'Le Brouillard' - 'The Fog'

Yesterday, June 29th, was my eleventh day in France and my eleventh day in a row on the bike.  I have been trying to mix some easier days in with the hard efforts and I have been feeling pretty good.  The weather yesterday was completely different from the day before.  Gone were the blue skies and the baking sun.  It was cool and a sort of fog was creeping down the Col d'Ornan.  It seemed like it might rain, but like it probably would not.  I got a late start and rolled into Bourg d'Oisans for lunch.

I had thinking about riding one of the back routes up Alpe d'Huez that Hank and I had done a couple of times last year.  The route is the road up from Allemont to Villard Reculas and from Villard Reculas to Huez on the shelf road that wraps around the mountain.  I see this road every time I come down the Col d'Ornan into town.  Here is a picture I took today of the cliff face and the shelf road above it from the bridge on the valley floor at the bottom of the Col d'Ornan.  You can just make out the shelf road in the picture, but it is clearly visible to the naked eye from town.

And here is how it looked yesterday as I spun back out Bourg d'Oisans after lunch.

I thought to myself I have got to get up into that cloud and see what it's like.   And so I rode up to Allemont and started up the switchbacks to Villard Reculas.  As I started out the air was reasonably clear.

I saw the first deer I have seen in France, a small red doe.  It was nowhere nearly as cooperative as yesterday's posing goats.  It bounded off before I could even get out my camera.  Then as I rode up things started to get foggy.  I could see banks of fog rolling down the mountain and I rode in and out of the white for a while until finally I was engulfed in fog.  I was wondering if it would be wet, but it was just cool, which was fine because I was warm from climbing.

It is a steep climb up, you are actually knocking off about the first fifteen switchbacks on Alpe d'Huez, and finally you come into Villard Reculas.

Villard Recluse sign on right side of the road.

From Villard Reculas the road becomes a one lane shelf road along the cliff face with a bit more climbing into Huez.  Initially the shelf road was totally inside the bank of fog.  I was wondering if the main route up and down Alpe d'Huez was also totally enshrouded in white, but about half way along the shelf road I popped out into the clear and I could see Bourg d'Oisans in the valley below.  Still the fog came down at times, billowing over the road like dry ice off of the stage of a rock concert.   As I came into Huez there was a great view of the some of the lower 'lacets' or laces of Alpe d'Huez.

And from about the same spot you have a nice view of the town of Huez and the town of Alpe d'Huez above it.

I had finally ridden out of the fog bank and it was plenty clear so I decided to ride the last five turns up to Alpe d'Huez.  From there I dropped back down into Bourg d'Oisans where I treated myself to a chocolate eclair and an Orangina before my ride back up to the Col d'Ornan.  Another great day on the bike: 5,400 feet of climbing over 41 miles.  This is the Garmin map readout for the day.