Col Bagging 2015 - part four

Day Four:  30^th June 2015

Montaimont to Crest-Voland

With a fond farewell from the lovely Isabelle, we departed the Hôtel Le Beauséjour by van to the town of La Chambre, 600 metres below us. Max must have been sartorially subdued, for my notes do not record his attire for the day’s ride. We assembled in the car park at the corner of Grande Rue and Route de Saint-Martin, the road that would lead us up to the Col de la Madeleine.

The drop to the foot of the mountain would mean that a climb of nearly 1,500 metres over 20km would be ahead of us and the heat of the day, already rising steadily, implied a challenging morning.

Mercifully, however, our ascent lay up the north-west (ish) face of the mountain and we climbed largely in the morning shade. The Madeleine, an Haut Category climb, has an average gradient of 9% and was a suitably challenging start to the day. Rob and Paul once more led the field, with Max, Keelan and Stuart close behind.  Diesel, Richard and I completing the touring party.

The ride was largely unremarkable; sheep grazed the hillside, the occasional clang of a cowbell and a relentless climb are all that I recall. Notably my notes for the ascent are sparse, save for the view from the top, where in the distance we could see Mont Blanc, the peak sparkling white with the thick coat of snow that clung to its face vindicating its name. We paused to refuel, savouring not only the culinary delights that Sarah and Caroline laid before us, but also the view.

Nearly 20km of descent led to a further 23km of gentle flats where we demonstrated further faltering form as a peloton, our dance on the pétanque terrain of Day 1 evidently not manifesting in discernible competence riding as a group. The heat had continued to increase throughout the day and we lunched on a riverbank in the shade of trees on the outskirts of Albertville, lying back on blankets that the girls had laid out for us. In such temperatures it was difficult to imagine that the town had once hosted the 1992 Winter Olympics, in which, it should be added, Annelise Coberger won a silver medal in the slalom, becoming the first athlete from the southern hemisphere to win a medal at the Winter Olympics. Naturally enough she was from New Zealand. Sadly, it did not see the return of the perennial trier, Eddie ‘the Eagle’ Edwards, who had trailed the field at the 1988 Calgary Olympics for Britain in the ski jump. Following his epic failure in those games, where he finished dead last with 57.5 points from a 55m jump (compared with the Finnish winner, Matti Nykänen, who recorded 224 points from a jump of 120m), the miserable bastards at the IOC introduced a rule that meant one could only compete at an Olympics if one featured in the top 30% of athletes, or the top 50, whichever was a fewer. The rule, unsurprisingly, is known as the Eddie the Eagle rule. One other interesting fact is that Todd Gilman of Canada, who finished second to last with 110.8 points, actually fell on his second jump which provides further evidence of the spectacular mediocrity of Eddie Edwards’ performance.

As I retrieved my bike from the side of the van where is had been resting in the afternoon sun, I spotted that the Garmin was recoding a temperature of 46.5°C. The heightened reading was clearly a combination of the black frame of the bike and sun reflecting off the white side of the vehicle and not, thankfully, the actual temperature. It was, nevertheless, going to be a very warm afternoon as we set off in peloton once more for the foot of the Col des Saisies.

I nestled near the front of the group, regularly calling out to whoever was leading to ease up on the gas. Despite my urging, I thought we were progressing at a reasonable pace, whereupon a mountain biker blitzed past us and suggested that the speed I was requesting was a lot closer to Eddie the Eagle’s standards than Nykänen’s. Philip, who had opted for support crew duties for the day, mocked us mercilessly that evening and would have none of my assertion that although bested by a rock-hopper, the thick-wheeled one did have, nestling beneath his frame, a battery pack similar to Sister Maria’s from Mont Ventoux, which must have substantially contributed to the 25mph he exhibited as he flew past.

Shortly after this embarrassing episode the road began to rise again, gently at first, and I tried to cling to the front of the group. At some point, two or three of our group had paused for a mechanical adjustment which meant that Richard and I rode with Rob, James and Stuart for a time. As the surface inclined, the distances between us lengthened as I fell back.

Ordinarily in France, the density of traffic is worst at the end of July and beginning of August on any given Saturday, as the masses depart for their annual holidays to all corners of the country. On this Tuesday, on the final day of June 2015, an altogether different form of traffic jam was occurring. Caused, it would transpire, by Richard and me sluggishly making our way up the Col des Saisies, creating a 15 vehicle tailback that was so slow that Paul, Keelan and Max managed to pass some of those vehicles as they went uphill. It was a warm old ride, and although the snowy peaks of Mont Blanc kept us company throughout, the chill of those lofty heights were far from us. At the summit of the col, another ski resort nestled and when I eventually joined the group, it was to a party of men sitting outside a café enjoying ice-cold cokes and strong coffees.

After our pause, we mounted bikes for the final descent of the day; 9 fairly bumpy kilometres along some of the worst paved roads we’ve experienced in France to Hôtel Le Caprice des Neiges in Crest Voland, a reassuringly Swiss-looking hotel that was well appointed and welcoming. As is customary on our final night, we indulged in a few more beers and wines than was typical on earlier nights and did our level best to exceed tour budget for food and drinks by downing an elegant sufficiency of the splendid local wine, the name of which I have sadly lost.