The climb for the day was the Notre Dam – this was a steeper climb of about 15km. The day did not start well for Mike S as his headset was loose and the headset on the Time is not an easy bit of equipment to fix so he had to go out of town to Albertville to get it fixed. The rest of us headed to the Notre Dam including Lance who had missed the previous days ride whilst recovering from a high fever and swollen glands. Iain was leading the way followed by Billy G with the groupetto making no gain on them when TFB put in an attack. Graeme could be heard saying “here we go again”, Lance, already on the limit said to Graeme “how. . .. . . much. . . . . .longer. . . . “ between gasps and was not pleased to hear “Oh, about an Hour” from Graeme.

About half way up there was a “deviatione” as the main road was closed. This brought some real pain and the first roads of over 10% tested the legs of everyone. Billy suffering on the steep slopes had to stop and was passed by TFB now shadowed by Graeme (riding (mashing) in his 39 x 23 up the 10% climbs). Iain stopped on the climb as the road appeared to go down but this was correct and it was about a mile of flattish roads before heading back up to the top. A coke stop was arranged in a small alpine village for all but Mike D who wanted to maintain his pace and kept climbing. With a sign of 4km to go Iain upped the pace and headed for an easy victory – TFB and masher were next closely followed by the rest of the group. We got a great view of the Col du Madelaine from the top of Notre dam and determined it was too big for us – maybe next year! We also filled up our ‘bidon’s’ in the Napoleonic “Volvic” water tap/tank at the top. (side note - Andy advised us that these water taps, sprung from natural springs were built all round France during Napoleon’s reign – apparently an order was sent that as his army was traveling all over every town had to have a water tap for his soldiers to fill up at – still working well to this day and much cheaper than the bottles stuff we buy over here.)

The descent was steep and scary but Lance did not seem to notice and wound up on every piece of straight clocking up ~44mph (5 mph ahead of the rest of us). He got carried away at one point and almost T-boned Iain at a switchback he took to steeply – despite locking up front and back wheels and sliding about three yards on the roads he stayed vertical and earned rider of the day for his descending and handling skills. The Falcon was not intimidated by the slope and once again scalped the remainder of the group passing Tom, Bill, David and Graeme on the way down. It was at this time we all thought the day was pretty much over but it became apparent we were quite far from home and had a 10 mile ride on meticulously smooth bike path following the river Isire back to town, Bill true to form ignored the yellow line rule (solid white in this case) and almost brought down two very pretty mademoiselle’s – thankfully Marlboro man’s smile was close at hand which saved us form any legal action.

After this we had a pleasant ~1000ft climb back to the chalet which included the last quarter mile from @!#$ on a 16% road, Iain once again demonstrated his climbing skills and easily took the climb to finish the day with maximum climber points. We had lunch at the Chalet and spent some of the afternoon at the Green Man – the local brew is much easier after some food and a recovery from cycling although the road back to the Chalet appeared to much longer and steeper after a couple of the local beers.

Dinner was once again fabulous - Toasted Goat’s cheese on Toast with green salad followed by Pork Chops with rice and a vegetable mix that included artichoke, peas, beans accompanied with flowing wine and followed with cheese the dessert and coffee.

Photo's
Chalet - yes we truly were in paradise
breakfast - make sure there's none left for TFB!