Croix de Fer Archives

Tour de France 2021 – Stage 4

February 27, 2023August 4, 2021

Croix de Fer and Frumezan

Another mixed weather forecast today:scattered clouds, but with sunny periods.

And at the end of this day, I cannot complain. The Croix de Fer summit, actually just starting some windy kms before, plus the descend of the upper part of the Glandon where cold, but climbing is worse when it’s over 30 degrees Celsius…

AD6-2012 — Me and two of my Team AD6Tweets buddies, Stefan to the right (or my left 😂) and Marten in the middle, back in 2012.

I only did the Croix de Fer from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne once and I had no good, let alone fond memories of it.

Back in 2012, it was part of our training camp for the Alpe d’HuZes event, a month before which I ended up in the hospital with several fractures after a crash.

I already realized that I didn’t recognize more than half of it on the way down during Friday’s Prologue and not because we took the Route Panoramique…

Anyway, I was a little weary to revisit this giant…

Tour de France 2021 – Stage 2

February 27, 2023August 1, 2021

Col du Glandon – La Toussuire

Before I get to today’s stage, I’d first like to make a mends with our apartment owners, Christelle and Jean Claude.

Apart from the warm welcome we received – as expected from the visitor’s comments on Booking.com – we found a basket with garden veggies in the kitchen: courgette, paprika and tomatoes.

We also found another basket with “regional products” in the living room, which we didn’t open until this morning.

To our surprise, we found two pocket knifes with our names engraved on them – all with the best of intentions, no doubt 😂

As to the apartment itself, it actually exceeds our expectations.

We’ve seen the pictures, but it’s not the same as seeing everything yourself and it’s always exciting to find out how those pictures have captured reality.

They actually sell the apartment short and there’s little left to desire more from it than it offers.

So, with that, let’s get to today’s Tour de France 2021 Stage 2…

Tour de France 2021 – Prologue

February 27, 2023July 31, 2021

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…

Tour de France 2021 – Other Areas (Part 3)

June 16, 2022July 28, 2021

Exploring the climbs and passes for my Tour de France 2021, I’ve started with those in and close to our base camp, Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne.

In my two previous posts, I’ve covered the possibilities a bit further away, not requiring a car transfer before getting on my bike.

Today’s post concentrates on climbs which do need a car transfer.

Well, all except one…

Tour de France 2021 – Base Camp

June 16, 2022July 4, 2021

As mentioned in my previous post, we will stay in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, capital of the Maurienne Valley in the Savoie, for my Tour de France 2021.

It’s easily one of the French Alps cycling hotspots – like Corvara and Bormio in the Dolomites – and there are a lot of cols within cycling distance of our base camp.

The mountains on the southern side are the Dauphiné Alps and the Cottian Alps.

On the northern side is the part of the Graian Alps known as the Vanoise.

In this post, I’ll discuss the climbs that start at our doorstep.