The other side of the valley. Day 2 in France.

Before I write anything about today's festivities I would like to introduce you to my hosts here at the King of the Mountains Lodge.  Pictured below are Guy and Helyn, the owners of the lodge and the newest member of their staff, Alice, born this Spring

I woke up this morning and had a big breakfast.  It was a beautiful day and I was thinking about riding something heroic, but I realized I was thoroughly wiped-out from jet lag.  I want to stress that my being tired had nothing to do with me having tackled Alpe d'Huez on about four hours of sleep the day before.

So I went back to bed and slept until about one o'clock.  The great thing about being in the heart of the French Alps is that even with a late start you can get a great ride in.  So I got up, had a piece of apple crumb cake and a couple of Cokes, and set out to ride the route up to le Villard-Notre-Dame above Bourg d'Oisans on the opposite side of the valley from  Alpe d'Huez.  

The road is a steep one-lane shelf road carved into the cliff side in the above photo taken from the bottom of the climb in the town of Bourg d'Oisans.  Within the first couple of kilometers there are four tunnels, two of which have curves in them that make it an act of faith to ride into them even with lights.

The drop off from the road is extremely steep.

What could go wrong?

It had rained hard here two days ago and in places water rained down from the overhanging cliff face and at the tunnel entrances.

But it was a beautiful climb.  I only saw one car between the valley floor and le Villard-Notre-Dame.  Thank God it was not in the tunnels.  I saw a couple of the new markers they put on the road side for cyclist.  Here's a picture of one:

The marker thoughtfully lets you know the distance to the top - in this case I was 5.1 kilometers from le Villard-Notre-Dame - and the average gradient, usually for the next kilometer, in this case 6.8%.  There were also some of the old tombstone-like markers:

Because of its name, I approached Villard-Norte-Dame I expected some kind of incredible church or chapel or some kind of mural of a apparition of the Virgin Mary herself, but there was nothing there but a sleepy hamlet.  I heard bells, but they were only the bells of large white cows in the trees, shaking their heads to startle the flies away. The views, though, were incredible.  There was a Yosemite-like waterfall coming down from the snow fields at the head of an alpine valley above le Villard-Notre-Dame.

And across the main valley I had ridden up from I had incredible views of the route up Alpe d'Huez and all of the shelf-roads off of that route, the shelf roads I had ridden last year at this time with my friend Hank Brandjten.  Once again I was wishing Hank was with me.  He would have loved this ride.

At this point the ride got even more interesting.  I had the option of descending the road I had just come up and returning to Bourg d'Oisans or I could try to ride the route I was on through to le Villard-Reymond and from there down into the Col d'Ornan, the col my lodge (the King of the Mountains Lodge is located on.  All I knew was that the road was going to get more rustic.  By rustic I don't mean there would be worse cliff exposure (although it was still plenty cliffy) I mean the road surface itself was going to get dicier.  There was plenty of signage warning me of just that possibility.

And the road surface was getting rougher, more cobble-like.

But I pressed on.  I knew I would get some incredible views of Alpe d'Huez from the top shelf road before it slashed over le Col du Solude and dropped down into the Col d'Ornan Valley and I figured if the road got too dicey I would just turn around and go back the way I had come up.  But the road was quite ridable, even where it was hard packed gravel and mud, and all that dirt riding I had done on my cross bike out at the Boulder Reservoir paid off.  And there were phenomenal views of Alpe d'Huez.  Now I know where they take the postcard photos of it from.

The top of the Col du Solude was an intimidating sight.

I was wondering what kind of shape the road would be like down from le Villard-Reymond into the valley of the Col d'Ornan.  I stopped in a cafe in Le Villard-Reymond and had a Coke.  The road down from there was once again a paved single lane with some gravel, but by-and-large it was a beautiful, trouble free descent.  When I hit the Col d'Ornan I dropped back down into Bourg d'Oisans mainly to buy a map and some postcards, but also to give myself an excuse to do the climb back up the Col d'Ornan to the KOM Lodge and round out my afternoon on the bike.

It is a great day when you can sleep until 1:00 and still get in a great bike ride!  All told I road about 32 miles and climbed about 5,000 feet.