Col de la Croix de Fer and Col du Mollard
We left our Ibis hotel just after 7am to go to Allemond, where I would get on my bike.
Under normal circumstances, that would be a three hour drive, but we ran into “a little” delay, as there was deadly incident on the A6 before Lyon.
We were stuck for just over an hour, before they cleared one lane and things started moving again.
I then found out the incident was just over a km ahead of us. Had we left 5 minutes earlier, we would never have seen the body bags…
Other than some road works around Grenoble, the rest of the journey went as expected.
But, where I had planned to start my ride around 10:30, I didn’t get on my bike before noon…
The temperature was okay, but it was humid and the first 14 kms of the Croix de Fer, up to le Rivier d’Allemnond, were not very pleasant.
The climb itself was containing more double digit (grade) stretches than I remembered, but that shouldn’t have surprised me 😂
At the summit, the restaurant was open, the souvenir shop seems to have closed, the home made Blueberry Pie was a treat.
I then went down to the split with the D80 to get up de Col du Mollard.
I think this is the last 6 kms from the route pictured in the first alternative, averaging 6.7% but mostly over 7.5%.
The long descend down to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne was over a mostly degraded route, so it required my full attention.
Just before 5 pm, we arrived at our apartment and while we were in the supermarket to do our shopping, all hell broke lose, involving very heavy rain and a thunderstorm…
Total for this Tour de France 2021 Prologue: 71 km and 1,950 m of elevation gain.
Link to Garmin.
