l'Alpe d'Huez & the road to Italy.....

Our European trip started at 2.45am on Thursday morning in order to catch a 7am ferry. The destination was Le Bourg d'Oisans in the French alps at the base of the legendary l'Alpe d'Huez. It rained heavily for the entirety of the 800 mile journey, but after eventually arriving, the campsite lady promised sun and 25c the next day as we pre-ordered our baguette and pain-au-chocolate for breakfast. Dinner in a fine local Pizza restaurant was shared with two Coloradians Val and Skip who had flown over for some climbing and cycling. Amy was at home chatting with them !

After some 'admin time' (Amy's rather complicated tax forms...) we hit the Alpe at a pleasant cruise and noted that the temperature was rising as the hairpins went by. There was some crazy dutch sportive that morning which finished at the top, complete with brass band and every rider wearing a matching jersey.

After some lunch at the ski resort we took the side road past Villard Reclusas to start the climb to the Col de la Croix de Fer and the Col du Glandon. This is a lovely climb which again we didn't take too hard and by the time we had descended in the dropping temperatures (picking up a baguette on the way) it was gone 7pm. We had seen lots of marmots running around the rocks at the top which was nice, there seemed to be more this year (where's my shotgun....). There was also more snow than usual due to the earlier time of the year and the mountains looked very pretty indeed.

Dinner was the cheaper 'pasta a la tente' which is delicious all the same and finished off with some biscuits. Class

Next morning involved a pack-up and breakfast before the long drive to the Italian Adriatic coast for the Gran Fondo Nove Colli Marco Pantani in Cesenatico. We drove over the Col du Lauteret, peeked at the Galibier (without going up) and dropped into Briancon for some picnic shopping and then climbed over the Italian border at Montgenevere. The local fauna almost lost a couple of marmots as two of the furry critters ran right under my wheels, the second one stopped just in time with a startled look on it's face as the noises Amy was making indicated she anticipated Marmotte soup for dinner. They were fine.

The landscape was now terra-incognita for me (quite exciting) and after passing several ski resorts including Sestriere we hit the Autostrada to Turin for an interminable downhill into haze that the plains seemed to be sitting in.

We had just crossed the alps ! I felt like Hannibal.

The route to Cesenatico was characterised by about a million peages that gradually milked us for all the euros we had and driving on basically the same very high speed motorway all the way for hundreds of miles. There are either no speed cameras in Italy or at least I didn't notice any (and now have no license), either way lots of big Audis were going faster than me.

As we approached the town the number of cyclists increased to plague like levels. The weather had peaked at 29c earlier in the day and the cycling locusts were cruising around town trying to work on their tans and look cool. I would be ruining that image the next day that's for sure (Ireland wasn't the best location for a base tan.....). Anyway, we stumbled across a campsite just as we were beginning to think we would be homeless for the night, threw the tent up and headed off to the registration. This was painless and after picking up a fancy logoed gillet we headed to the beach-front area to be confronted by an enormous cycle expo style show, with loads of stalls selling lots of fancy bike stuff. The ride/race tomorrow would have an amzing 11,000 people taking part over 200k's of what looks like great cycling terrain....looking forward to it. Let's hope it's not too hot and I don't get dropped on the first climb. 1200 miles of driving and 2 HC climbs ridden in three days is not ideal preparation.