A Changing of the Guard

The next day was mostly about getting Nick to the airport and seeing him off. But they say when one door closes, a window opens up! So two days later, my friend Steve Barson showed up in Paris.

Steve is one of my oldest and best cycling friends. Steve, Paul Purmort and I started riding back in the days when I was a rocket scientist (and so were Steve and Paul). Those two taught me so much about cycling that I am for ever trying to repay them. More than a few times, they rode me into the ground, but as they also say, that which does not kill you makes you stronger. So …… thanks?

I met Steve at the airport in Paris where we rented a Peugeot (the car, not the bike) and headed back to Chambery. We made it in one day, but it was a long day. Whew. The next day after we got sort of settled into our respective AirBnB’s, we started assembling our bicycles. That was pretty straight forward and we were both happy that neither our our bikes suffered any damage during their flights overseas. Next was a shake down ride to make sure the everything was in proper working order. So Steve and I drove over to Lake Annecy. This is a ride that I have wanted to do ever since I was here before. I had ridden to Annecy and the lake, but never actually rode around the lake, so that is what we did for our shake down ride. It is an incredibly beautiful lake, about 23 miles to complete the loop. No problem for Steve, but I was really feeling it. You have to remember that I hadn’t ridden very much due to issues previously discussed, plus the fact that Nick and I did a lot of eating and drinking as we toured Amsterdam, Ghent, and Paris. So gaining more than a few pounds and out of shape, well, you can see the problem. But I made it, and it was’t too bad really.

So, now it was time for a real test for Steve. So, originally, Steve and I both were going to ride big mountains, but as I mentioned before, I was not really going to be able to do them now. So Steve had a support vehicle and dedicated photographer for his mountain assaults, starting with the famous Alps d’Huez.

Alpe d’Huez is “famous” because it has been the site of some epic battles in the Tour de France. But realistically, it was going to be one of the easier rides for Steve. It is only 8.7 miles long, but climbs about 3,500 feet or so. I am sure that Steve can tell you, to the foot, how much elevation he actually climbed. Strava! And it would only take him just over an hour to accomplish the ride.

To celebrate Steve’s first French Alp ride, we drove into Bourg d”Oisens and had lunch. We both had pasta, but Steve got the most benefit of the lunch since he did all of the effort riding to the summit. We also bought souvenir T-shirts. Got to be a tourist every once in a while….

With one summit in the books, Steve took a planned rest day. We drove the rented Peugeot through Albertville up into some of the famous ski areas of the Savoie. Tignes and Val d’sere were our sight-seeing goals for today. We were both surprised at how many cyclists were on the road. This area is very beautiful, but not really on our list of high priority riding destinations. But other riders had different ideas obviously.

We ate lunch in Tignes in the ski village at an outdoor cafe. An outdoor cafe in France? Surely you jest! But is was nice none the less.

So I mentioned that we drove through Albertville on the way up to the ski areas. Albertville was the site of the 1992 Winter Olympics and about 35 miles from Chambery. 4 years ago, I was interested in riding to Albertville, but I could never figure out how to get there by bike. The only time I really tired, I ended up riding on a heavily trafficked highway that was uncomfortable to ride on, even for me. So I abandoned that idea for the time being. But on the drive up through Albertville, I noticed that there appeared to be a bike path along the highway at some point. This gave me a new incentive to find a way to ride to Albertville this summer. There obviously had to be away to ride there. Now, I just had to find out how to do it. But that would have to wait for a few weeks.

Well, enough resting for Steve. After seeing Tignes and Val d’sere via car, it was time for Steve’s next cycling test. Today would be the Col de Madeleine, a nice 5,000 plus foot climb. Steve’s plan was to ride from La Chambre up Les Lacets, over the Col du Chaussy, and then up and over the Col de Madeleine and back down the more direct way back to La Chambre. This was a ride that was outlined by someone that had written an article that Steve had read about some years ago. That looked like an interesting loop, but I noticed that some of the route did not really appear to be real roads on the GPS. As much as Steve had his mind made up to ride this route, I convinced him that since we had an actual car, we should scout out the route ahead of time. Good thing we did. Part of Steve’s planned route turned out to be unpaved goat trails! Maybe paved at some point in time, but not these days. So we quickly developed a “Plan B”. Ride straight up to the Col from La Chambre and back down, then ride Les Lacets as a separate route.

All of the route finding took a while, so Steve got a late start and it was pretty warm to even start the ride. But no problem for super Steve. He managed the ride like the awesome rider that he is, not a problem. It helped that he caught up to a Czech rider in the last 10 K (who spoke very good english) so he had a compatriot to ride the summit with.

After summiting the Col de Madeleine, Steve mostly coasted back down the route that he road up back to La Chambre. Next, we drove to the bottom of Les Lacets for the second part of Steve’s riding agenda. We drove there because the road there was kind of sketchy for riding, but Les Lacets was worth riding, for sure. This is the one climb that Steve had identified as his priority, and how he discovered it is a story he call tell. But is was pretty impressive in it’s shear stunning visual. Its is not a long climb by any stretch. And not even really very steep. But 14 hair pin turns in one mile? That is some serious road engineering. Of course, Steve made it look easy, although he declined my offer to have him continue to the top of the Col du Chaussy. He said that he had had enough and it was time for some food. Food, yes I agreed. I am pretty sure that I had a more difficult time driving Les Lacets than Steve had riding it. It would be a game of chicken if I had met another vehicle on the roadway. Luckily, we all survived.

So Steve had a nice first week in France. Next week would offer new cycling challenges as well as more stunning scenery.