‘Route des Grandes alpes’ — Cycling over 1000 Km across the French alps

Elevation? This had never played a role for me as a cyclist living in northern Germany — until now. The only thing thats in my way, riding from A to B up here is the headwind. So now a new player came on the scene. After my school friend Arnold had suggested the Route des Grandes Alpes, I came to the conclusion that the only way to find out if I like it is to just give it a try. 

However, in order to not over stress it, we decided to travel light and sleep in hotels. With the smallest gear ratio of 40 in the front and 42 in the rear, the total package shouldn’t be too heavy.

The Route des Grandes Alpes was originally planned as a panoramic route for cars and motorcycles, but is also very popular among cyclists. The route officially starts at Lake Geneva and then leads over numerous Alpine passes to the French Mediterranean coast. I want to mention up front that we have not kept to the original route and have chosen small detours from time to time. 

To warm up a bit, we started our tour in Freiburg and rode the first two days through southern Germany and Switzerland. It wasn't until the third day that we crossed the border into France, leaving Lake Geneva behind and heading towards Morzine. 

We reached our hotel just in time before a heavy thunderstorm with downpours hit us. The next two days the weather should remain somewhat hazy and changing quickly. Since the climbing was unsurprisingly demanding, the somewhat cooler weather was in our favor. Especially the climb to the Col du Colombiére on the fourth day I will never forget. After we had already climbed the Col de Joux Plane on this day, this second pass, which was getting steeper towards the summit, was waiting for us. I remember burning legs and lungs on the last kilometers. At the top, however, a beautiful view and a mystical foggy atmosphere awaited us and after a short break with power bars and Coke we were almost restored. 

After the  cooler and humid days, the weather became a bit more summery again and during our ascent to Val d'Isere we had a great view of the surrounding mountain landscape. The weather window should hold and so we started the next day in beautiful sunshine to one of the highest points of our tour: For Col de l'Iseran at 2770 m altitude. The rest of the day consisted mostly of long descents, interrupted only by smaller climbs. However, as the wind got stronger the further we descended to the valley, we had to pedal hard in the end to get to Saint Michel de Maurienne. After a good week on the bike we make here our first break day. 

Well recovered we started into the next day. Just past the first pass, I noticed that my tubeless tire on the rear wheel was losing air (it was from a large hole that I had patched in advance and was now ripping open again). All attempts to patch the hole again were unsuccessful in the long run, so I decided to put in a tube. 
Maybe it was due to the the increased pressure and thus lower grip, the hypoglycemia or dehydration, or maybe a combination of them all. Anyways, on the following descent from the Col du Galibier, a brief moment of inattention caused me to crash. I went off the road on the uphill side and landed headfirst in a pile of rubble. After the initial shock, I took stock: the cervical spine was compressed and hurt terribly with every movement, as well as a few skin abrasions on hands and shoulders. Fortunately, the gear looked much better. As if by a miracle, the bike had hardly got anything off. Only a cheap windbreaker that I had once bought second hand for little money was torn, the jersey underneath had only a few holes. Luckily I was able to continue our tour as planned. 

It came in handy, that the next two stages were a bit shorter anyway. In addition, from now on we focused even more on enjoying the trip. If we liked it somewhere, we stopped, bought a few croissants or sat for a while at a cool mountain stream. 

The landscape became more and more ‚Mediterranean‘ and the weather got warmer and warmer. After almost two weeks we finally reached the coast town Menton at the French Rivera. After a day of swimming we kept riding the few remaining kilometers to Nice. I would never imagined it, but I think I will miss the climbing (a bit).