Re: Grande Alpe

[MatG]

Day 1

In preparation for first day – wanted a good night sleep – unfortunately the F1 was hot & noisy & what little room there was in room was taken up with both our bikes.

Everyone met in the centre of Thonon ready for our big off. First we went to the post office & packed up our stuff to send to the last hotel – bike bag & pedal spanner – um & arred about whether to send on flip flops but decided to keep them with me.

Rode first col de Gets – quite straight forward – but thought that I am sure Gets harder.

So it was Col de la Colombière was the start of climbs about 20km long – of which there was at least one every day. I found this hard of the eight riders – 5 were reasonable at climbing & me & two others were not – so from this climb on we formed a groupetto.

Finished the day after one more Col already quite tired knowing we had three more days at least as hard to come.

Stats of day

Day 116km

Ascent 2780m

Cols 3 –

Col de Gets 900m

Col de la Colombière 1613m

Col des Aravis 1486m

Total

distance 180km

ascent 2780m

cols 3