I must say I was pretty surprised that myself and a select few were to do the first road bike Tour du Mont Blanc. Mountain biking has always been "The" sport for me, but slowly and surely I had gotten into the whole road bike thang and the prospect of riding the TMB in three rather than five days was all of the encouragement I needed to get it organised. With fresh shaved legs and jersey pockets full of gels, me, Nick, Stevie and Andy set off to the first col of the trip the Montet. An easy few hundred metres of climbing later and the col was in the bag and with Switzerland beckoning and the ridiculously fast descent down to Martigny very much on our minds, we flew up the Col de Forclaz to our first refueling stop.
The descent to Martigny was an absolute blast, braking hard into the bends and then sprinting back out of them was pretty close to the thrill of riding some choice singletrack. I know there will be some people that would disagree but
- fast push bikes + two inches of rubber on the ground + mental
Foreign drivers
- = a pretty exhilarating ride.
Next up it was the steep as you like climb up to Champex and lunch. This is where just about everybody agreed that having a tripple or a compact chainset on your bike for the Alps is a must. Luckily I did and had a right old masochistic time of it, beasting up the climb. Lunch of chips and strong coffee was the way to go, especially as we had the beast that is the Grand Col du Saint Bernard ahead of us.
The Grand col is about a 1600m climb that apart from the tunnel section, gets steeper and steep the higher you go, oh good! The bottom section is a combination of big long drawn out straights with the odd hairpin all at a fair old gradient. We all regrouped just before the tunnel entrance. All of the metres climbed up to this point were certainly apparent on everyones faces, that combined with the 30 degree heat meant there wasn't much left in the energy bank. The tunnel itself is not too bad as it is mostly open on one side, letting at least some light in.
Through the tunnel and it was the start of the 10km last leg to the col, and the start of the hardest 4km climb that I have done on the road. The last section is all classic Alpine road, tight hairpin corners and steep gradients. Stevie and myself set the pace and after what seemed like an age, came to the 4km to the top sign. 4km, fantastic not much further to go. Well thats what you would think, however the col had other ideas. Climbing on the steepest roads yet for at least 30 mins we thought that the col must be "just around the corner", naye lad, the 2km to the top sign was just around the corner. We couldn't believe it all there was were rows of armaco barriers up the side of the mountain. Another 30 mins brought the top insight and with that Stevie made the effort to end with a sprint, one I might add I was more than happy to loose. Nick and then Andy all got to the top, all with the same hellish tales of the 4 and 2km to go to the top signs. The view was superb and even in the heat of the beginning of June there was still snow on the mountain.
Through customs we descended down the monster descent towards Aosta and bed for the night. Jenny was waiting for us at the hotel with much needed supplies and clean clothes. Showered and just about in a fit state to walk across the road to the restaurant, we all concluded that after 3000m of climbing and three countries, a cheeky beer was definately on the cards.
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