Arriving after yesterday and picking up my latest hire bike from Chamonix, today I did my first ride in the northern Alps, the HC category climb of Col de Joux Plane.
I stuck to my normal plan of doing a shortish ride on a new bike just in case anything was amiss. Today I discovered a slightly dodgy back brake which drags on the back wheel (I can't fix it but equally can't be bothered returning to the shop either) and a new gearing system to get used to. The gears are SRAM versus the Shimano that I am used to. I used SRAM once before on a mountain bike in Moab and I actually rather like them. While they are different they are very intuitive and have crisp gear changes. I also have one less chain gear on the front, however I still had enough easy gears to get to the top of the Col de Joux Plane which is probably the steepest climbing I will be doing during this leg of the trip.
Enough bike geek stuff. Today's ride started with a quick drive to the attractive but not especially unique town of Taninges, simply to avoid the rather dreary riding through the fairly functional towns in the large valley below us. The tactic paid off as my ride started instead with a 10km ride through some scenic countryside before reaching the base of today's climb at Samoens. The climb itself was very enjoyable. My research had promised a tough climb and the reality did not disappoint, with the climb staying consistently above and beyond an 8% gradient for the whole of the ascent. The climb was very scenic too going firstly through the village of Samoens, then through farms with pretty chalets everywhere, before the forest started that eventually gave way to open alpine meadows at the top of the pass. I really enjoyed the ride as I got into the climbing rhythm easily on the new bike and got a good workout before the long ride scheduled for tomorrow. I rode back the way I came back to the car at Taninges, with a quick visit to their boulangerie for a post-ride almond and chocolate pain which was excellent although probably twice the calories I had just burnt off. Oh well, I am on holiday after all!
As I write this, there is thunder and lightening (very, very frightening, Galileo, Galileo, Figaro, magnifico ...) around us. Assuming this clears up overnight and we awake to beautiful clear blue skies, then I will be doing a ride that was on the short list from day one of the trip planning. The ride will see me go over the Col de la Colombiere, then on to the Grand-Bornand and then over the Col des Aravis. It should be beautiful however it will be a long one going over three cols. This said none are HC, I have scheduled plenty of time, and I have a rest day planned for Tuesday. Fingers crossed for good weather.
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