Day 7 started out as another day with dicey weather. It was raining in the morning, but the skies cleared and went almost totally blue with just a smathering of clouds. So I decided to try and ride the Col de la Croix de Fer. It's a long ride from the KOM Lodge with a lot of climbing, but I figured if the weather turned I would just turn around and keep my ride closer to home. Below is the view as I left the KOM Lodge heading down the Col d'Ornan. Note the promising blue skies.
And the flowers along the narrow lane off of the col and into Le Rivier d'Ornan, home of the KOM Lodge.
I rode to down the valley to Allemont where I had lunch. It was already starting to cloud up again, but I decided to start up the first steep climb on the way to the Col de la Croix de Fer that takes you into the small town of Le Rivier d'Allemont. I stopped at a cafe there and had a Coke while I reaccessed the situation. Below is the view up the col from the cafe. The skies are now not so blue and getting darker.
There is a big descent from Le Rivier d'Allemont followed by a long climb to the top of Le Col de la Croix de Fer. I decided to not chance the weather. So I descended back down to Allemont and spun back into Bourg d'Oisans to run an errand or two. Below is a picture of the War Memorial in Bourg d'Oisans.
There were about 90 names of Bourg d'Oisans war dead from the first war. 30 names from the second including some resistance fighters who were simply 'fusillé' shot/executed. And 4 or 5 war dead from what the French call 'Indochine'.
Then I rode back up the Col d'Ornan. Here is the view of Le Rivier d'Ornan as I came up. It had clouded up a bit up here, too.
But I decided to go ahead and ride the last three kilometers to the top of the col. Here is a view of Le Rivier from the switchbacks above it.
The road is not too steep. Right when I got to the summit is started to rain.
No comments:
Post a Comment