Climbing in the Alps

On the Vent­oux to Nice trip, we’re climb­ing a num­ber of passes through the Alps. After last years’ trip, which had more passes in it, these climbs are re­fresh­ingly fa­mil­i­ar in fla­vor, if not in ex­act de­tail. Here’s a bit of that fla­vor that I find so com­pel­ling.

It’s a chilly, crisp sunny morn­ing. We gath­er in the hotel drive­way, clomp­ing around on the gravel in stu­pid bike shoes. Last minute things be­fore the ride: knee warm­ers, or not? Bottles loaded with Skratch? GPSs have the routes? Sun­screen? One last bath­room stop? Oh yeah… gels.

We ride out of the hotel in a slow parade, La Fu­ga guide in front, me usu­ally in back, keep­ing an eye on things. The line wobbles a bit as every­one dis­cov­ers fa­mil­i­ar pains in their legs and butt.

It’s France, so the little vil­lage hasn’t really woken up yet… we bend through the round­about (Vous N’Avez Pas La Pri­or­ite), fol­low­ing the dir­ec­tion that says “Col”. The moun­tains tower over­head, spec­tac­u­lar and in­tim­id­at­ing. Our route lies up there some­where.

We cross a little bridge over a busy stream, take a slight turn, and, without much fan­fare, the road starts to rise. It’s just a few per­cent.. at the mo­ment. A sign on the side says “Col Ouvert”. Good.. closed passes are a drag.

The out­skirts of town are gone in minutes. Forests and farm­land take over. The road nar­rows down, but is in good shape, curving back and forth as it keeps climb­ing through the trees.

As al­ways, the group be­gins to drift apart.. the faster two or three climbers float away up the road, and the slower two or three slide slowly out the back. This will most likely pre­dict the fin­ish­ing or­der, un­less someone is feel­ing par­tic­u­larly feisty or aw­ful. Every­one settles in­to their climb­ing mode… steady ca­dence, hands re­laxed on the bars, soak­ing in the scenery or van­ish­ing to some­where in­side.

We pass some sort of ru­ins that keep an eye on the val­ley, which is already far be­low.

After an hour or so, the forest be­gins to thin out. Small lakes dot the alpine fields. We’re sur­roun­ded by huge peaks, but it’s still not clear which way the road is go­ing to choose to take us over them. We pass through the base of a ski area, al­ways the sig­nal that we’re mak­ing steady up­ward pro­gress, but have a long way to go.

The trees are al­most gone. The road zig-zags its way up the moun­tain side, now eas­ily vis­ible in the huge alpine theat­er. The lead climbers can be seen on a hair­pin, un­fathom­ably far ahead.

Time passes quickly and slowly as the ped­als turn. Every stroke is a battle, every stroke moves us a few smooth feet closer to the top.

The road gets steep­er. We shift in­to smal­ler gears and stand, just to give our muscles some­thing a bit dif­fer­ent to do. A mar­mot scrambles across the road, van­ish­ing in­to one of the re­main­ing snow fields.

We’re close to the top now. The view is amaz­ing….. moun­tain peaks, wa­ter­falls, high alpine val­leys. The wind picks up, mak­ing it just that much harder to reach the top of the pass ahead.

Fi­nally, the top. A small sign marks the Col, and the el­ev­a­tion. We head to the wait­ing van to put on a jack­et and warm gloves. We soak in the full circle view for a mo­ment, then, bent low over the handle­bars, we drop down the oth­er side of the pass, to fly like the wind.