Day 4 Thwarted Attempt to Ride the Col de la Croix de Fer

Things looked pretty good for us today when we left the lodge to ride the Col de la Croix de Fer. After a night of rain the sun had come out and our level of enthusiasm was sky high. And this morning we had picked up our rental car, a Renault Kangaroo, so we had Hank's wife, Ki, shadowing us up the col. If thing went south weather-wise, we had an escape pod.

Our plan was to ride as far as the town of la Rivier d'Allemond, which is about 14 KMs up the 30 KMs climb up the Col de la Croix de Fer and puts the steepest part of the climb behind you. We would meet Ki at a cafe in la Rivier d'Allemond and reassess the weather from there. After a very steep climb through the woods Hank and I popped out into the open as we came into the town and saw Ki's smiling face. She was having lunch as she waited for us at a little bistro on the left hand side of the road. The sun was shining and things looked promising. I bought a coke and chatted with the owner of the Bistro, a South African woman who had lived in Boulder for many years and had worked at the Greenbrier, the restaurant at the bottom of Left Hand Canyon that I probably ride past at least three times a week back home in Colorado.

Then, out of the blue, it clouded up and started to rain. The temperature dropped like a stone down a well. We went inside of the bistro hoping that the storm would blow over. The top of the col is high and exposed and we did not have much interest in riding it in a freezing rain storm. A group of Dutch riders descending from the col came into the bistro to warm up and get some food. Hank finally found out how to pronounce his last name, 'Brandjten' in Dutch. I always figured he was just another Minnesotan from Scandahoovia, but no, his people came from the Netherlands. Or is it the Low Countries? Or Holland? How many names for their nation do the Dutch need to tie up? At any rate, we waited 45 minutes or so for the storm to pass, but it was clear that the Col de la Croix de Fer was not in the cards for us today. We retreated in our rental Renault.

On the upside, we were able to show Ki the route we had taken the day before up Alpe d'Huez from the Villard Reculas side. Hank got a big kick out of showing Ki the narrow one lane shelf road that hangs over the valley. In a weather shortened day we road just over 16 miles and climbed about 2,000 feet. Pictured above Team Clydesdale and driver Ki just before the rain came.