Cormet de Roselend – Gav's Cycling Adventures

Road To Nowhere – sticking with the Talking Heads theme as we broadened our European horizons! Many of our trips from 2011 to 2016 really did take us on roads less travelled – taking that ride to nowhere, we’ll take that ride.

In May 2011 we stayed in Geneva for 4 days, cycling the big mountains either side of the Arve valley, including the brutal climb of Col de Joux Plane on the way up to Morzine. We also visited Goeschenen that September for another 4 day trip – the Susten, Grimsel & Furka Pass (made famous by Goldfinger) remains one of my 5 favourite days in the saddle!

Two Amigos atop the brutal climb up to Joux Plane

2012 started with a week-long stay in Barcelonnette, including a day trip to Mont Ventoux for the first time – more about this mythical mountain later! The highlight of our 2012 stay in Annecy was going to see Stage 9 of Le Tour de France & seeing Wiggo riding to victory on the stage while wearing yellow – this was the year he won Le Tour! The lowlight was undoubtedly crashing on the descent of the Cormet de Roselend 3 days later, breaking my collarbone, ending my riding early & writing-off my Trek.

Standing to attention having survived my first visit to Mont Ventoux

2013 started off (& finished) with surgery on my collarbone – it was unsuccessful both times & I’m left with a mushy collarbone that never really healed properly. By now, we’d been gripped by the European Alps & we embarked on a monster 2 week trip at the end of May – snow everywhere!! The first 7 days were spent riding the truly epic climbs of the Maurienne Valley – we stayed in the Hotel St Georges & made friends with the hostess Martine (we’ve visited twice more since).

Martine welcomed us as if we were members of her family

For the 2^nd week we moved to Le Belvedere on the Petit St Bernard Pass, overlooking Bourg St Maurice. We had the Cormet de Roselend, the Col d’Iseran, Petit St Bernard & Les Arcs on our doorstep. By the end of our 2 week adventure, we’d completed just over 100,000 feet of vertical climbing (about a 1/5^th of that year’s total)!!

A glorious return to the Cormet de Roselend

Somehow we also found time for a trip to Andermatt where we spent 7 days exploring the huge mountains, including the legendary cobbles on the Gotthardpass.

The Oberalpsee at the summit of the Oberalp

In 2014 we climbed all 3 sides of Mont Ventoux in a single day (14,452 feet of climbing in 85 miles) on our summer trip to Bedoin & St Jean de Maurienne (again) – we’re in a fairly small club of people foolish enough to complete the Cingles Challenge! This remains my biggest challenge to date. We also found time to visit Col d’Izoard & Col du Galibier.

Paying our respects at Tom Simpson’s memorial

We also visited Italy for the first time in 2014, with a week long adventure in Bormio. Our trip included an epic day climbing both sides of the Stelvio, with the Umbrail pass sandwiched in between. We also got off the beaten track with a bit of gravel riding around Lago di Cancano.

We made our maiden trip to Mallorca in 2015 (Puerto Pollenca was our regular base until Covid arrived in 2020). This quickly felt like a 2nd home & we used it as a Spring Training Camp between 2015 & 2019 – it really is cycling nirvana!

For the summer of 2015 we embarked on another split base trip, returning to Annecy for 4 days, then heading to Aosta, for 7 days cycling in Italy. Colle del Nivolet (the final photo below) remains one of the most stunningly beautiful places I’ve visited on a bike – this photo (minus me) has pride of place in my living room.

You may recognise the Colle del Nivolet photo from the closing scene in The Italian Job – it was where the coach with the gold was hanging over the cliff. As far as roads to nowhere go, this is that road!

In Part Three I’ll bring the story up to date as our adventures from 2017 to 2021 prepare us for our expedition to The Big Country (yes, another Talking Heads song!).

Annecy Alpine Adventure – Day Three, Talloires.

Today we jumped in the car & took a one hour drive to the small town of Beaufort, home of the famous cheese. The Beaufortain region is surrounded by the high mountains on all sides & is on my list of places to visit as a base for a week of riding (I picked up a route guide from the Tourist Office, so that’s now one step closer to happening!).

The aim today was to cycle part of Stage 11 in this year’s Tour de France, namely the Cormet de Roselend from Beaufort. If you’ve followed my previous trips, you’ll already know this is where I had the accident which smashed up my left collar bone & wrote-off the bike I had at the time. At 13 miles & with 4,000 feet of climbing to reach the summit, this would be my biggest challenge so far of this year’s trip.

It’s a wooded, green & pretty ascent to Col de Meraillet, with views back down the valley & the gradient is a constant 7% to 8% for these first 8 miles. As soon as we passed this intermediate col, we had our first views of one of my favourite alpine lakes, the glorious Lac de Roselend. The next mile or so followed the shore of the lake & I took the opportunity to gather my mental & physical resources by suggesting a quick coffee & raspberry tart stop.

After a 10 minute stop, it was time to push onward & upwards, as the scenery changed completely & the trees of the lower slopes were replaced with alpine meadows & numerous rivers plunging down the mountain to supply the lake below. The gradient was between 7% & 8% all the way to the summit, which at least allowed me to establish a rhythm & cadence, that while slower than normal, was within my current capabilities.

After 2 hours 15 minutes of climbing, we’d reached the summit & I’m grateful to Sean for happily cycling at my reduced pace & making small talk all the way up – it made the ride even more fun. We managed to persuade a fellow Brit to take a photo of us both, although the language barrier was a bit of a challenge, he was a Yorkie!!!!

Much as I wanted to ride both sides of this mythical climb, today wasn’t the day, as I don’t have the training in the legs this year, however, I’ll be back again to fulfil that dream. Instead, we headed back down to Col de Meraillet & then took a detour across the Barrage de Roselend & then did a short, sharp bonus climb up to Col du Pre. This is a climb that reminded me of a classic Spinal Tap quote where the volume was turned up to 11 – in this case it was the gradient that was louder than 10!!! The real reason for this side ride was the absolutely breath taking view across the Barrage & Lake to the huge snow encrusted mountains in the bacckground. All Alpine lakes are beautiful, but some are more so than others – the mountain to the left of the photo with its head in the clouds is Mont Blanc.

We retraced our wheels back to the Route de Roselend & then took another planned side road to check out the Lac de la Gittaz, which had been recommended by someone who had visited the region previously. Yes, it was pretty, but after all of today’s remarkable scenery, it didn’t stand out as much as it would on any other ride. However, I’m pleased we stopped to see it.

All that remained was to follow the road back towards Beaufort & remain vigilant of the ‘gravillons’ (dodgy as you like ‘chippings’ to you & me!) which have been laid ahead of the Tour de France circus coming to town. I’m usually a confident & competent descender, but this was no fun at all as for 2 miles all I could think of was ‘don’t tense your arms’, which of course made me tense my arms!! I got down the descent safely, so it was time to celebrate an amazing day in the saddle with an artisan ice cream (coconut & rum raisin, as it happens & it was delicious!).

We spent a few minutes strolling round town admiring all the Tour de France paraphernalia that has already been put on display – whole bikes hanging from balconies, bunting in the colours of all the competition jerseys etc. The final treat of today was to stop off at Forclaz de Montmin on the way home, a brutally steep (I wouldn’t be able to climb it at my fittest) 5 mile climb. From the summit we had huge views along the length of Lake Annecy & could even make out our hotel on the valley floor, some 2,400 feet below. What a great way to round off a brilliant day of cycling!