2012 Day 6 in France - Oz / Villard Reymond

Today the weather looked a little dicey so I decided to do a couple of tough climbs that were close to home.  Just before 11:00 I rode down to Bourg d'Oisans to run a couple of errands.  Here is the view up and down one of the streets in town.

As you can see the sky was a bit grey so I decided to keep things relatively close to the KOM Lodge.  From Bourg d'Oisans I rode over to the town of Allemont for lunch.  Then I began the climb up the steep road to Oz en Oisans, a ski station that is part of the sprawling Alpe d'Huez ski area.  The climb was 7.7 kilometers from the bottom of the hill.  Here is a picture of the start.

Yet another beautiful climb on a quiet road through the forrest.

And about two thirds of the way up you can see the ski station you are headed to up above.

Then you come into the ski area parking lot at the bottom of the hill.

Here is proof that I was there.

I went on up the hill to the end of the road.  I liked the name that they had given there snowboard stunt park - what the Eldora Ski Patrol used to call the Trauma Park.

They had some bizarre combination of a zip line course and a courage confidence-builder climbing course (one of those goofy things that you clip into about ten yards up off of the ground and walk across narrow planks and such between the trees there-by scaring yourself silly) set up in the trees.  I guess they want their Kamikaze Parc to be a year round affair.

Below is a picture of the road up to Oz that I took on the way down.  This was the first time I had ridden up this hill and it is typical of the beautifully paved backroads that they have around here up to all the small sub-ski stations and hamlets perched on the mountain sides.  These little roads are, to me, the main draw of the region, more so than the famous cols of the Tour de France.

From Oz I descended back to the Valley and after about eight miles of flats I headed back up the Col d'Ornan.  My plan was to do another classic climb to a small place in the mountains.  I took a side road off of the Ornan climb and starter up one of my favorite climbs - the 10 kilometers up to Villard Reymond.  On the way up I could feel autumn in the air and some of the trees had started to turn.

Looking down the hillside I could see the main Col d'Ornan road twisting its way up the col to the KOM Lodge and then the summit.

Have I mentioned how much I love these quiet, narrow, beautifully paves mountain roads?  They are like some sort of giant habitrail complex for cyclists.

The hamlet of Villard Reymond comes into site at the end of the road.  

The end of route 210/elevation marker in the Villard Reymond.

From Villard Reymond it is a short climb on a gravelly cow path up to the top of the ridge line.  From the top of the ridge you can look down on Bourg d'Oisans and across the valley at the 21 virages of the classic Alpe d'Huez climb as seen below.

I had a sweet descent back down to the main Col d'Ornan road followed by a short effort up the remainder of the climb to the KOM Lodge.  Another great day in the saddle: 53 miles with about 7,000 vertical feet of climbing and I did not get rained on.