Day 3: Mountain Mayhem

After a decent sleep we woke to blue skies, despite a fair bit of overnight rain which got the second day running meant that I’d be starting the ride in wet clothes. Yummy.

Of course, being a French campsite, we should have pre-ordered croissants. Being stupid, we didn’t. Drew managed to blag the last of the croissants whilst I settled for a couple of pain au chocolates, washed down with some coffee. 

I could have stayed there all day but the view from the terrace reminded us that it was time to get a wriggle on.

Say it quietly but I’d made a couple of routing errors when planning our journey from the campsite to the start of the Col d’Izoard - our first climb of the day. 

And so we negotiated dead ends, fields, dogs, roadworks and 15% inclines before finally hitting the lower slopes of the climb. 

The sun was out and making itself very much known despite the relatively early hour, and the first few km passed by quite easily. Conscious not to repeat yesterday’s 2 croissants gaff, we stopped at a bar for a bottle of coke at to did our heads in the spring water fountain, which did a pretty good job of cooling us down. 

From there it was a case of plugging away in the late morning sun until we arrived at the summit, some 2 hours after setting out. This was the (somewhat obvious) problem with the ride - carrying our gear made a huge dent in our speeds. We had become quite used to it by now, but it was hard work once the gradient rose much above 6 or 7%.

The descent was - as most descents are on the Alps, exquisite. Lovely road surface, cracking views and on this occasion not too many motorbikes, particularly given that we were in France and it was Bastille Day. 

Soon enough we arrived at the bottom of the next climb, in Chateau Ville Vieille. Or rather, we didn’t. We arrived in a small village 1km from Chateau Ville Vieille, expecting to find somewhere to eat, and failing spectacularly. 

After some searching we found the town, and somewhere to eat. Omelette & chips, with a green salad. That’ll do it. 

The next climb was a 21km affair, with gradients which varied from 2% to 14%. It was hard work, not helped by the 35 degree heat. I drank no less than 3.5 litres of water, not enjoying the heat but very much enjoying the stunning scenery and Marmots running through the grass. 

The climb itself was fairly unique in that the pass was the French / Italian border. So we climbed the Col d’Agnel but descended the Colle di Agnelle. Of course.

Once at the top, we enjoyed a descent which was to take us a total of 28km, all the way to our campsite for the evening. Drew and I fought our way through stubborn linguistic problems (we stubbornly refused to be able to speak Italian, the campsite owner stubbornly refused to speak English. 

We got there in the end, which was just as well since the temperature was still in the high 20’s and we weren’t really up for prolonged debate. 

Shower, then a stroll into town to find food. 

Tomorrow we’re back on gravel. We have it on fairly food authority that not all of it will be rideable…