Stage 10 - Entrevaux to Nice

Today's date is November 2nd 2010, exactly 4 months since 20 odd cycling finantics and I rode into Nice on our bikes, tired but not beaten by one of the most arduous mountain ranges in Europe - Les Alpes!  We had cycled from Como to Nice across 10 Alpine climbs (9 of which were over 2000m), and in the process experienced a mutitude of emotions from opposing ends of the human  psychophysiological spectrum.  We had pushed our bodies to the limit of it's capabilities and were in the shape of our lives....

It was with a heavy heart that I rose on Friday July 2nd, knowing that our "little" trip across the Alpes from Como to Nice was almost at an end.  Ahead of us lay a 120km cruise into Nice over what could only be classed, at this point, as "hills".  We set off at 7am leaving the little campsite with the shitty showers behind us, everybody in high spirits, happy that later on that evening we would be able to collapse into an actual bed, with a mattress and pillows.  We headed back towards the little medieval town of Entrevaux and on to Puget Thénier, out of which there was a climb called Col de San Raphael, up to about 900m. 

It was a beautiful morning once again, and as Rune, Pete as I made our way in train formation along the tree lined passage between the 2 villages, the sun shimmering through the foliage.  I made a short vid as we tore through the countryside.

I felt really fresh on the first climb of the day and overcame it with ease.  I was really peaking fitness-wise at this point, the tail end of the trip.  If this was the Tour de France I would be arriving on the
Champs-Élysée in fine fettle, with a podium position under my belt!

Rune, Pete and I were passed out by another Pete (Ivin, the Limey) who was cycling like the clappers, as if his life depended on it.  I wondered how long it would be until he blew up.  A km or so up the road we caught sight of him and began to reel him in.  As we approached he looked around, and in that split second made an almighty burst for the summit.  He was not going to be undone on the final day by a couple of upstarts from Denmark and Ireland.  We allowed him his moment of glory and let him go.  At the top, much to our amusement, he was bent over his bike, in convulsions of coughing and spluttering, pissing sweat from every orofice.  Gasket blown!

We made our way down the other side, the countryside being not too disimilar to something you might see in Ireland.  We passed through the village of Sigale and when we reached the picturesque town of Roquestéron we stopped for a coffee.  The "Little Unit" provided some banter on the next part of the stage.  Maca is a small charater with a big heart and I enjoyed whittling down the kms while chatting to him.  We even stopped for yet another photographic opportunity in the village of Consequedes with Rune and the "Big Unit". Shucks, I miss those guys...

Rune, Geoff, Greg & Colly

The Aussies Blake, Damo and Adrian (who had participated in La Belle Italia before joining us on Les Dix Alpes) caught up to our group and the pace suddenly jolted upwards.  Before long the four of us were flat out racing.  It was serious craic as each one of us took to the front for a few seconds, only to be overtaken by another rider soon after.  This went on for around 10km, at which point we called a stop to the madness before we did ourselves some damage.  The sun was very intense at this stage and we were extremely exposed to it's rays due to the fact that there were no trees along the side of the road to shade us.  Thankfully lunch soon beckoned and we were able to catch some respite before heading off again.  Hats off again to our Dutch (+ Astrid the Danish cook) crew who always seemed to manage pulling lunch out of the bag just in the nick of time.

Well deserved beer in Vence

In order for everyone to arrive in Nice together we arranged to meet in the town of Vence, approximately 10kms from our ultimate destination.  We overcame the Col de Vence before enjoying one last technical decent, which gave us the opportunity to utilize the skills we had honed over the past couple of weeks.  There was a fairly drastic change in temperature and humidity when we reached Vence. A street sign displayed the fact that it was 40 degrees, but it felt hotter.  Our time at altitude in the Alpes had come to an end as we were almost down at sea level again for the first time in 2 weeks.  Wilbert took to the front and guided us along the road between Vence and Nice and before we knew it we were on the boulevard with the sea front to our right hand side.

Unfortunately for Kiwi Pete he punctured twice on the run-in, and unlike almost every other stage we didn't get to cross the finish line together.  We paraded down Promenade des Anglais before entering the grounds of Le Chateau de Nice where a welcoming party had been arranged with food, beer and champers.  There were scenes of great joy and emotion, tinged with sadness in the knowledge that this magnificent trip had finally come to an end. 

Spot the Paddy (Finish line in Nice)

The Anis hotel played host to our farewell dinner where we tried in vain to drink the place dry.  Much to our disgust and serious thirst, the bar closed at 11:30PM.  With no hope of more sauce we hit the streets.

Thanks for following my Les Dix Alpes diary, hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed cycling it.  It was an experience that I will never forget and no doubt will be banging on about for years to come.  It has been announced that Stage 18 and 19 of the 2011 Tour de France will feature high mountain passes that we overcame on LDA, namely Izoard, Galibier, Telégraphe & d'Huez.  Something to look forward to next Summer.  Anyone participating in La Marmotte or the Etape du Tour can experience those climbs for themselves.  But if you have a couple of weeks to spare next Summer, and are looking for a serious biking challenge I would wholeheartedly recommend a trip with Bike Dreams.   The third edition of “Les Dix Alpes”  starts Monday June 20th, 2011 in Como and finishes 12 days later in Nice.  If you have a bit more time why not cycle the length of Italy?  The fourth edition of "La Bella Italia" starts Saturday May 14th, 2011 near Palermo. After five days in Sicily you cross the Strait of Messina and continue slowly north in the "boot" with daily averages of 105 kilometres. The stages alternate regularly between the coast line and the hilly country side, but you don’t loose sight of the cultural places of interest. The finish lies after 35 days and 3,000 kilometres at the shores of Lake Como.  

A big shout out to all the amazing people I met on the trip from New Zealand, Australia, Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Chile.  I hope to ride with you again some day. Perhaps in Ireland in 2011?  

I decided to participate in Les Dix Alpes to honour my great friend Martin O' Gorman who passed away in September 2009 after a struggle with testicular cancer.  His memory was a source of great inspiration to me in overcoming many of those big climbs.  Thanks to the generosity of so many people at home and abroad, I managed to raise over €5,000 for Cancer Care West, a charity organisation in Ireland. 

Finally, a big thanks to all the crew who made our lives so much easier and provided a wonderful service to all participants: Jaap, Richard, Astrid, John, Marcel, Wilbert and Susana - Chapeau!

Feel free to contact me on collymurray at gmail dot com if you have any queries about the trip.  

Check out my Garmin route readings here.

Over and Out.

Colly

Stage 9 - Jausiers to Entrevaux (Col de la Bonette)

July 1st, stage 9, and Nice almost within touching distance.  Today was going to be a serious test of endurance and we had given ourselves the best opportunity to survive the day by getting locked at the campsite bar in La Coldamine the night before.  Between the start and finish of todays stage of 150kms lay the highest paved road in Europe: Col de la Bonette (2802m) and the Col de la Couillole (1678m) which didn't even get a mention in our itinerary for some reason.  Given that we had a long and steep road ahead of us we had a 5.30am wakeup, with a 7am departure.  We had some eggs with bacon for breakfast which was perfect hangover (still drunk) fodder.  It made a welcome change from the daily granola munchfest we had become accustomed to.  I think I was almost the last person to leave the campsite, as was now also customary.  Marcel the bag man used to joke that he would have to remember to leave room for my luggage on the truck, as I was always last.  I was happy enough to start a little later than everyone else as I wasn't worried about catching up and enjoyed the few miles of tranquility on my tod.  

The start of the ascent to the Col de la Bonette was only a little down the road, in a southerly direction out of the town of Jausiers. The morning air was brisk which gave me the impetus to drive on to keep warm.  Nonetheless, I knew that in a couple of hours there would be a river of sweat on my brow as the French Summer temperatures soared.
I had grown to love the morning ascents over the preceeding 2 weeks.  Soon I joined up with Simon Hayes of Bicycling Australia and decided that I would chit chat with him and enjoy the countryside instead of burning up the mountain.  Cycling up steep mountains can be somewhat of a counter emotional activity.  On one hand you want to take your time and experience all that the mountain has to offer, but on the other hand you want the suffering to be over as soon as possible.  The only way to achieve the latter is by cycling at the limits of your ability.  Sometimes if the gradients are steep and the distance is long, no respite can be found, even by going slow and its a matter of simply digging deep to find the strength to get you over the top.  It was clear to see quite early on in the ascent to Bonette that the landscape was stunning and I wanted to enjoy it as much as possible, stopping to take photos on this our last big climb of Les Dix Alpes.

The col itself is part of the Mercantour National Park which is one of the nine national parks of France in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department.  On the ascent and from the top we could see a wide number of other mountains, some of which we had already traversed including the Grand St. Bernard. 
From Jausiers in the north, the climb is 24,1 km long. Over this distance, the climb is 1589 m. (an average percentage of 6.6%), with the steepest sections at 9%.  The pass has featured in the Tour de France four times (1962, 1964, 1993 and 2008).  I remember in the 2008 stage where the lead rider over the top - John-Lee Augustyn - crashed dramatically on the way down.  He did, however, receive 5,000 Euros for the leader over the highest point of the Tour, also known as the "Souvenir Henri Desgrange".  Words cant really do this mountain justice, so to illustrate the beauty of the Col de la Bonette here are some pictures.

Halfway up Bonette, facing north towards Jausiers

Facing south towards the Cima

Alpine lake not far from the summit

 Getting steeper close to the top

Cime de la Bonette, viewed from the northern ascent from Jausiers. The Col de la Bonette is marked by the gap in the centre of the picture, while the circle road takes a loop up and around the Cime de la Bonette, before joining the col behind the ridge

Famous scene from TdF2008 where the ascenders were on the right of the tv screen and the descenders were on the left...

"Maca" with just a km or so of 15% gradient to go to the top of Col de la Bonette

The summit of the Col de la Bonette at almost 3000m above sea level - air is fairly tight up here

Very fast and dangerous descent!

With around 5kms to go to the summit I decided to make a push for the top.  My legs were full of juice after having taken it easy for most of the climb.  I cannot emphasise how much I enjoyed this Col.  Towards the top the oxygen got very thin and again I got that feeling of being very close to my mate Martin who has gone to the great gig in the sky.  His presence was palpable.  There were scenes of great jubilation on top where the Les Dix Alpes participants gathered for photos and patted each other on the back.  We all enjoyed a lovely descent into Saint Etienne de Tinée, apart from Aussie Thomas who spilled himself en route.  He was not seriously injured thank God, and surprisingly turned out to be the only crash victim of the tour!  Saint Etienne de Tinée is a lovely little town, the directions out of which seemed to be a little confusing.  It took us quite a while to find the correct route towards our next climb.  We formed a train and powered down a few miles towards the town of St. Sauveur sur Tinée where we took a right hander and began a very hot ascent in the direction of Roubion and the Col de la Couillole.  Now, I was expecting a nice gentle hill after Bonette and the first part of the climb was quite scenic as I cycled alone along a road etched into the side of a cliff, overlooking a canyon. There was a village perched way up on top of the hill and I said to myself, surely we're not going up there?

 Roubion

An hour or more later, with 2 empty water bottles and a seriously salt encrusted jersey I arrived at that little village, Roubion.  It was such a pretty little place in such a far flung location but I was too frazzled to really give a shit.  The Garmin on my bike told me that I still had a few hundred metres of climbing and some 20kms to go before the summit so I trudged on, my face stinging thanks to the sweat and the inhumane afternoon heat.  The roads were the worst I had come across since Les Dix Alpes had begun, and did nothing to appease my disgruntled mood.  In stark contrast to the morning's climb, the summit of the Col de la Couillole was probably the least interesting peak of the entire 2 weeks.  I think my face in photo from up there betrays the fact that I was totally shattered, but I was so glad to be out of that hellish valley.  Greg, Annabel, Rune and Pete were there when I arrived and we stayed no more than about 5 mins before we began the descent.

 Summit of Col de la Couillole with Greg & Annabel in the background

Roger, Colly & Pete in Entrevaux

After a coffee stop a few kms down the mountain, Roger, Pete, "The Big Unit" & I embarked on what could be classed one of the greatest and most interesting descents we had undertaken.  The section of most interest was from Beuil via Rigaud on the D28 where we passed gushing rivers, incredible hairpins and grandiose canyons.  Afterwards Pete described it as like being in a computer game.  The face was frenetic and we went from 1634m to 346m in no time.  Back out on the main road to Puget Théniers we noticed a big change in the temperature and the landscape.  Coming back down close to sea level is always going to cause a change in temperate, as you gain almost 10 degrees per 1000m.  This time the change had been dramatic however, and we were truely baking in the heat.  There was much more of a Mediterranean feel to the houses and towns as well.  We stopped to take some photos in the pretty town of Entrevaux with it's castle and then proceeded on to what would be our last campsite of the tour.  After a seriously shoddy shower which I had to run around in to get wet, we sat down for some food and wine with weary limbs.  Like the last day of the Tour de France we just had a processional ride ahead of us on Friday towards the boulevard in Nice.  As we were tucking into our grub some 2 hours after arriving at the campsite, none other than Tim "timmanybeers" ambled slowly in the front gate.  He had taken a wrong turn and ended up climbing a third col and a days total of well over 200 kms.  He was a broken man!  Jaap legged it over to the bar and brought back a stein of beer (one litre) which is promptly polished off.  It was a well deserved jar.  When we got to the bar later on in the evening, the owners didn't seem particularly eager to sell us beer so Annie got herself in at the taps and kept pouring until the early hours of the morning.  We had conquered the 10 Alpes, and much more besides.  We were all very excited about finishing in Nice the following day...

Timmanybeers after 215kms and 3 cols!  Well deserved...