Tour de France 2014

Cayolle and Allos

I descended towards Barcelonnette – on my bike this time – in the morning to tackle the Cayolle.

Some two kilometers out of Barcelonnette, you get to the junction of the Cayolle and the Col d’Allos. The latter is also the entry to the climb up to the ski station of Pra-Loup.

Upon leaving Uvernet-Fours, you enter the more spectacular part of this climb, the Gorges du Bachelard. The road has been carved out of the rocks and is spectacular, albeit narrow.

This means any wide vehicle or vehicles higher than 3 meters, will get stuck 🙂 So no trucks, no campers and in fact, there’s not much traffic at all.

After you pass through Chapelle Saint-Blasse, the road widens a bit.

At Bayasse, a short series of hairpins leads up to the second part of the climb.

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Les Petits

(Well, the Vars was not that petit as it turned out)

Today, I decided to tackle two of ‘les Petits’ on the list of cols for the brevet in the morning. These were the Saint-Jean and the Pontis the furthest away from our apartment.

So, as I was advised to avoid riding to Le Lauzet on ‘zee baik’, Paula delivered me there by car.

But actually, while seeing it from the car, it didn’t look as bad I was led to believe.

Certainly no worse then any main road in Belgium or Germany and by the look of it, traffic – i.e. car drivers – are mostly attentive when it comes to passing a cyclist.

I decided I could easily cycle this road when needed and I did so the following days…

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Bonette times two

On the list as mandatory climb to obtain the ‘brevet des 7 cols de l’Ubaye’, I took on the Bonette on our first day here.

You know, to get it out of the way.

But just because I can, I made that two Bonettes, as I also tackled the approach from the south…

The Bonette is proudly announced as ‘Europe’s highest pass’ on just about every sign from bottom to top, but the Cime is just an artificial loop, much like a round about.

The natural pass height, while respectable at 2,715 meters, is well below the Iseran, Stelvio and Agnel…

I estimated that within the time limit of no longer than 6 hours ‘en route’ in total, I would be able to climb the Bonette from both ends.

But I would have to scrap the detour to the summit of the Lombarde.

Which would have made this stage another insane one anyway – the Lombarde from Isola is over 20 kilometers long, at an average of 7.3%…

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