We sat with our cafe du lait, enjoying the hubbub of this fine Saturday morning - and the anticipation of the next left that would take us heading up the Romanche Valley on the D1091 to le Bourg D'Oisans and beyond.
Prenez une left la, mate.
The distance to cover was 38 miles - uphill - to La Grave. Vizille is at 918 feet, La Grave 4658. Another boiling day, acid like sweat cascaded down my brow into my eyes - it was either that or wear a headband and look like a twerp. The Romanche growled down the valley, the water grey with particles of eroded alps - the snow still melting. Along the valley, great gashes cut through the forests, torrents of snow water having pulverised everything in their path.
The D1091 is just a workaday road like any other workaday road, and, just like any other workaday road, it has its weekend traffic and it has its weekday traffic. Word on the rue is don't go anywhere near this road during the week as it is playground to the camion - choc au bloc to be precise - bumper a bumper. Over the seven days we had on the roads, there was no serious traffic except for the last 6 miles into Nice, but, when the roads did get tight around some of dem bends, the last thing you wanted up your arse was a effing great truck that was unpleasantly surprised to find you in front of it. And, of course, cue the bike lights and nerdy reflector. De riguer in the tunnels - and any tunnel over a metre long was hairy scary - anything motorised in a tunnel sounds like the dambusters and you have no idea where or what it is or which way its coming and the last thing you wanna do what with the potholes in front of you is to turn around to look only to get blinded by the full Christmas lights array of Jean's big Truck of the Year 1998 Iveco . Fortunately we were on the D1091 just for the weekend and so we just had to put up with convoys of Harleys and Spandexers.
Some old hand, probably a show off, dissed the D1091, on a website. Personally I thought it pretty cool, if not spectacular, most of the time - except the straight bit into Le Bourg D'Oisans
Its all uphill from here
The going was quite easy - it was a gradual incline to the Le Bourg, and the final straight into the town was more or less flat, unlike the road to L'Alpe D'huez.
Don't go up this road, go to the supermarche instead, like we did.
Maps
I learned how to read maps when, as a young 'un, I sent off 3000 Wagon Wheel wrappers and got a free blow up globe. Some countries have pink soil, I told my friends as I showed off my new toy, others have blue soil. Eventually, the standard piece of kit for outdoor types will be a visor that receives GPS stuff and there will be an image of a map in front of your eyes. But, for now, we have to make do with the varying scale maps of Michelin and IGN. Anything smaller than 100 000 to 1 is not too accurate - Okay the sea is just over there and just over there is Moscow. Anything larger than that is helpful if you want to know what French people have in their back gardens but impractical as you need loads of them and not for very long. This has nothing to do with the fact that the 100 000:1 were on special offer at my local map shop.
The Ordnance Survey have it fairly easy over here - not much in the way of awkward terrain to draw. The IGN on the other hand have to squeeze all manner of gorges, ravines, lakes, 14,000ft mountains, curly wurly rivers, intestinal b roads etc etc into their maps. So, they are hard work to read sometimes. However, thanks to those formative years spent with my blow up globe, I was able to tell that just after Le Bourg D'Oisans there was a very sharp left up a very steep gorge. This is where the views become stunning, the road more hair-raising and the air clearer and a bit thinner - but not enough to render your lungs and legs inoperable. This was the meat and two veg we'd come for.
Meat and two veg - ravinous
And there we were. Parellel universes, side by side - motor vehicles flying by - not even breaking sweat. All kinds of vintage sports cars - Ferarris, MGs, Alfa romeos with Torino plates farting past. Leathery faced Don Juans out for a spin with a blonde reading Ola!, Bonjour! Ciao!, or whatever Hello! called in Europe. All this while we crunched down through the gears to wheel granny out. In between fly pasts, there was no sound but for the various frictions and tractions. Chain steel on gear steel, rubber on tarmac, buttock on plastic, shirt on skin., breath though nose - a right old hullbaloo.
And on it went on for 15 miles. After passing a huge reservoir, the scenery became breathtaking - the river way down below and the ridges of Les Deux Alps and La Meije above.
La Grave looks like a couple of sheds and another shed on the 100 000:1; you get there and its a an oasis of bars, bars and a pizzeria with a view that will take what remains of your breath away. Having put up the tents in the awesomely positioned campsite in/beneath the town - not the one as you approach from the west - we climbed the steps back up and took a front row seat at the pizza joint for the sunset...
Prenez une left la, mate.The distance to cover was 38 miles - uphill - to La Grave. Vizille is at 918 feet, La Grave 4658. Another boiling day, acid like sweat cascaded down my brow into my eyes - it was either that or wear a headband and look like a twerp. The Romanche growled down the valley, the water grey with particles of eroded alps - the snow still melting. Along the valley, great gashes cut through the forests, torrents of snow water having pulverised everything in their path.
The D1091 is just a workaday road like any other workaday road, and, just like any other workaday road, it has its weekend traffic and it has its weekday traffic. Word on the rue is don't go anywhere near this road during the week as it is playground to the camion - choc au bloc to be precise - bumper a bumper. Over the seven days we had on the roads, there was no serious traffic except for the last 6 miles into Nice, but, when the roads did get tight around some of dem bends, the last thing you wanted up your arse was a effing great truck that was unpleasantly surprised to find you in front of it. And, of course, cue the bike lights and nerdy reflector. De riguer in the tunnels - and any tunnel over a metre long was hairy scary - anything motorised in a tunnel sounds like the dambusters and you have no idea where or what it is or which way its coming and the last thing you wanna do what with the potholes in front of you is to turn around to look only to get blinded by the full Christmas lights array of Jean's big Truck of the Year 1998 Iveco . Fortunately we were on the D1091 just for the weekend and so we just had to put up with convoys of Harleys and Spandexers.
Some old hand, probably a show off, dissed the D1091, on a website. Personally I thought it pretty cool, if not spectacular, most of the time - except the straight bit into Le Bourg D'Oisans
Its all uphill from here
The going was quite easy - it was a gradual incline to the Le Bourg, and the final straight into the town was more or less flat, unlike the road to L'Alpe D'huez.
Don't go up this road, go to the supermarche instead, like we did.
Maps
I learned how to read maps when, as a young 'un, I sent off 3000 Wagon Wheel wrappers and got a free blow up globe. Some countries have pink soil, I told my friends as I showed off my new toy, others have blue soil. Eventually, the standard piece of kit for outdoor types will be a visor that receives GPS stuff and there will be an image of a map in front of your eyes. But, for now, we have to make do with the varying scale maps of Michelin and IGN. Anything smaller than 100 000 to 1 is not too accurate - Okay the sea is just over there and just over there is Moscow. Anything larger than that is helpful if you want to know what French people have in their back gardens but impractical as you need loads of them and not for very long. This has nothing to do with the fact that the 100 000:1 were on special offer at my local map shop.
The Ordnance Survey have it fairly easy over here - not much in the way of awkward terrain to draw. The IGN on the other hand have to squeeze all manner of gorges, ravines, lakes, 14,000ft mountains, curly wurly rivers, intestinal b roads etc etc into their maps. So, they are hard work to read sometimes. However, thanks to those formative years spent with my blow up globe, I was able to tell that just after Le Bourg D'Oisans there was a very sharp left up a very steep gorge. This is where the views become stunning, the road more hair-raising and the air clearer and a bit thinner - but not enough to render your lungs and legs inoperable. This was the meat and two veg we'd come for.
Meat and two veg - ravinousAnd there we were. Parellel universes, side by side - motor vehicles flying by - not even breaking sweat. All kinds of vintage sports cars - Ferarris, MGs, Alfa romeos with Torino plates farting past. Leathery faced Don Juans out for a spin with a blonde reading Ola!, Bonjour! Ciao!, or whatever Hello! called in Europe. All this while we crunched down through the gears to wheel granny out. In between fly pasts, there was no sound but for the various frictions and tractions. Chain steel on gear steel, rubber on tarmac, buttock on plastic, shirt on skin., breath though nose - a right old hullbaloo.
And on it went on for 15 miles. After passing a huge reservoir, the scenery became breathtaking - the river way down below and the ridges of Les Deux Alps and La Meije above.
La Grave looks like a couple of sheds and another shed on the 100 000:1; you get there and its a an oasis of bars, bars and a pizzeria with a view that will take what remains of your breath away. Having put up the tents in the awesomely positioned campsite in/beneath the town - not the one as you approach from the west - we climbed the steps back up and took a front row seat at the pizza joint for the sunset...
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