Ride 5 - Villard de Lans!

Choo, choo! Okay Bill and I decided to run our locomotive in the direction of our choosing, given the undecisive, non-commital yet hyper-critical group we found ourselves leading. Well the plan worked and as we set our for our ride, Bealle said the three of them would go their own way - whew! Bill and I found new joy in our emotional and physical freedom from the odd people who held no zest for life and their occupancy in it!

Well...today can be summed up in two words; epic and gorgemous ( a cross between gorgeous and stupendious)! Wow! So...after a chat with our new friend, Phil from the UK who runs gastrobiking.com - we filled our heads with exciting adventures, rides and stays to come. We even purchased Phil's signature T-shirts (T...Cakes), which looks like a T.mobile logo - as Phil is big on Tea and sweet cakes when biking. Now the ride...yes... it began at 10am with the sun peering through mysterious clouds hanging in the gorge with monolithic limestone faces jutting out up from the earth. The scene reminded me so much of those tdf cycling days when the peleton was quickly approaching its first day in the alps - the blend of beauty and fear on
every rider except this one. We biked the 35Km from the mouth of the gorge to the stellar massive ski area of Villard-de-Lands the historic stage finish of 2004 between Lance and Basso. When we arrived in town I could feel little Voelkler's pain from the climb and his joy as he rounded the corner to see he was another day in yellow. What is so amazing about these climbs is the pros do three of them a day at race pace several days and weeks in a row; I have a new tangible appreciation for the insanity called the Tour de France.

Leaving Villard at 3000 feet, we climbed another 1,000 to trace back the route of the 2004 tour over the Col de Herbouilly where we met our first sustained double cheveron climb at +12%. It was a magical road, narrow like a cart path, carving through the forest, exposing nordic ski areas along the way. We'd pass hikers...who seemed impressed by our presence - shouting "buon jour" to us as we softly peddled by. It wasn't until we crested the Col, crossed the top and began the race down that I slammed on my breaks realizing what was before me. Paint on the asphalt read..."Kloden, JAN, Allez, Voight" and others. Cool! These boys had climbed this hill and it all felt real.

Flying down the Col into the town of La Chapelle then up the Col de Carri, a tough long Col that put us into nearly 7K feet of climbing was then followed by one of the most amazingly fast and trecherious 3K foot desents I've experienced...there was a 200 meter unlit tunnel that could have been the end of me (if a rock had planted itself in this roughly carved tunnel in the hillside. We made it back into town about 5pm...completely satisfied we had "sucked the marrow" out of the day. The days stats:

Temp: 73F - scattered clouds with lots of sun breaks (absolutely lovely).

Distance: 67 miles
Elev Gain: 6800 feet
Time: 7 hours 2 minutes (includes all stops)
Calories: 2200