Le Tour on Col du Galibier from Valloire

Up at 8, didn’t think I needed to get up too early. I got changed and went out and bought some delicacies for breakfast and for lunch on the mountain. For breakfast I had a leg of chicken with a slice of potato tarte and baguette, delicious. I bought a quiche, cheese and an éclair to have on the mountain. Oh and I had the perfect cyclist food to get me going, a Flan, also delicious.

I set off about 10:30 and as I was leaving I asked the Police what time the road closes for cyclists. They said 1pm. As it turned out, maybe in Valloire, but it was 2:30 before they came through where I was. In traditional French style the police would then stop any cyclists riding their bikes, the cyclist would then walk for a while and once out of sight... hop back on until the next policeman told them to get off. They did that for a while and then there were so few cyclists the police just ignored them.

For the climb up I thought I would take my time and enjoy the crowds. I had plenty of time until the road closure and I’d already decided I wasn’t going all the way to the top as I had to do it again tomorrow anyway. There were of course thousands of people on the mountain, RVs parked wherever they could fit, cars parked where RVs couldn’t go, people camped off the side of the road; all quite exciting. I was surprised at the number of e-bikes (i.e. batteries) they were everywhere. I even saw one couple near where I stopped that were easily in the their 70's that had come up on them!

I had put my stuff into the two small panniers and with lunch, extra water, the rain jacket, the umbrella (from Germany), the bike lock etc I think I still had about 6Kgs. So for the steep bits I was still down in first or second. The climb has quite a few flatter bits which is good to know. (After all of the days in the mountains flatter means < 6%.)

I stopped around the 8 Km to go mark and bought a coke to have later and then just after that the road switches back and you have a magnificent view looking back down the valley. I found a nice spot and decided that would be good enough (about 7.5Kms from the top). It was about midday so I spread out a bit and had lunch. The éclair was particularly good J

Then I just enjoyed the moment and watched people going by and had a lie down in the sun. There wasn’t much of the very cold wind here so it was very pleasant. About an hour later it started to rain! Oh no… I got my brolly out and sat on a plastic bag with my jacket on and fortunately it didn’t get very heavy and eventually died down. Phew.

About 2:30 the publicity caravan came through. That was a lot of fun! I got a cheap cap, a tacky t-shirt and a couple of almond flavoured little cake thingy’s… I ignored most of the stuff as it really was rubbish. There were families either side of me that got heaps of stuff! One thing that surprised me was how long the caravan went for, easily more than 30 minutes.

About 3:30 the Dutch arrived L 10 of them with easily 3 dozen bottles of beer. Fortunately there wasn’t much room on my side so only three sat near me. They’re strange really; they turn up an hour or so before the riders and then leave before the grupetto has even turned up.

At about 4pm a French group turned up with backpacks, helmets and no bikes…? I asked them and they had been at the bistro down below in the valley and they only walked up when the cyclists got close. The ride guide had said 5:30 for the riders to summit so I wasn’t expecting them for ages but it had been a very fast day today and the break away, with Alberto Contador, entered the valley at 4:23, over an hour ahead of schedule.

It was fun to see the riders first down below and then as they passed. I took lots of video and photos but I was just aiming in the general direction rather than looking at what the camera was pointing at; so most of the photos are rubbish. The videos came out ok though.

Lots of famous riders (naturally) Contador, Froome, Quintana, Michael Matthews, Thomas Voeckler, Sylvain Chavenal to name a few.

And then came the grupetto, lots of people were already walking down the mountain by then, and not long after that the final rider and it was all over. The grupetto was a huge group, I was expecting it to be more spread out, they took up the entire road, and they weren’t going that slowly either.

With the last rider past I packed up and set off down the mountain. The main goal on getting down the mountain on a tour day is not to crash! There are so many people and so many bikes around that you need to be watchful. The RVs and cars seem to be taking their time and there were huge long sections where it was just bikes which was nice. For maybe the last 5 or 6 Ks the cars had started to herd and block the road so the bikes just used the left hand side (like when Paul and I went to Alpe d’Huez in 2003).

In seemingly no time at all I was back, safely, at the hotel. I showered and then went out for a quick look around town and then dinner. As it turns out most of the restaurants don’t start serving until 7 – 7:30 so I ended up having a pleasant stroll around town and got a cloth patch and Galibier coin. Then I went to the 3 Pot Logis restaurant I’d selected and had the largest ever Kir before dinner.

The restaurant had a nice selection of wines at reasonable prices, and this is a major tourist destination! Where was Paul when I needed him?

I had to battle on without Paul in this case so I had a 2011 half bottle of Medoc which was very dry and had a great bouquet. Dinner was very nice and the wine went surprisingly well with the first course of Carpaccio of Salmon with lime, delicious. The main was steak with rice and vegies. The rice was almost like riz au lait which seemed a bit odd at dinner, but then again it was very nice. Dessert was sort of like a rhubarb pie but in aa dish… nice.

After that it was getting a bit cool, it is the mountains after all, so I went back to the hotel and even though it was only 9pm I went to bed and just passed out!