“Welcome to day 6 of the Tours des Alpes. Today’s schedule takes us to Col de Var and Col de la Bonette, our highest point of the trip! So sit back, relax, and enjoy another 2800 m of grueling climbing for the day!”
Friday AM. Our clothes are mostly dry but the shoes are wet. Great, cycling with cold wet shoes. The bikes look sad — they need some TLC and lots of lube.
I sagged the first part of the day, Terry sagged the second. The gang just before rollout. Come on, dudes, look alive, it’s not raining!
The hotel for the previous evening was outside of Guillestre. The gang still needed to descend 5 km or so before hitting the bottom. Here’s one of the many tunnels we passed through on our journey. If you take a magnifying glass to the picture below, you should be able to see the gang near the center of the photo, just rounding the bend after the tunnel.
I picked up lunch in Guillestre and found the boys up the hill to Col de Vars. Here’s a shot of Guillestre from near Var. I think I’m going to retire to the French Alpes-Maritimes…..
Here’s Robin toiling up to Col de Vars. That can’t be a smile now, can it?!
Here’s Terry reaching Col de Vars.
And Robin.
And Dave and Dick.
After a coffee in the cafe in the restaurant at the top, the boys descended to Jausiers for lunch. Here’s the view on the other side of the mountain.
Lunch!
Terry takes over driving the sag vehicle after he rides part way up Col de la Bonette. It’s a 24 km climb — 1600 m of climbing so it wasn’t too steep. I stop just a couple of times before I reach the top — total time 2:08. I don’t see Terry until the top. Fortunately I’m carrying some warm clothes.
The weather at the top is pretty nice — maybe 12 deg. C, not much wind, some sun. There is another gentleman on a bike at the top. While I’m waiting for Terry we strike up a conversation. He mentions that he drove up to this point in the morning and found it snowy, windy, and 1 deg. C, not conducive for a fun day of cycling. By the time we both get to the top the weather was pretty nice. I would’ve hated to bike up in that weather.
Here I am at the top.
And Terry.
I take off before the others arrive but meet Robin on my way down. The top of la Bonette is actually a ‘circle’ drive but the back half of the circle is closed for reconstruction so I need to descend part of the way along the same path as the ascent. I talk to Robin for a minute and decide to wait for him at the ‘T’ in the road (down to St. Etienne). He completes the climb to the top, gets his picture taken, and rides down to me.
Here are Dave and Dick at Col de la Bonette.
And the descent. The little scratch you see in the lower right of the photo is the road we take to St. Etienne. This road was similar to the back road out of Alpe-d’Huez — very narrow, rather rough, steep, and no guardrails. No problems, however, just sore backs from hanging on (tightly) to the handlebars.
Ahhhh! That tastes good!
At the hotel we all agree that this day was the best — weather (a bit cool), distance, and climbs. Morale has returned, the beer flows freely at dinner, we’re almost to Nice!
End of day 6. Statistics:
- Start: Guillestre
- End: St. Etienne de Tinee
- Distance: 99 km
- Climbs: Col de Vars and Col de la Bonette
- Total gain: 2800 m
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