the mountain.
Through customs we descended down the monster descent towards Aosta and
bed for the night. Jenny was waiting for us at the hotel with much needed
supplies and clean clothes. Showered and just about in a fit state to
walk across the road to the restaurant, we all concluded that after 3000m
of climbing and three countries, a cheeky beer was definately on the cards.
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