Cycling Geneva to Monte Carlo: July 2008

Geneva Monte Carlo

The Alps by bike. Yes, a piece of the Alps by boneshaker followed by lounging about in the sun on the Riviera!
All you need is a bike! ...and an unwieldy heavy load of camping gear. A perverse sense of self is required so that you can talk about the exploit as if you had climbed Everest in flip flops and armed with a tuna bap and bottle of pop in a carrier bag.
The jaunt is simple: cycle from Geneva to Monte Carlo. Avoid the Route des Grand Alps - extreme cycling - as much as possible. Only do the big hills if they are genuine short cuts to the beaches.
Once you have come to terms with the privations to be expected on a camping cycling thing, immerse yourself in the beauty and enormity of the said Alps, as they are certainly beautiful and enormous. Hopefully, this will provide some useful details, and, comfort in the knowledge that you don't have to have a two-grand fancy bike to do it.

I had a bike nicked a few weeks before the trip. I got a replacement that came with a spare gear hanger. I thought, 'that'll be handy for drying clothes.' It turned out to be a lump of alloy for my rear 'de railer'. You learn fast.

Camping Gear:
This is an awkward issue. Ideally, don't camp at all! Drive an Aston Martin convertible instead -with a boot full of Burberry weekend bags and check into 5 star hotels each night.

It may rain - big heavy flysheet and more pegs. It might be cold - big heavy sleeping bag and extra thick sleeping mat.
We were not going in winter, or sleeping on the tundra in a snow drift. The valleys of the Alps in the summer are as hot as the coast - and often as dry. The tents were very basic light shelters from Jamet of Piccadilly (not really). The very big plastic bag would cover the nasties - waterproof, insulation etc etc. So a light mummy bag and a 3/4 mat for me sore batty was enough. The rest of the gear is common sense - just keep it light.

Cycling Buddy:
He carried pretty much the same but for a few additions: light stove, pan, plastic mugs and plates. He also had a creature comfort in the form of a luxurious looking soft blanket that I began to envy. He had FIVE pairs of socks which I believe was in breach of some convention limiting the amount of underwear that can be carried on a bike. He'd hang them out on the line very morning just to get me jealous.

Yes, why put yourself through all this? Your knees will scream and your crotch get hot and sweaty; flies in your ears, nostrils and soup. And that's just the flight.
I have to lose weight - Doctor's orders, but I like eating and drinking so I figured the trip would guarantee a calorie deficit. Moderate cycling for the heftier among us uses about 900 calories an hour; just right as the trip ended up on a sunny beach by which time the hastily shrunken belly would no longer blot out the sun for fellow beach users. Plenty of nice views on the way; and a couple of big climbs to brag about (again, if anyone knows what it is you're bragging about).

My cycle buddy, 'D', fancied the challenge of getting over the hills, but didn't need to lose any lard and wasn't that bothered by the beaches. He'd be quite happy cycling for ten hours a day.

They were many solitary cyclists who'd shrugged off the pleas of their loved ones to spend several weeks on an Alpine odyssey - climbing as many cols as they could. The conversation would go:

Hi, where are you from?

We're from London.

Ha, ha, ha ,ha. You're are cycling, huh?!

Yes, we...

I am Tom from Hollant. I have been cycling the Col de Sac this morning; I am doing the Col de Fete before lunch....How many cols have you done?

We've done...

This is my fourteenth trip in the Alps. This is my lovely bike. I call Erica....

It seems Alpine cycling can be addictive.

Preparation

Hair cut, trim me toenails and a few laps of Hyde Park now and then mainly to firm up me batty.

I guess 20 miles in one go without much puffin' and pantin' even if its mainly flat is OK. This isn't a race and all you've got to do is get to the beach. What you really need to work on is the head - what it's likely to do when faced with a 45-mile hill in the rain. With the right gears and a general wellness of being, you should be able to get to the top...

Bikes and planes

We chose Geneva, a small city near the Alps with a nice fountain, to kick off. We got there on BA. Last year we had taken our bikes to Toulouse and returned from Barca with BA without padded comfy bags or bike-boxes that certainly don't fit in the side pocket of a pannier. The bikes were not even wrapped in a Very Big Plastic Bag. However, they came out on the baggage carousels at Tooloose and Gatwick attached to prams, zimmer frames, backpacks and everything else what with the wiring catching on bits and bobs. So this year, we checked with BA and their website about bikes. On the blower they say packaging isn't necessary, just do the trick with the pedals, seat and handlebars but we opted for the Very Big Plastic Bags as they doubled as protection and insulation. However, despite a helpful operative checking the bikes in, a jobsworth appeared as if by magic out of the thin air of Terminal Five quoting this regulation and that code of practice and was uppity about letting them on unless they were boxed up. We explained that we had followed instructions: the website said bikes must be in a bag - this did not exclude Very Big Plastic Bags at 4.25 each (2008 prices) from CTC (ex postage). The operative relented. The likely lads at the outsize baggage hole thought the bikes were OK anyhow. Unfortunately, both D and I had forgotten which way to undo pedals and we made the big mishtake of sending the bikes on with pedals.

Bikes in Very Big Plastic Bags (at Nice for return, pedals removed) under the keen vigilance of D.

BA will start charging for large items in late 2008 as Ryan already do. As of June 2008 you could take the bike plus one pannier checked, and one pannier and small tent on the plane. There is the issue of the tools, which they won't let you take on board. You have to have completed the seat, pedals and handlebars palaver before you check the tools in. Though they didn't mind the pump (let some air out). Anything remotely sharp must go in the hold - tent pegs and poles, stove, cutlery etc. You'll get charged again for anything you have to take back from the security gates and check in.

The outward to Geneva and inward from Nice were 113 squid in total per person - a bargain compared to the train. Not only is the train much more expensive but is also a nightmare for bikes...well, so I have read and been told.
We had arrived at 6am for the 8.20 flight so as to get the bikes sorted, which, thanks to the jobsworth took a while. The flight landed with us but, sadly for the plans made of mice and men, not the bikes. Euro 2008 was on and so there were flights every two hours that day so we had some lunch and practised talking to people. An Australian woman working for the Red Cross en route to Eritrea was also waiting for luggage off the same flight. She was a front line nurse specialising in amputations and had a few sharp instruments in her baggage.
The bikes arrived and thanks to the pedal gaff, a tooth on my big chainwheel was bent inwards and screwing up my gears so that I could only ride in low gear - which looked hilarious on the dual carriageways outside the airport. A mudguard screw had sheared off leaving the shiny new guards flapping around and rubbing on the front tyre. We left the airport two hours behind schedule with me in low gear and an irritating rubbing noise. Twenty minutes later we returned to the airport, having wondered why the dual carriageway looked familiar.
Then, bearings finally sorted out, we were off to the town centre.

By the time we'd got going, half the day had gone. All those rejected movie titles come to mind: 'The Afternoon of the Jackal', The Afternoon the Earth Stood Still', 'Groundhog Afternoon'.
The bikes' late arrival and various mechanical problems and directional difficulties meant we were heading into Geneva Town centre round about 2.30. The totally forgettable 'burbs were, thankfully, home to a motorcycle repair shop and some burly bloke lent me a pair of pliers to gingerly bend the tooth on the chain ring back a bit to allow me to use some other less humiliating gears. The bike, however, was still in possession of the irritating rubbing noise.
We flew down this strasse and that rue but managed to miss the lake - the fountain being visible from a bridge a mile away that crossed the Rhone. We passed The Fan Zone of Euro 2008 and then headed into the southern 'burbs towards France.

Can we have our ball back, please?

The annoying suburbs didn't look much like on the map but we took a while getting to the border at St. Julien. The D992 took us onto Vers and Frangy and eventually Seyssel. This was all very pleasant cycling with no hills to mention until we passed Frangy and a short cut tempted us with its handful of hairpins for a taster of stuff to come. The Rhone joined us for the last few miles into Seyssel and its municipal campsite perched on the huge river's banks.

Seyssel and the Rhone

Top spot. We got there at 7.15 nearly five hours after leaving the airport 35 miles away - but hell, we were still doing it and since it was the first day, we'd faffed about and dawdled, as you do.

Always have that thirst slaking first beer of the day after you've put your tent up.

Slugs might look harmless but get one in your tent and, boy, what a mess.

Said campsite is ideally placed for the shopper's paradise that is Champion. Netto and Lidl are like Tesco's, Champion is Waitrose. Nipped over there for breakfast then found the bike shop and an even burlier bloke who bent my tooth back with one of those tooth pliers things and then re-threaded the thread on the forks for the mudguard screw. Fantastico. I bought a pair of bungees and left.

The Alps are a mountain range equivalent to a pile of rubbish swept up into the middle of the floor - but, obviously, a very beautiful and enormous pile. There is not much sense to the Alps - like you can make sense of a mountain range - especially the French bit. Valleys wriggle around in all directions and a simple up and over route, along the lines of cycle uphill, go over a high bit then cycle down the other side, doesn't exist. It would be a case of that three times over with the hills getting increasingly higher and steeper. So planning the route was important rather than going hither and thither and being really 'free'. There would be bits where we would take all of the day to go very little distance meaning we had to stop either side of that bit. This meant that the route had to be stuck to, unless we found the going so easy that we made it over the hills in a couple of days and could make the beach a week earlier. I spent evenings sweating over Google maps and the terrain view looking at the nasty gradients wondering how nasty nasty could be. I checked out the stuff we'd done the previous year when we skirted around the Pair'o'knees to the coast where we suffered on the steep bends over to Spain. There was no comparison. So, we had to have a plan and stick to it and hope that we'd gauged our fitness, and were lucky with the weather, and that nothing screwed up on the packhorses. The first two days would be gentle cycling of 55 miles a day to warm us up nicely for the progressively harder days.
But, with our bikes 2 hours late and going around the houses in the burbs of 'Geneva, we were already well behind. So we only did 35 by Seyssel. When we crossed the Rhone on Seyssel's second bridge at 10.40 we had 80 miles on the second day to do to keep up with the plan man.
The upside was Seyssel to Vizille followed rivers so even if it wasn't exactly downhill it couldn't be uphill except, that is, for the uphill bits.
Lac Bourget was our first stop - a riviera in the hills. Posh Aix-le Bains, marinas, chateaus and all that kind of Hello! styling along, or on, an innocent, pretty looking lake.

lac du Bourget

The scenery largely consisted of nice big hills maybe 3000ft high, covered in trees with bald patches of seemingly manicured lawns. Some crags shone here and there but otherwise there as no hint hint of what was lurking behind. At this point we were at 300m - and had been since the airport - so this was the phony war.
We made good time until we got to Chambéry. There was no way round this large town blocking, as it does, the gap between two ranges of hills. So all the stopping and starting and going around roundabouts three times slowed us up. It also wound us up as big towns and their nonsense of heavy traffic and tight corners was not what we came for. The D991 disappeared from the road signs and so we had to navigate using the sun and stars.
We eventually popped out of the tangle on the D1006 in roughly the right place to turn south again onto the D1090 to Pontcharra and the D523 which took down the Isere valley towards Grenoble.
This was all very pretty, but, still, we were just warming up for the next left, to Vizille.
At this point cold steel grey peaks scarred with snow revealed themselves. They checked us out, laughing loudly at our puny packhorses, our season 1 and 2 sleeping bags, our flabby thighs, our flimsy brake blocks and cables, our Playschool tents, our namby pamby gear ratios. We sneared back at them as we changed gear and hit that left, on the D524, up towards Vizille . The temperature dropped, the road got steeper, the trees got closer, the grass got greener, the birds got chirpier, the air got crispier, the sky got bluer (I might have this confused with something else).
We followed a bubbling river, the Uriage, uphill, to some fancy Hello! ski resort, and then downhill a bit into Vizille. It was here we saw a frightening sight. As we slowed up in the centre ville, next to a cafe bar from the set equivalent of central casting, these things leaped out of their seats and in no time were over to us. They were dressed in all manner of bright coloured tightness, unapologetically bulging in all kinds of places, pumped full of desk job eagerness. These were royalty, these were the Spandex Kings and they were from London. There was a flashfire: a joust; of comparisons of distances, speeds, cycle configurations, gear. They were on a beano visiting their sister companies or branches or whatever in Lyon and Turin. Their spare socks and underpants were taken care of in a company truck that went on ahead.
Vizille is the true gateway to the Alps. Grenoble is far too big to have a focal point like the centre ville in Vizille, a simple roadsign pointing left to Le Bourg D'Oisans, is great understatement. Or is it? I'd looked at the maps and the route so much that the Le Bourg D'Oisans had become Xanado, Atlantis, Purgatory all rolled into one. It was mythical. We'd see.
Vizille has a nice campsite.
A word on campsites. I do not like any aspect of camping. I lie when I say a campsite is nice even if a campsite is perched beautifully on the banks of some river.
One arrives with armpits stolen from a skunk, more than likely desperate for an evacuation, with a mouth as dry as pepper. But you have to get the tent up. The ground is rock hard with sharp bits and strewn with broken mallets, the toilet block is either half a mile away or right next to you, and what is parked right next to you is a Hello! motorhome, with satellite dish, jacuzzi, football pitch, supermarket - maybe that's an exaggeration. Then when you have got it up, all neat and taught, you get to the bar to find it shut half a minute ago and the nearest one is in the next village. And, of course, forget about sleeping comfortably. Always pitch the tents on a slope someone said (the guy in the motorhome) then you can guarantee you will end up at the bottom of the tent. And dew - touch the inside of the tent, go on, see what happens.
Therefore the campsite in Vizille was 'nice'. We'd located a bottle of wine and pizzas and were happy as Larry.

Vizille at 10.30am was a bustling little town . The two cafes at Centre Ville were doing brisk trade. Locals with a beer, Ricard and Gauloise; Spandexers from London strutting about with their hard nose espressos - the non smokers equivalent of Marlboro Reds -and their cleats cracking on the already hot pavements. Their bikes, manicured and shiny down to the teeth on the back blocks, looked naked without bulging panniers and tents. A biking family appeared - Mr and Mrs Thunderthighs and their thunderthighlets, Britney and Brad. Dad had the map, they wandered around and around about pointing, their cleats clip clopping. The kids looked as if they had stuck-on smiles having been hypnotised to come on this holiday.

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...

It isn't a long way on the map, but it is a schlep from La Grave to the Col du Lautaret, and the first real mean hairpins and gradients on our trip. It took over an hour to cover the 6 or 7 miles to the Col - one of the lowest at 6410 feet. But, with altitude problems still a further 1500 feet higher up and the t shirt weather, Lautaret is a beginners Col - most cyclists do it as a means to getting to the Col de Galiber, one of the toughest - the web is packed with blow by blow accounts of self torture up this infamous gradient. I'd expected my lungs to burst but it was more about slow rather than high drain - even faced with a 1 in 5 or 8, the gears make light work - but eventually you just run out of gas and the legs turn to rubber, becoming useless and heavy. D weighs around 12 stone - nearly 60lbs less than me. The odd extra weight in the panniers is, in end, not a suspect - my extra blubber was the culprit. D would pull away but have the decency to keep with in earshot on most occasions - the one time he didn't I gave him an earful and some old flannel about doing this shit together etc.

My first col

As this was the first Col we'd managed, it was also the first gathering of cyclists we'd encountered who weren't flying past in the other direction in a blur. I'd expected something a bit more serene than the blaze of lurid spandex spread between the two cafes that bathed in the sun. An Englishman and his son from Hebden Bridge were just about to go up the Galiber and so they stuffed their faces with chips. They, sadly, weren't on a couple of Raleigh 3 speed Sturmey Archer boneshakers. Like most others who'd flashed by in swishes of bright pink, aquamarine or chartreuse, they had no baggage - just one of those shirts with pockets in the back for essentials - highlighter pens in case your shirt inexplicably becomes duller - and you could cut pizza with the wheels on their steeds. They had left the car in Briancon - having driven from Hebden B - and were just knocking off all the cols, day by day.

Once you get going down the other side, your river for the journey changes to the Durance. This is another high speed, steel grey torrent. I'd thought the road may have gone downhill, but past Briancon, the gorge that splits the valley became more and more dramatic and sheer, the road had to go higher in search of flatter ground. We didn't give Briancon the once over - I'm sure its pretty as pie -but headed directly southwards to Guillestre.

Spooky - no pedals: Tour de France territory, Briancon

Once through the gorge the D1091 becomes a relatively dull experience.

There is a point where a headwind stops being a valuable extra break as you hurtle down breakneck hills at breakneck speeds -instead, it becomes an extra big force bearing down upon you and you may as well be riding up hill again. It hit us at 3 in the afternoon when we were beginning to tire and perhaps should have gotten off the bike and had a nap. But it was Sunday, all the supermarches were shut in Briancon, and we 'd no substantial food so we pressed onto Guillestre, suffocating in the oppressive afternoon heat of the broad valley.

Flies.
There is no reliable estimate on the world's fly population. The question sadly remains unanswered at wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_flies_are_there_in_the_world. Even more sadly, somebody asked the question. But even more sadly than that, as you struggle against a headwind and buckle under the parched oppressive heat of an airless valley, yet another of the little fu**ers gets up your nostril to join the ones already up there, and you wonder what it would take to kill all of the little bleeders on the planet. Unbelievable source of annoyance.
But, thank god for small mercies. Flies, all umpteen trillion of them, don't sit in trees rubbing their legs together all night - we have crickets to do that. They are spooky in that I have never met one of the rascals but the tree, hedge, bush, shrub next to the tent seems to be one. The sound emanates from the whole plant. And they never stop - they have some sort of shift system. If the rattling or clicking or whatever you call it is a means of communication, crickets have a very limited vocabulary. Imagine how the world would be if the only word we could say was 'button'? - we'd be sat in trees, hedges, bushes operating a shift system saying 'button' over and over again.

We got to Guillestre just in time to see the weather go all funny. Peals of thunder shuddered around the tight valley campsite. It was the Very Big Plastic Bag's big moment. Everything except the bike and the tent went into the bag. We legged it up to the town to get a front row seat for the Euro 2008 final and hoped the campsite wouldn't slide down into the river.

We also met our first hardcore tourer. I didn't try to find out his name. He was dutch and he'd been out there 40 days and had another 18 to do. He had front panniers - total cycling, and, he was in his mid to late 50's but the loneliness of the long distance cycler was getting to him. Once you have been away from people and TV and newspapers all you have to talk about is your route - he talked of Cols and little else. His story filled you with a mixture of awe and fear - fear that one day you might be the one telling that kind of hermit's tale.

Guillestre as the clouds parted.

Our leisurely starts to the day only serve to have us cycling in the heat. It gets hot at 10 and stays that way till 4 or 5. Today ,we had to wait for the tents to dry and so we didn't get to the D902 turn off until 11.30, by which time wars had been won and lost, greener sources of fuel that will save the planet had been invented, a city's worth of babies had taken their first breath, the ice cap had shrunk back another millimetre, Orange had released yet another ten mobile phone packages, and a city's worth of people had taken their last.

Elevenses

We were down at 3280 feet (exactly 1000m) and we were going to the Col Du Vars at 6930ft in 12 miles - 3650 up over 63400 - a 1 in 17 or 5.8% gradient. On the face of it, that is not too steep - not over a couple hundred yards but do it relentlessly over 12 miles then its something else. Having said that, had we left a lot earlier it would have been a whole lot easier as one thing always leads to another. You go so slowly because its hot so it gets even hotter a you have no breeze. So, as you get so hot, you sweat like a pig so you have to keep stopping to drink and get shade and while you do that the sun gets a little higher and a little hotter. D would laugh at me: 'Man you are in a swarm of flies - look at you!, he would say as he cycled a few yards behind, ' they are all over you!' He'd be right - they were in my ears in my nose crawling around my salt trimmed lips and eyes. They strolled across my forehead, cheeks, around my neck. They tickled my forearms and knees. But mainly they were all over my face. So I would slow down, flap an arm around, swatting hopelessly as D overtook - his head in the biggest swarm of flies I'd ever did see. Again, had we been a nippier, as the saying goes, you wouldn't catch any flies on me/us/them etc.

We were well into Ski Resort territory. These are the opposite and the same as seaside resorts in winter. Both are dead as doornails. Rather than the howling of the wind as it swirls around empty beach huts, you just get the hum of those pesky flies - reminiscent of the opening scene of Once upon a Time In the West. Le Claux was all but deserted. The ski lift chained up, the disco nightclub boarded up. A family, carrying tennis rackets, walked by kicking up a dust. Somewhere in the distance we heard a solitary mouth organ as vultures circled above. There was one cafe. We watched a mismatched couple drinking Rose at one table while at another, an odd looking character with a joke shop moustache tapped away at a laptop.

After that encounter with Purgatory, we rose up above the tree level for the last few twists and turns up to the Col.

We both consumed huge baguette style sandwiches at the handy cafe before meeting our next remarkable bike warrior. Didn't catch his name, or maybe it was Reiner. He was doing two or three cols a day on a bike he'd fallen hopelessly in love with - unnecessary to do under normal circumstances. He was cheating, of course, as he stayed in hotels. He was also by himself. He ate a huge blackberry covered piece of cheesecake. I was trying to avoid that kind of thing myself.

A fort

Down the other side to Jausiers. Another dice with death as we hurtled down towards Saint-Paul-sur-Ubaye. A very beautiful valley accompanied this full on river - we caught sight of a family in kayaks also hurtling down. (The kids must have loved hearing that that was this year's holiday). We stopped on a bridge and cooled our feet in the liquid ice. We discussed the benefits of staying in a hotel instead of camping: in case it rained; we'd get up earlier; we'd get some sleep; we'd do all the showering and toilet stuff in somewhere decent as a treat.

We got to Jausiers after another of those endless afternoons cycling against the wind. It seemed a very nowhere kind of place but would, in three weeks time, be flooded by cyclists as it served as a stopover on The Tour de France. We found the Bel Air and paid 57 euros for a twin. They had a bike garage so the steeds were safe.

Jausiers townhouse

We met some more madmen. A father and son double act from the mid west - not Swindon - Minneapolis. Dad was 90 (OK, 69 ) or so and the son about 45. Both had as much fat on them as a carrot. They didn't have anything to say about anything other than their cycling feats and other great feats. We also met some German motorcyclists who were also nuts. They had scant regard for hairpins and scary drops it seems and had been backwards and forwards over the Col de la Lombarde and other routes into and out of Italy that day. I got the sense they were trying to kill themselves - or just see what it might be like. Over beers D and I shared our fears, apprehension and excitement about the following day. Whatever we had done so far in terms of hills was only half of what we'd be doing the next day. The heat was a killer and we didn't expect rain - so the early start would compensate. But the biggest unknown was what happens at the the point at which the air pressure drops so as to mess up the availability of oxygen - 8000 feet. Apart from that, I just didn't know if I could haul my ass and my shit up 5250 feet over a distance of 77,099 feet approx, a 1 in 14.68, a 6.8% gradient. And it might be a bit nippy, brrrr. But, we'd done all the stuff before and all you got to do is just keep on keeping on going.

Town mouth organ player and some other locals, Le Claux

Never did see no tennis court.

The Tinee valley was the best of the valleys - fast, not much wind, great scenery; bendy and scary in places. The river was clearer as the snow waters had already abated. I imagined the French Resistance in the WW2 hanging out in these sub alps - here, Italy was only a couple of miles away and occasional ruins of a bunker sit idly by the road.

Then both the D2205 (The D64 had vanished) and the Tinee stop abruptly at a set of traffic lights at the entrance to a tunnel and a very strange one-way system, above the junction of the Tinee and Le Var. After the tunnel the valley broadens and straightens out and by Saint Martins du Var, the Alps are over. Our legs had had enough of big hills. It is easy to get to Nice from Saint Martins - a straight line to the sea. But, its also horrible - the D6202 is a busy dual carriage way with lots of lefts and rights dragging traffic all over the place while you're try to keep straight on until you eventually hit the airport. From there, a good cycle path runs alongside the Promenade des Anglais and follows the beach all the way around the bay to the marina.

So wind back a few miles and consider a turn off the D6202 - even take a right way back on the D2205. These options will keep you in hills and you can head towards the Italian border and drop down one of the complicated valleys to hit the piece of coast you fancy. But, some of these roads look like intestines and you'd have to allow a number of extra days to plop out the other end where you want.

We had to get to Menton - 16 or so miles away through Nice, Villefranche, Beaulieu sur Mer and our target of Monaco. I'd misread on the web that the bike path went the whole way from Nice to Monaco. It doesn't and instead we ended up on curly wurly roads in quiet hoods that hovered over the glistening bays amongst shivering pines. More unfriendly tunnels had driven us up round the outside and onto the hills only for us to come down to the tight, cramped streets of the resorts. Bay after bay, the 16 miles felt like more as the day got hotter. There are very few campsites in this neck of the woods simply because flat land is very scarce and somewhat expensive so we had to get to the one in Menton. The bays were full of huge private yachts and cruisers and the cliffs were full of huge private palaces - the wealth was dripping off the coast and floating around in the bay. Eventually we came around the bend, went down a hill, twisted here, turned there and were in Monaco. All of a sudden we were on familiar roads - those that double as a race track. So, from the Tour De France to the Grand Prix. There were Ferarris screaming at us through that famous tunnel until we popped out onto the front and the marina.

Waiting for Harris to bring the boat around.

We soon noticed that everyone in Monte Carlo was richer than us, so we headed on. Just like those dreary couple of afternoons in the head wind a few days before, we hit that graveyard shift - the bays kept coming and the hills in between them kept coming too. This was once we'd eventually found our way out of Monte Carlo over and around the oddest combination of elevated roads and roundabouts I'd ever did see, high above the town .

The heat didn't give it up at 5 or so as it would do in the hills. I was sweatier than the skunk's armpit, my legs felt as if the muscles had been pulled apart like some old woolly jumper and the sinews, all fibrous and thin, had been laid out to dry out and shrivel in the sun - or something along those lines. My scalp was itchy from its peeling skin mingling with the salty sweat. The rest of my skin was just sticky. Menton arrived at our bicycle wheels but there was a lot of Menton but at least there was a cycle path there along the very nice bay. We were approaching the end of our 300 miles - the last few hundred yards. My legs had had it - they were just spent - wrung dry of their energy, so, the sting in the tail that is the road to les Jardins campsite was incredible. Take a left off the bike track and find the town square set in from the front. Go up one of the streets and you then face this wall of hairpins, followed by a snaking hill climb, doubling back on one occasion. It was a total killer, our own mini Alpe D'Huez. The road in about 1.25 km goes up 120m, making our final hill the toughest we'd been on - about 10%.

So, there we were banging on about how steep that last one was and feeling pretty pleased with ourselves as we began to erect our tents with a flick of the wrist. On the terrace above some German bloke could have done with putting a sock in it as he lectured a man lying on the ground, his voice beginning to grate. He eventually left and the man he'd been talking too got up and said hello. This man, like the last hill ,was the cream of the crop. He had no tent - just a small back pack that he'd carried on his mountain bike. We banged on a bit more about the hill - he hadn't come up the hill. How had he got here? He'd come a track - he'd come on tracks all the way from Geneva, literally, over the Alps. He'd reached a height of over 13,000 feet, stayed in huts, drank snow and all that other Captain Scott routine. The tracks he took were numbered with a prefix of GR - and they can be seen crawling all over the high bits of the Alps. He was Max and he was from Leipzig.

They discovered they were long lost twins.
High above Menton, the Pizza joint overlooks the bay. Well worth it.

350 miles 19000ft

Max turned out to be a triathlete and had represented Germany (U-21) in world championships. he told us tales of strict training and bits about pulse rates - what was healthy - what it should be if you are caning it etc. So every five minutes, going for a shower, turning the pages of a book, scratching an ear, we'd check our pulse rates. The hill pushed it up to 120. The hill was no better with gear than without - which made sense since only 5% of the weight of my set up was my baggage. Even Max didn't like the hill.
Italy was just around the corner, although its not a pretty piece of Italy and the roads are not too hot. But you can impress your friends with swimming in France in the morning then Italy in the afternoon, and, if you run the few yards into the sea - you can say you are triathlete.
Lolling about on the sand and indulging in coffee while watching the beach go by was scant substitute for the Alps but it was better than a poke in the eye. We took the train back to Nice - 4.40 E - the track, hugging the cliff face, provided great views. We cycled back to Airport from the Gare. And that was that.

Some handy tips

Distances: www.drive-alive.co.uk/route_planner.asp

Michelin do one that messes with my browser and is a pain.

The AA do one but often it has no idea where a place is or it wants the name in its own langauge.

Campsites:
These all cost between 10 euros for both to 10 each. None of them had bad facilities and the showers were free unless I mention a price. Condensation was heavy except for Menton where the night temperature was quite high. Nowhere was cold, though La Grave was a bit nippy.

Camping de Nant Matraz
SEYSSEL
Opposite the Champion supermarket on the D992 going north. Bar. No food except ice creams. Nice grass. Nice place. At least one slug.

Camping Municipal du Bois de Cornage
110 chem Camping VIZILLE
Go all the way in to the centre of the town to pick up the sign posts - the route involves a few metres of daul carriage way. Bar till 8, a pizza hut in the drive (a hut that sells pizza, not the chain)

Camping de la Meije
LA GRAVE
If you are coming from the West it's after the bars.
Good grass. This charged for showers - a Euro or even 2,but they were worth it. 7 minutes of hot power shower. No food or bar but the town is only a 5 minute walk (vertical).

La Ribiere
GUILLESTRE
There are others around abouts, this one was small with nice grass. Basic. No food or bar.

Camping Municipal

SAINT SAUVEUR SUR TINEE

Only one around, very small but nice. Handy astro turf football pitch next door. Basic. No food or bar.

Camping Saint Michel (Municpal)

MENTON

On top of the hill. Nice pizza place with a great view. A little shop to save having to go down the monster. Ground not so good.

Gear

I had a bike nicked a few weeks before the trip. I got a replacement that came with a spare gear hanger. I thought, 'that'll be handy for drying clothes.' It turned out to be a lump of alloy for my rear 'de railer'. You learn fast.

I weighed 15.5st, the bike 2.5, and the gear 33lb = 285lbs = 129.545454kg.

Percentage of total weight: me = 76%, bike 12%, gear 12%. These are seemingly geeky unnecessary statistics.

And, over in the Blue corner, is D weighing in at 12st, his bike 2.5 and gear 33 = a total of 236lbs = 107.272727: 71%, 15%, 14% - just to be pedantic.

Gear:

Bike
Pump
F/R lights
Rack
Water bottle & cage
Two panniers
Baseball cap
Tent
Sleeping bag
Sleeping mat
3 pairs socks
5 T shuts
2 polyester mix shirts NOT spandex but close
(Italian replica, Santos replica)
1 pair cycling shorts
1 pair LYCRA nutcracker shorts
1 pair regular shorts (evening dress)
3 underwear
Allen keys
Philips
Puncture Kit
Lube (for bike)
Pedal Spanner
Magilite
SPARE GEAR HANGER
Spare Tube
Bin Liner
Gear hanger (clothes line)
Sandals
Shoes
Wallet & cards
Sunglasses
teethpaste
teethbrush
antiperspirant
shower gel
razor
sunblock
insect repellent ( not wearing antiperspirant not sufficient)
4 maps IGN 100,000:1
Day pack
one bungee
nerdy reflector
Phone and earphone
Very big plastic bag
Micro towel
Nike hoody
Virulent Lemon coloured rain proof Altura special
Spare brake blocks.

Unfortunately this is all fairly essential - though you could spend hours debating the number of pairs of socks.

The Weather: We started checking the route's weather a week before at the MSN weather pages. MSN provide all kinds of detail - even the colour of a sunset - seven days in advance, which is all very handy except their forecast changed from rain to sun and back every day. We did figure it would be warm in the day, rain or shine, and that the nights may be chilly. The rain could come at any time.

The Bike:
I'd had a Crossroads hybrid nicked, as I've mentioned. The choices for the replacement were all pretty much the same in my budget of £350 but I went for a Pinnacle Stratos 3.0, from because the gears were very very low on the back. Fast gears were not a priority. I rode it 160 miles in a couple of weeks to get it loosened up so that the bike shoppe could do a service.
So, the bike is nothing too fancy - as long as all the essential bits work properly. As it was new, the brake blocks and tyres were cool as was the wiring. The tools you take are for checking the thing isn't falling apart beneath your butt as you immerse yourself in the beauty etc.

Camping Gear:
This is an awkward issue. Ideally, don't camp at all! Drive an Aston Martin convertible instead -with a boot full of Burberry weekend bags and check into 5 star hotels each night.

It may rain - big heavy flysheet and more pegs. It might be cold - big heavy sleeping bag and extra thick sleeping mat.
We were not going in winter, or sleeping on the tundra in a snow drift. The valleys of the Alps in the summer are as hot as the coast - and often as dry. The tents were very basic light shelters from Jamet of Piccadilly (not really). The very big plastic bag would cover the nasties - waterproof, insulation etc etc. So a light mummy bag and a 3/4 mat for me sore batty was enough. The rest of the gear is common sense - just keep it light.

Cycling Buddy:
He carried pretty much the same but for a few additions: light stove, pan, plastic mugs and plates. He also had a creature comfort in the form of a luxurious looking soft blanket that I began to envy. He had FIVE pairs of socks which I believe was in breach of some convention limiting the amount of underwear that can be carried on a bike. He'd hang them out on the line very morning just to get me jealous.

Why?

Yes, why put yourself through all this? Your knees will scream and your crotch get hot and sweaty; flies in your ears, nostrils and soup. And that's just the flight.
I have to lose weight - Doctor's orders, but I like eating and drinking so I figured the trip would guarantee a calorie deficit. Moderate cycling for the heftier among us uses about 900 calories an hour; just right as the trip ended up on a sunny beach by which time the hastily shrunken belly would no longer blot out the sun for fellow beach users. Plenty of nice views on the way; and a couple of big climbs to brag about (again, if anyone knows what it is you're bragging about).

My cycle buddy, 'D', fancied the challenge of getting over the hills, but didn't need to lose any lard and wasn't that bothered by the beaches. He'd be quite happy cycling for ten hours a day.

They were many solitary cyclists who'd shrugged off the pleas of their loved ones to spend several weeks on an Alpine odyssey - climbing as many cols as they could. The conversation would go:

Hi, where are you from?

We're from London.

Ha, ha, ha ,ha. You're are cycling, huh?!

Yes, we...

I am Tom from Hollant. I have been cycling the Col de Sac this morning; I am doing the Col de Fete before lunch....How many cols have you done?

We've done...

This is my fourteenth trip in the Alps. This is my lovely bike. I call Erica....

It seems Alpine cycling can be addictive.

Cycling Geneva to Monte Carlo

Geneva Monte Carlo

Seyssel and the Rhone

Gear

Why?

Preparation

Bike on planes

The First Day

Seyssel and the Rhone

The Second

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