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Tour de France 2010Tour de France 2010
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The first trip I made a proper attempt at journaling. This is a 'remastered' version, with some filters run to help the colour balance on my old camera phone, and locations/routes plotted using my journal and matching pictures to streetview. Read more
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  • TravelerTour de France 2010
    Day 7

    Lake Geneva camping

    July 7, 2010 in Switzerland ⋅ 🌙 26 °C

    We are now camped in Switzerland, on the shore of lake Geneva - on the Alp side, rather than the city side. Tomorrow we mostly explore Geneva and hopfuly have time to sort any kit niggles.

    Did have some issues with my tyres today, which made one section a bit tough; the heat had melted the tar on a badly repaired section of road, the liquid tar in turn got on my front tyre, which then picked up every loose bit of gravel for the next 20Km, the effect of which was to increase the rolling resistance to the point that I had to peddle down the shallower climbs. The tyre is now in a bit of state and I'll look at replacing it tomorrow.Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2010
    Day 8

    Geneva

    July 8, 2010 in Switzerland ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

    A day exploring and relaxing in Geneva, Swizerland.

    We met some american folk in Starbucks who were travelling around europe for a month by train. They were from Chicago, and were explaining to us how they managed to get a ticket to travel anywhere in Europe for a month for 500 euros - bargain. It turned out that they like to go camping at Crystal Lake in Wisconsin, where Dan went on his Pirate camping trip.

    Following on from central Geneva, we travelled north east along the lakeshore, working our way back to the camp site. We spent the evening at the site which was complete with showers, giant chess board and an area to swim in the lake.

    We finished the day with a dip in lake Genva and a meal of pasta, in a creamy tomato sauce with some marinaded fish (the fish was premarinated - we tried it in the super market and liked it so much we had to have some), acompanied by assorted swiss cheeses, and a sandwich of brie on a crusty swiss style bread.

    It was a beautiful evening... excepting the mosquitos.    Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2010
    Day 9

    Lunch break

    July 9, 2010 in France ⋅ 🌙 29 °C

    We had a bit of a slow start to the day; we eventually set off for Col de la Ramaz at around 0930. We began by heading north east across the swiss border to a French town (Douvine) to pick-up supplies for a few days in the mountains (our next stop with proper shops will be Morzine on the evening of the 11th).

    All the while my sat nav was screaming 'warning: you are entering France'. Perhaps it knows something I don't?

    After loading on 13 extra liters of fluids, and two days food (bearing in mind there are 5 meals in the touring day: breakfast, brunch, lunch, elevenses and dinner) the extra weight at the start of a day of big climbs was substantial.

    We stopped for a snack break under a tree on a slope facing back towards Geneva, hoping to get one last look at the city and lake. The city was mostly out of view, but the lake shimmered around most of the horizon.    Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2010
    Day 9

    Col de Cou

    July 9, 2010 in France ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

    This was the start of our journey into the alps proper, and the scenery was amazing, if quite difficult and slow climbing up the slopes. Our first major climb was the Col de cou; beginning near the Château d'Avully the road climbs steeply to the pass some 740 meters above lake Geneva (or 1116 meters above sea level).

    We spent most of the afternoon on the climbing, and stopped at a bar for a drink, where we were also able to stretch our french skills conversing wit the resteraunter and replace the 4.5 liters of water we had drunk on just that first climb.    Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2010
    Day 9

    Col du Terramont

    July 9, 2010 in France ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    After Col de Cou, we soon passed through a low point at Habère-Poche before beginning to ascend to the Col du Terramont at 1,094meters. As we climbed our way up we started passing beneath ski lifts for the first time, giving a real sense that we were getting deep into the Alps.Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2010
    Day 9

    Messy dinner

    July 9, 2010 in France ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

    After we passed through the Col de Terramont we turned south, toward the route of this year's Tour de France. We joined it on the climb to the Col de la Ramaz just above the viliage of Messy. This is about two fifths of the way up the approach that would be used for le Tour, as we had retained some of the height from our previous climbs.

    As soon as we joined le Tour route, we encountered a ‘king of the mountains’ bike sculpture and jersey that had been put out by local fans. We paused shortly after for a dinner of sandwiches, before taking on the steep upper section of the pass.    Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2010
    Day 10

    Col de la Ramaz

    July 10, 2010 in France ⋅ 🌙 16 °C

    Col de la Ramez is a grade 1 climb, which is the hardest graded climb, 5 being the lowest. It was not the easiest thing in the world, and not particularly relaxing considering that this is supposed to be a holiday!

    The whole climb was alrady camped out with Tour fans, almost 48 hours before the tour was due to come through. Many of them greeted us with traditional cheers of "Alez Alez!". When we reached the top of the climb the sun had set, but the night was warm and clear, so we put down our ground sheet and slept under the stars, which were very bright, considering the proximity of Geneva.

    Come the morning we found we were surrounded by cows - which hadn't been nearby the previous night (the cows roam quite free up here in the alps). Although alpine cows are pretty placid, it was quite intimidating to wake looking up, at these towering animals with crushing, dinner-plate size hoves. Worse still, the cows had eaten our baguette! The loss of the baguette was partiularly tragic as we had brought it up well over kilometer in altitude since we bought it, so we had been through a lot together.

    We'll be on this Col for another night, so we relocated from our 'cowboy camp' spot, to the opposite field and have pitched the tent on a grassy area about 50 metres away from the road; hopfully when the tour comes through tomorrow, we won't get our things crushed.

    There are hundreds of people camped out on the mountain (although 99% are in camper vans, a few are in tents, but we've seen only three other cycle tourers).    Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2010
    Day 10

    Sommand

    July 10, 2010 in France ⋅ 🌙 22 °C

    We took a trip down into Sommand this morning, and spied a campervan flying a Welsh dragon, and a St David's cross. Turned out they were from Cardiff and members of Cardiff Ajax cycling club (arch rivals of my cycling club - Cwm Carn Paragon), and invited us to sit down, gave us tea and some cake!

    We ended up spending the morning with them, talking about various things. They had four huskies, beautiful dogs, which are pets but they also use them to pull their bikes along - apparently it is a sport called Canix (short for cainine cross), its popular in europe but not so much in the UK.

    We popped back up to our tent on the Ramaz for Later, when we went up to the roadside to prepare lunch (niocci, with sausages) and were given shots of schnaps by a French man who seemed to appreciate the effort we were going to to watch le tour. A nap followed.

    The rest of the 10th is for relaxation, as is most of tomorrow as the tour is expected to come through at around 4pm, we will be standing on the top waving the flags in hope of being seen-on-TV! Once the tour goesthrough though, the race is on for us as we need to chase them down to Morzine.

    On the 11th Dan started the day keeping his promise of making Welsh cakes for the Welsh folk camped in Sommand. We made the Welsh cakes at the side of the road on the Ramaz, and some of the French tour watchers sampled the cakes declaring Dan to be "a chef", much to his delight. Once the cakes were done we put them in our empty pan-au-chocolate box and rode down to the defacto Welsh enclave in Somand.

    Shortly after we rode down 16 Cardiff Ajax riders rode up the hill, and were fed the Welsh cakes. We chatted, Dan (in his Cwm Carn Paragon kit) managed to sneak into one of the Ajax team photos.    Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2010
    Day 11

    Le Tour Stage 8

    July 11, 2010 in France ⋅ 🌧 21 °C

    After delivering Welsh cakes to our new friends, we joined the Ajax group for their climb from Sommand up to the top of Col de la Ramaz; Dan attacked off the front at the end, beating Ajax to the summit, and claiming the King of the mountains points for Cwm Carn.

    Today is stage 8 for the riders of Le Tour de France, which we were aiming to get a good view from our spot on the Col de la Ramaz. A little after 10:00, we packed up the tent and headed to the side of the road to, on the increasinly crowded col. We prepared some lunch, dosed a litte and generally waited around for a couple of hours.

    Around an hour and a half before the tour passes through, a caravan of vehicles passes through, throwing out free goods (water, hats, cakes, jerseys etc). We managed to grab a few hats, a bootle opener, some water and some madelines. The tour did eventually come through and we managed to take a few snaps of the main groups

    After the tour had passed, we grabbed our already packed bikes and headed down to Morzine.    Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2010
    Day 11

    Morzine

    July 11, 2010 in France ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    The journey from Col de la Ramaz was quite slow at first due to the mass exodous of bikes, people and cars all trying to go the same way. Eventually we got to Morzine, only to meet the team Ajax riders, with whom we headed to a restaurant for some pizza and fish 'n chips. After we had our fill, we bid goodbye to team Ajax and headed to Monriond to find a campsite, only to find that is was closed...

    The next option was to head to Les Gets and try our luck there.    Read more

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