Lanslevillard – Saint-Jean-De-Maurienne 62.14km 🚴♀️ 3.15.43 ⏱19.1km/hr ⬆️ 630 (Suuz 820m) ⬇️ 1450m
Yeah that’s no Bourg Saint Maurice! It’s Saint John Marc Marianne or whatever. So we woke up after a not so sleepy night. When Mas looked on her phone to turn off the alarm at 5.30 she saw some worrisome messages from her twin sister. Apparently the Tour cancelled half of today’s Etappe due to other mudslides on our next mountain (after De l’Iseran) Cormet de Roseland. They were supposed to pass by Bourg st. Maurice, but they cancelled that whole part. We had a good look 👀at several weather forecasts and it did not look good. We remembered the list we made in the airplane to Athens eight weeks ago, especially the third point: ‘Do not cycle in the aftermath of a typhoon’. Okay a mudslide is no typhoon, but cycling up a 2770m high mountain 🏔and also descending such a thing in heavy rain, hail or worse kind of falls in the same category right? Learned our lesson, not going there. Oh it sucks making smart decisions! We really looked forward to cycle those big ass mountains ⛰. It’s a challenge, it’s heavy, but it’s so beautiful and such a nice reward once you are up.
We had a quick look at the map and decided to cycle towards Albertville, not all the way since that’s where the Tour starts today, but we picked the place those cycling dudes started from yesterday. We’re gonna do what they did yesterday but in the opposite direction. While Suuz found us a place to sleep, Mas tried to make the route as nice as possible (read, small back roads and climbs). Because of all the re-planning we were on the bikes just before seven, waved goodbye to our favorite elderly couple 👵🏻👴🏼 who went hiking 🥾and left. It was still dry when we left, but some nasty dark yellowish clouds ☁️were peeking down over the mountain 🏔tops.
The road was close to empty since it was still early, but we took a secondary road anyway. As soon as we took the exit the road went up. This was expected, but somehow our head was prepared for downhill only. Suuz had some difficulties finding her cycling mojo the first hour, but the surrounding helped. It was a beautiful road with high mountains around us, we even got some blue skies. It was not steep, just a smooth climb with some signs of the Tour that had passed the day before. We got back on the main road just before Modane. Mas remembered that place when she was cycling her own version of Grand Tour des Alpes with Noor four years ago. Also some shit weather back then with some necessary route changes, cycling trips just require some flexibility.
So after Modane we were sent off the road to cycle up towards Saint-Étienne. There was still a small glimpse of a blue sky but in no time very dark clouds took over and hell broke loose. Heavy rain turned the road into a river in a blink of an eye 👁and lightning ⛈was followed by some serious thunder within four Mississippi. We made a quick stop to put on our rain jacket 🧥, but since we were in the middle of a climb without any place to shelter we had to get back on the bikes again fast. The downhill wasn’t a lot better since the road was soaked, but except for some hair pin turns it wasn’t very difficult getting down. Once we were down it had stopped raining ☔️, but we were absolutely soaked. Although we must admit, our first rain while cycling in eight weeks, not a bad score.
The main road was still really quiet, but Mas thought it was a great idea to take the B-road to Orelle anyway. It wasn’t really necessary, but yeah we were supposed to climb 1600m today instead of the 600-800m we did. Orelle is a very quiet little village with only a few houses, it was a bit of a useless climb, but it looked like the Tour did it yesterday so why wouldn’t we today.
Back on the main road we got on a very busy stretch just after the exit for the Galibier and Telegraphe. It wasn’t nice at all. Some big factories 🏭, a highway 🛣 on our left hand and cars 🚗 speeding passed us. This decided it for us, we will be skipping the big main roads towards Albertville and instead will take the small roads, including the ‘real’ Col de la Madeleine, to pass that bigger city. Once we got off the main road towards Saint-Julian-Mont-Dennis or whatever, it all got better again. A little up we passed the exit for a mountain called Karel, we were tempted for a second, but decided to keep going.
Once we were down we cycled right into the place with the many first names we are in now. Since we left early and it was only 60 kilometres with much more downhill then uphill we arrived around 10.30am. We had to wait another three hours before we could check in the Airbnb we booked. We had just sat down at Hotel des Sports for coffee ☕️ when it started raining again, great timing. Suuz changed into dry clothes, Mas didn’t bother and doesn’t want to wear several bike outfits a day. The only problem about the hotel was they didn’t serve food, so at some point we had to move to get some. Suuz really wanted to go to the MacDonalds, one of the first ones we passed this entire trip. Mas doesn’t like MacDonalds, bu for Suuz it’s a guilty pleasure. We didn’t go to the big M. so Suuz blamed Mas when the burger she got at a proper restaurant was really bad. Mas wasn’t very enthusiastic about her goat cheese salad 🥗 either. You all probably know where we are gonna go next time.
When we finally got to check in the Airbnb guy was a little intense. He offered to put our bikes in the apartment, but once they were in he got really fussy about things getting dirty. Also, there’s no wifi! What’s up with France 🇫🇷? They don’t have very good wifi here, if they have it at all. Oh and when he showed us where the cleaning 🧹stuff for the apartment was, Suuz exploded and almost laughed in his face. She’s normally pretty polite, but the apartment was absolutely gross. And no way we are gonna clean it! Happy news? There is a washing machine jeej. Oh and the shower 🚿is pretty good as well. After the usual we went outside to go and find a place to drink a beer 🍺. We went back to the hotel we went to when we arrived this morning. It seemed to be the nicest place around to get a drink. The beer tasted like peach 🍑, not the greatest, but it was cold and together with a good game of gin rummy it was a nice afternoon. We also checked our route to Geneva since we had to change it all around and Mas found some new mountains so all happy!
After watching the first half of AJAX-psv we had to leave to go grocery shopping 🛒 for dinner since the store would close soon, but luckily Mas her sister informed us what happened in Amsterdam. Suuz had a feast in the Hypermarche and wanted to buy the whole store, but in the end it was stuff to make fried rice and curry vegetables. And fried spring rolls cause she misses all her favourite food. We had dinner on the smelly couch 🛋, Mas put towels on the couch cause she thought it looked kinda gross, and watched Friends, just like home. Afterwards we were so stuffed we did not do anything else anymore. We went to sleep pretty early on the plank they called a bed 🛏and hoped to have a good night in another hot room.
Ja frankrijk komt er toch het slechtst af vréés ik qua hotelaccomodatie vooral in die regionen. Viezerikken zijn het soms…