La vie est belle. Above is my view as I left Le Rivier d'Ornan to ride up Alpe d'Huez this morning. Below is a view of the beginning of the Alpe d'Huez climb from the valley highway. It is hard to make out the first switchbacks and to me it is interesting how wild and undeveloped the terrain is at the start of the climb.
The Start of the Climb up Alpe d'Huez
Above is a view from near the top of Alpe d'Huez. The white cloud visible near the center of the photo above the tree in the foreground and the first ridge line in the background is the top of the little col above Villard Reymond. I took the photo below looking back across the valley at Alpe d'Huez form that very notch a few days back on my Villard Reymond ride.
I had big plans for the day when I left the KOM Lodge. I though I might ride over the top of Alpe d'Huez then drop down the Col de la Sarenne and maybe ride up Le Deux Alpes road. But the weather looked sketchy, so I decided to drop back down the Alpe d'Huez road, and then, maybe, take the Le Garde balcony road up the valley and either yo-yo it back to Alpe d'Huez or ride the road up to Le Deux Alpes ski station from the valley bottom. I would see what the weather was doing and how I felt when I got there.
It is a good thing that I decided to just descend because all bets were off when I hit the fifth switchback from the top. I heard a tremendous boom, like the report of a gun, and my front tire was instantly flat, the bead of the tire blown clean off of the rim of the wheel on one side. I managed to stop without going down and when I surveyed the damage I could see that the rim had failed. It was bent and no longer serviceable. I was able to bend it back a bit and then I put a new tube in and made the slowest descent of Alpe d'Huez on record. I could only brake on the rear rim, so I stopped a couple of times on the way down to let the rear rim cool.
I called Guy at the KOM Lodge and he arranged for Helyn to meet me at the bike shop in town (Bourg d'Oisans). She was in town anyways with Alice at preschool so that worked out nicely. Have I mentioned what awesome hosts Guy and Helyn are? I believe I have. Guy has lent me an absolutely bomb proof front rim for the rest of my trip. I was done riding for the day, but it was better having this happen here in Bourg d'Oisans than in the middle of nowhere in the Pyrenees. And thank God I didn't ride the Col de la Sarenne and have the rim explode on what is essentially the dark side of the moon compared to the main road on the front of Alpe d'Huez.
Thanks to Guy I would have a good night's sleep and no worries about whether or not I could ride tomorrow. Guy had me dialed in and ready to go.
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