If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!So, I’ve come over to Hawaii for a bit of a shredquest surf mission. Today, our 3rd day, was meant to be a trip to the big Island for a volcano tour etc.
Our phone rang at 3.30AM; the tour [...]
I am a big, big fan of Chris Guillebeau.
He has some really awesome ebooks, and one of them is the new Frequent Flyer Master. Here’s a guy who has a goal to travel to every country in the world (he’s up to 119/~200), so he knows what he is talking about.
I personally have this [...]
I don’t know where she was off to, what her name was, but I want to be at that party, because no one dresses like this unless they’re going to some sort of super-party. If this was in Vice mag it would be a fashion do. What does this have to do with this website? Everything! She’s clearly on some sort of super crazy rainbow Shredquest.
God I love riding. This was an epic day. Poor old Mike did all the work up the Col du Telegraphe, but I was Menchoving so well that day, when he flicked his elbow, all he got was cold, steely Russian “Nyet”. Hhahaa.
Anyway, it was all high-larious up the Galibier then I wacked the gas on.
Well after last year’s epic romp up the Ventoux, I’m now officially addicted to L’Etape. In fact, I reckon it’s more worthwhile smashing over to France for L’Etape than for Le Tour.
We awoke in the presence of divinity. The run was rising over Chamonix and its glaciers and it was just amazing. Like, TOTALLY AMAZING AND HUMBLING AND GROUNDING.
We drove to St Michel de Maurienne and then headed straight up the Col du Telegraphe, which is a really tough little climb up to I think 1570m. There is good coffee at the top.
After a very tough drive down, we arrived in St Jean de Maurienne, which is the base of the start of the climbs of all the Grands Cols (Galibier, Croix de Fer, Iseran etc), see below. It’s not though, a very nice town. Very industrial, stuff shuts early. It’s probably worth staying up the road at St Michel de Maurienne, or even better, Bourg d’Oisons and attacking Glandon+Croix de Fer, Alpe D’Huez and Galibier from that side. I’ll get a google map mashup done which shows the best places to attack climbs from.
After an horrible sleep – humid, mosquitos – we woke again without pressure to get up a hill for Le Tour – a CRACKING Hautes Alpes day – no wind and stinging hot sun at 8AM – a nice change from the gale force winds experienced over the last 3 days. We spun into Le Bourg d’Oisons for coffee and a croissant avec confiture. For a really solid coffee check out the cafe opposite the Hotel de Milan.
We headed off toward the Col d’Iseran (see below) as we were planning on getting to Bourg d’Oisans to attach the Alpe D’Huez and the only way to do that was over the cols in the wind (d’Iseran @ ~2600m or Telegraphe @ 1570m). Given the wind we could go all the way around into Italy near Bardonecchia or via Grenoble, both via very expensive tollways. We ended going via Italy which included an ~AUD$80 (€44) trip via the Tunnel de Frejus which passes for I think 31km under the Alps. It was hardly worth it as the traffic was horrendous at the toll booths. Most of the paying lanes were closed which pissed me off. What a waste. As it turns out, passing over the 1570m Col du Telegraphe would have been quicker and way more economical.
