Hello, and welcome to YABVWS (yet another boring vacation web site), a site devoted to our fabulous trip to France this past summer.  The main purpose of this trip was to bicycle from Geneva to Nice, an idea which was hatched some years ago by a group of friends who just happened to be on YABT (yet another bike trip).  We figured that if the young cycling professionals could cycle over the French Alps, well, so could we, damnit.

As long as we were in France, we figured we could also do a bit of sightseeing and wine tasting and buying.  It just so happens that Sheila and I have friends in Montpellier, a city not far from the ending point of the bike trip.  Since they’re sort of retired anyway, we figured we could easily impose on them for a few days and tour the south of France, using their home as a base of operations.

The bike portion of the trip was organized by the master organizer himself, Dave Evans (a.k.a., Directeur Sportif). Dave also organized the bike trip we did in 1998 — Dave’s Ride the Rockies, which was the inspiration behind the idea of cycling through the French Alps.

Other riders on the Tour des Alpes:

• Russ Loucks
• Dick Venes
• Terry Dahl
• Robin Ash

Soooo, here we go!  Please note that this site contains numerous pictures (eh, mostly pictures, I’m not much of a writer).

Dave arrived in Geneva on August 29 to secure the sag vehicle — you didn’t think we were going to pack it around France, did you?!?  Our base of operations was the home of Rob and Sandy Parker (FsOD).  Dave and Rob were old schoolmates.  Rob and his lovely wife and two kids live just outside of Geneva — how convenient…..

The logistics of such a trip are complicated.  Think about it for a minute…  Start in Geneva, end up in Nice.  What do we do with the bike boxes that were used for the flight?  What about the sag van? How do we cram five bikes on top of the van?

Dave didn’t acquire his Directeur Sportif moniker for peanuts.  Everything was organized perfectly.  Dave had three bike rails he brought from his home, I brought one (but ended up purchasing another one, bummer), and Dick brought one as well.  We just needed the mounting towers and two bars to hold the rails.  We (hope we) can sell the extra parts after the trip.  Parts anyone?  Cheap?

We had a small snafu with the sag van concerning insurance (needed to cover 5 drivers and French rental agencies would only cover 2), so in the end we needed to rent from the Swiss, and someone had to return the van to Geneva — Terry was able to change his return flight (from Nice), drive the van back to Geneva, and fly home from Geneva to California.

I was the first to arrive on August 30.  Dave and Rob met me at the airport.  Terry, Robin, and Dick flew in later in the day.  Dave, Rob, and I drove to the sport shop to pick up the bike rack parts we needed, then continued on and picked up the remainder of the cyclists from the airport.

At Rob’s home, a few of us decided to unpack our bicycles to see if there was any catastrophic damage.  We found no fatal problems, however the cage on my rear derailleur tickled the spokes of the rear wheel when in low gear.  This had happened before and was something I could fix by bending the cage.  Yes, I ride a finely tuned rig……

Time for dinner, beer, and bed……

or Butts, boxes, and bikes

After a good night’s sleep, the five of us set out to assemble the bikes, assemble the bike rack, purchase food and other necessities for the trip, and build a shelf to hold such necessities in the back of the van.

Here are Terry, Dave, and Robin setting up their bikes.

Dave, “Let’s see, insert tab A into slot B….”

Dudes, what dance is this, eh?

The van, mostly loaded on top with the rack and the bikes. Robin, Dick, and Terry did the vast majority of this work. While fastening and aligning five bikes to the top of a car can be a bit of a struggle, these guys made quick work of the task.

Thanks for not forgetting those front wheels. My skills at balancing on the rear wheel isn’t quite perfected.

The derailleur cage problem on my bike turned out to be a tad more serious. After fiddling with the cage for an hour, I took a closer look at the derailleur and found that the pivot barrel was not parallel to the dropout. Oops. Hammer? Mallet? Pipe wrench?

I thought better of my ideas and called (or more precisely, had Rob call) a bike shop. A quick trip to the local shop and viola! They straightened the dropout in 30 seconds and adjusted the derailleur in 90 seconds. They had a tool I didn’t have!

Okay, back to packing. Dave and Rob ‘crafted’ a shelf for the back of the van to hold food and other necessities. Travel bags were stashed below the shelf.

Yes, Rob, the shelf is finely constructed.

We also took a quick prologue ride — 20k. Right. The map used by Dick ‘The Navigator’ Venes turned out to be about 25 years old. Just a bit has changed in Geneva since then…

“Damnit, Dick, we’re lost again! Oh, wait…. We’re lost in the French countryside. Hmm. Can we do this again tomorrow?!?”

No problem, 35k later we roll back into Rob and Sandy’s yard.

Done for the day. More beer, food, and sleep…

“Oh what a beautiful morning!”  Well, not quite.  Slightly overcast, a bit cool.

How many ways can we bastardize Sheryl Crow’s new song:

• Dave: “I have my 32 on (low gear of rear cassette has 32 teeth)”
• Russ: “I have my 145s on (PSI of tires)”
• Russ: “I have my chamois butter on”

First, pack up the ‘ol van and then give departing hugs and kisses.  Yes, Dave, I know you’re proud of the shelf, but everything on the ground needs to be packed into the back of the van…..

Success!

The before picture.  Dick, Russ, Dave, Sandy, Robin, Terry.  Sandy, so sorry about your eyes in this picture; you can blame it on your husband.  He must have snapped this pic at the wrong time……

Roll out to Lake Geneva.  The traditional rear wheel dipping ceremony. Of course, no one would really get their bike wet…..

Bon voyage!

I bet Rob and Sandy were really glad to see our sorry asses ride off…..

Roll out of Geneva.  Since we left on a Sunday morning, the traffic was light.  Shhh!  No one at the border in to France…..  Dave doubled back after 20k or so and retrieved the van.

First challenge of the trip was Col de Aravis.  Pretty easy, actually.  We had lunch close to the top at La Clusaz. Quaint little ski village;  one of about 20 that we cycled through during the trip.

Ah, the essence of a long-distance cyclist.

Terry was first to the top, with me close behind, followed by Robin and Dick.

Terry:  “Did you see that marmot?”

Robin: “Hmmm.  Think I need to clean my bike?”

Easy descent, no problems.  I took over driving the sag vehicle in the afternoon for the second challenge of the trip — Col de Saises.  On the way down we saw many sections of road scribbled with the names of Tour de France riders.  This year’s TdF traveled counterclockwise around France.  In the French Alps, that meant going from the south to the north.  Since we were going south through the Alps, we saw messages to the riders on the descents of many of our climbs during the trip.

Here’s a message to JaJa (Laurent Jalabert), a French cyclist who announced his retirement this year.

Ahhhh, the first day done and in the bag (or in our case, the glass…).

End of day 1.  Statistics:

• Start: Geneva
• End: Albertville
• Distance: 112 km
• Climbs: Col de Aravis and Col de Saises
• Total gain: 1841 meters

Happy birthday, Dave!

“Dear, I think I’m going to climb the Col de la Madeleine this morning.  See you for lunch.”

And so it went. I think we saw no less than 50 cyclists each day of our “tour”. Cyclists of all ages and shapes, sizes and abilities seemed to, well, just cycle. We saw a couple of organized tours along the way as well; each tour had probably 10 – 20 cyclists. They were wearing either local club or professional team wear.  Remember, and this is important, cycling is half riding, half style……

Day 2 started out nice, sunny, warm and just daring us to do 3400 meters of climbing for the day……  On the agenda — Col de la Madeleine in the morning and Col du Glandon in the afternoon.  I didn’t feel so bad; typically the Tour de France riders do these two climbs and then finish off with Alpe d’Huez — all in a single day.

Terry had sag vehicle duty in the morning.  We finally saw him about half way up la Madeleine.  We stopped at a wonderful small cafe/hotel for some Coke and a shandy (remember, Dick and Dave grew up in Manchester).

Aravis and Saises were just teaser climbs.  Today the Alps showed their best.  Here’s Robin rounding switch back, oh, number 53 for the day.  Looks more like a grimace than a smile there, dude.

And the top.

And just how did those cows get to the top of this mountain, eh?  Most of the mountains we cycled were pastured to both cows and sheep.  Many of the cows had bells hanging from their necks.  Now I’m a farm-boy, but even I can’t remember cow bells while I was growing up.

I have to admit, however, that the ringing of cow bells from a herd of animals is rather soothing, especially at kilometer 24 of a 26 km climb.  But more on the cows later.

Dick at the top:

Dave at the top:

Group photo at Col de la Madeleine:

Easy descent, no problems.  Lunch at St. Etienne-de-Cuines.  And what would you do on a full stomach?  Why, climb Col du Glandon, of course! The afternoon was warm and humid, just right for a 26 km attack on Glandon.

Dick took over driving the sag van.  Here’s Terry and me somewhere on the climb.  Like I mentioned, Aravis and Saises were teaser climbs.  La Madeleine and Glandon stretched on and on and on and on.

Remember those pesky cows?  Well, we determined that France has developed a new species of bovines — mountain cows.  Look at the picture above;  see the slope of the land at the far left?  Now look (closely) at my finger in the picture below.  I’m pointing at a cow, a cow with a bell around its neck, of course, on the side of that hill!

Those mountain cows were everywhere!  Remember that I mentioned that many of the hills were pastured by cows and sheep?  Well, do you see any fences behind me on the picture above.

Now, note what I’m wearing — nice, bright red shorts.  Starting to get the picture?  You guessed it, I had a small run-in with some cows.  Mountain cows are not the nice docile creatures I remember from my days on the farm.  These are bred and raised to be more than a bit rugged and self-sufficient.  And of course, if someone with bright red shorts comes riding along and startles them?

Near the top of Glandon, just when the road turns to about 15% or so grade, and after I did la Madeleine in the morning and I’m just about dead, some cows were strutting around the road.  They were also just a bit agitated as their owner — and two of his dogs — were trying to corral them to a lower pasture.  Then I come along.  Hmmm.

Bossy (as she’s excitedly eyeing me and trying to get the attention of her friends): “All right, gals, who’s in it with me?!?  I’ll knock him down and you gore him!!”

If Bossy had attempted to attack, I think she would’ve won.  I was starting to see Elvis;  I was within 2k of the top and I didn’t have enough energy left to outrun her.  Maybe down the hill.

Here’s a look near the top of Glandon.  Guard rails on the roads?  We don’t need no stinkin’ guard rails!

Dave: “All right, I’m done.  Dick, you take over.”

Near the Col du Glandon, I’ve had it.  Outrunning the dreaded mountain cows, the altitude, and the steep grade all took their toll.  Terry trudged on but I needed to stop every 200m or so.  I finally make it!  Robin is some minutes behind me.  Terry, Robin, and I all start to descend as the rather cool breeze starts to get a little wet, as in rain.  Terry streaks ahead quickly and we don’t see him until we reach Bourg-d’Oisans.

The rain started soon after we started the descent.  Wait!  More climbing?  Robin, did we take the wrong road?!?  We stop for directions and are assured that we’re on the correct route.

The route took us into Bourg-d’Oisans, about 40k from Col du Glandon.  For safety sake, we (tried) to keep our speeds under 50 kpm.

Terry beat all of us to the hotel by about 20 minutes — he was motivated.  Here is the top reservoir of a two reservoir system used by EDF — the electrical company.  Power is generated from this system during peak power usage.  During low power usage, the water is pumped from the lower reservoir to the upper.  Interesting.

Sorry, no pictures of us gulping beer at the hotel — it was pouring rain.

End of day 2.  Statistics:

• Start: Albertville
• End: Bourg-d’Oisans
• Distance: 124 km
• Climbs: Col de la Madeleine and Col du Glandon
• Total gain: 3100 m

I’m still not sleeping well.  Fog and clouds burn off by 9:30 Tuesday morning — same with the weather outside.  The hotel at Bourg-d’Oisans was a quaint little establishment.  They cater to cyclists — room to store bikes, bike stand and pump out back, nice heavy beer, etc.

Here’s Terry filling his water bottles with whatever powder he can find in the back of van.

Now we heard that the US Posties stayed in this same hotel some time in the past couple of years during the TdF, at least that’s what the proprietor said.  Maybe he was drumming up business?  Here’s the door to the room LanceA allegedly stayed in.  I rubbed my jersey on the door — I’ll never wash it again.

We’re off to Alpe-d’Huez at 11:00 am.  10 K warm up, then start at bottom at 11:21.

I didn’t stop for the 12 km of 21 switch backs.  The advertised grade is 9.8%, but some portions of the route are not quite that steep, which means some sections are 12 – 13%, especially at the bottom.

I finish at TdF finish at 12:38 (1:17 time).  But, ‘official’ ascension top is early in town, probably 5 minutes faster.  I hear Lance and the boys do this climb with a 39 tooth chainring and a 21 tooth rear cluster gear.  The shortest gearing I had was 39 – 25.  I decided I could use at least one more gear.

Terry is about 90 seconds behind me but takes a different route through town to the TdF finish (it is not really marked) and Dick beats him to the finish.  Dick and I both start searching for Terry and Robin.  Dick finds them and guides them to the finish.  Dave is some minutes behind Robin and Terry.

Here’s Dick.

Russ.

Terry.

Robin.

Sorry, Dave, but I can’t seem to find a picture of you finishing at Alpe-d’Huez.  We’ll just have to do it again next year.

That’s it for the day — 10 k of warmup, 12 k of Alpe-d’Huez.  Done by 1 pm.  We all took a loooooong lunch at one of the few cafes open in town.  Alpe-d’Huez is, you guessed it, a ski resort.  Without snow, it’s pretty much a ghost town, except, I suspect, when the TdF rolls into town.

The hotel was perfect; the Madame took very good care of us.  She washed our clothes (for nothing) and made sure we had large portions for our meals.

End of day 3.  Statistics:

• Start: Bourg-d’Oisans
• End: Alpe-d’Huez
• Distance: 22 km
• Climbs: Alpe-d’Huez
• Total gain: 1140 m

Rest day.  Right.  The morning was spent running errands — yes, even on vacation errands must be run.  Clothes must be washed, money retrieved from the money trees, postcards purchased, written, and sent, and, of course, the required ‘Cyclist Diploma’ must be retrieved and signed.

The Office de Tourisme of the city of Alpe d’Huez recognizes cyclists who climb from Bourg-d’Oisans with an award certificate recognizing the effort.  It is signed by the mayor;  we had the Madame at the hotel sign it as well.  Gag.  This will look good on my cycling resume, eh?

After a leisurely lunch and a stroll through town, we decide to go for a walk — up into the hills.  It was a nice mostly sunny day, Dick scouts a route up to some lakes, so we head out.   This turned out to be an excellent activity for a rest day.  The weather turned warm and we enjoyed some spectacular views of the valleys on the back side of Alpe-d’Huez.  Some of us were accosted by some sheep being herded down the hill, but that’s another story.

A view of the mountain behind Alpe-d’Huez — Pic du Lac Blanc.  We walk along the top of the grassy ridge stretching from the far left to the center of the pic.

A view of the city of Alpe-d’Huez from the grassy ridge.

Dave and Dick before the big leap….  Just kidding.  We walked quite a ways north of the city to some lakes.  From this vantage point we can see the valley on the other side of the mountain.  In this photo, Dave and Dick are just at the edge of the ridge as it starts to descend the other side.

Here’s one of the lakes at the top of the ridge looking north.

Here’s the valley on the other side of the mountain looking mostly northwest.  The lake you see at the bottom is actually a hydroelectric reservoir.  Remember the route down from Col du Glandon yesterday when we passed a reservoir?  The one in this photo is the lower one of the two that I described.  We cycled past this one, as well.

Dave and Robin on the way back to civilization.

Oh, remember the sheep I mentioned earlier?  Well, here they come….

This herd of sheep was being herded down the mountain presumably to winter pastures (or for the dinner table?!?)  Two dogs were doing most of the work.  At first they looked like a swarm of bees moving down the hill. The dogs kept them pretty close together for the dangerous sections (like past the bar/restaurant).  The shepherd would appear from the bar every once in a while and direct the dogs.  I suspect the dogs had performed this feat more than a few times in years past and knew the route.

Anyway, when the terrain flattened a bit the shepherd allowed the sheep to graze as they descended the hills.  But the route the sheep were taking crossed our path.  That’s when they attacked…..  But not really.  Sheep are pretty docile and they just ran past me.

We had to avoid a small herd of the dreaded mountain cows as we walked back to Alpe-d’Huez.  All in all, a good restful day.

End off day 4. Statistics:

• Start: Alpe-d’Huez
• End: Alpe-d-Huez
• Distance: 10 km walking
• Climbs: Lac Noir
• Total gain: 100 m

“Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day.”

Happy birthday, Terry!

I’m finally sleeping well.  Thursday morning starts off like most mornings in the mountains in September — Fog, clouds, generally cool and damp.  We pack up, say our good-byes to the Madame and we’re off.  Robin drives the sag van for the morning. Guess what?  It starts to rain.

We take the ‘back’ way down from Alpe-d’Huez.  This is a rather steeeeeeep road;  it is advertised as 12%, but I think many stretches are much steeper.    And guardrails?  Who needs guardrails?!?  The road is black topped, but just barely.  It’s a rather poor grade covering.  And boulders in the road?  Well, just blacktop around them.

The road is not a high-maintenance road.  Many streams carrying spring thaw water do not drain under the road — they wash right over the road.  In order to prevent the streams from washing out the roads, large, flat stones are placed in the road in place of blacktop where streams cross.  Did I mention it was raining?  Flat rocks are slippery when wet…  Turns out to be a rather slow treacherous journey down the mountain but we make it without incident.

Here’s Dave flying down the hill.

At the bottom we turn onto a ‘national’ road — N91.  We’re a bit skeptical about traveling 40 km on this national route, but it doesn’t turn out to be a problem.  All vehicles give us plenty of room to pass, even if they are spraying road grime and water on us.

The first climb is Col du Lauteret and it rains all the way to the top — 2058 m in elevation.  The top is also rather cooooold — 3 deg. C.  Soooo, here we are, cold, completely wet, and near the beginning of the day.  Fun.

Here’s Dick near the top.  3 degrees, eh?  Who needs long pants?  What a man!

Here’s Russ near the top.  He’s wearing long pants — wimp!

We all gather at the top for a coffee, or two or three.  Now this group looks like it’s having fun, right!?!

Near the bottom of the descent from Col du Lauteret we stop for lunch.  We usually stop in a park or someplace with tables outside.  But not today, IT’S RAINING!  The descent was pretty easy, no super curvy roads.  I would like to do that again some year without all of the rain.  Robin finds a restaurant and we all have a hot meal.  I’m basically sitting in a pool of water, still shivering from the morning’s ride.

As luck would have it, the bathroom in the restaurant has a hot air dryer instead of drying towels.  We all take turns in the bathroom trying to dry ourselves off.  A few of us don whatever dry clothing we have (we’re wearing most of what we have, anyway) and set off for Briancon.

The weather and traffic get worse.  It is poring rain and Terry and I are shivering.  Dave takes over the sag vehicle from Robin at lunch.  We flag him down in town and abandon for the day.

Robin and Dick both have proper rain and cold-weather gear.  They trudge on up Col D’Izoard.  The rain lets up quite a bit but it is still cold.

Here are Robin and Dick ascending d’Izoard.  Those animals!

And the top!

No problems with the descent.  The hotel is 5 km or so before Guillestre.  They also cater to cyclists — warm room to store washed clothes and bikes.  I think there was one other room rented for that night.

That night we’re all a bit dispirited during dinner and pack it in early.  The bathrooms are equipped with their own heater so Dick and I crank the heat in the bathroom, close the door and hang our wet clothes to dry.

End of day 5.  Statistics:

• Start: Alpe-d’Huez
• End: Guillestre
• Distance: 130 km
• Climbs: Col du Lauteret and Col d’Izoard
• Total gain: 2377 m

“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

Nice bright sunshine in the morning.  We’re actually able to start the day without 5 layers of riding clothes.  Now if we can just find our way out of St. Etienne…..

The plan was to have (a sort of) a leisurely ride into Nice, if that’s possible.  However, we all decide to ride to Menton instead, pack the bikes on top of the van there and drive to Nice.  Menton is muuuuuch smaller than Nice and probably much easier to navigate on a bicycle.

There’s one catch (isn’t there always?!?).  The route to Nice is basically down hill along the Tinee river.  However, the route to Menton entails two climbs.  Since no one has reconnoitered the route, no one has any idea what the roads and climbs are like.

Since this is our last day and we believe the route to be rather easy, I declare this to be ‘large-chainring day.’  No wimps today — grind out those hills!  Hmmm.  Maybe I spoke too soon…  Dick sags in the morning and Robin takes over in the afternoon.

The day was gorgeous — sunny, light wind, rather warm and traffic was light (until Menton, anyway).  The two climbs for the day are la Colmiane and Col de Turini.  La Colmiane is a big mountain bike and hiking area.  It was teaming with kids ‘doin’ the trails’ the day we cycled through it.  A popular destination is Col de St. Martin which is really only accessible by mountain bike and hiking trails.  We decided not to bike to the top.

As usual, the road was windy and narrow.  Don’t look down or over what guardrail existed!

Here are Terry, Robin and Russ at la Colmiane.  Boy those clouds in the background look bad.  We take off before the rain starts.

And here comes Dave not far behind.

What’s an easy climb with an easy descent?!?  Climbing is for wimps, descending makes men of cyclists……

We had lunch at Roquebilliere, another little mountain town.  The clouds keep coming and they look bad, and we head out before the rain starts falling.

The last climb of the trip!  The route to Col de Turini, according to the map, is 15 km and 1100 m of elevation rise for a 7.3% grade.  Bulls***.  I think this climb was tougher than Alpe-d’Huez.  I had to stop once and my heart rate was always straddling 170.  At least on Alpe-d’Huez I could get my heart rate in the 150s for a short bit throughout the climb.  Not here….  But I made it.  Terry was about 5 minutes behind me.  Here we are just about to descend to Sospel.

And Dick and Dave arrive at Col de Turini.

On the way down to Sospel, the route took us by an awesome ancient church, St. Sebastien, just outside of Moulinet.  I looked for its historical significance on Google, but I didn’t find anything in English. Bummer.  It was quite a site.  Here you can see the church in the right center of the photo (boy those clouds look bad).

Hang on Dick!

Ahhh that tastes good!  The gang at Sospel relaxing before final push to Menton.  Terry and I started down Col de Turini together, but he beat me by 8 minutes to the bottom.  I received the Capt. Bad Descender award for the day.  My shoulders and back are quite sore from hanging on to the handlebars going 60 kph down these hills.

Dave and Dick about an hour behind us.  The clouds still hang around us, so we take off for Menton.

We have one more small hill to climb before descending to Menton.  But we’re driven!  And there it is!  Navigating Menton on bikes on a Saturday evening was a bit tricky, but we found the beach and Robin was able to find a parking spot for the van about 2 km away.  We all gather for hugs and kisses and high fives.

Of course, we all need to dip our front wheels into the Mediterranean.  Here’s Russ:

And Dave:

And Robin:

And Terry:

And Dick.  “Now, what do I do?!”

Ah, yes, that’s it!

We did it!  The sun was setting so we packed up the bikes and took the autoroute to Nice.  We didn’t have tooo much of a problem finding the hotel.  That evening was quite a feast.  My wife, Sheila, made it to Nice earlier that day and joined in the festivities.  She was to arrive in Nice on Friday, but missed her connecting flight at Gatwick Airport due to a late departure from Minneapolis.  Oh, well.

We ate and drank well into the night.  I’m pretty sure everyone lost more than a few pounds (sorry, kilograms) of weight during the week.  We all agreed that Dave is the best trip organizer and toasted him many times that evening.

And the rain held off for the day……

End of day 7.  Statistics (for the day):

• Start: St. Etienne de Tinee
• End: Menton
• Distance: 132 km
• Climbs: la Colmiane and Col du Turini
• Total gain: 2500 m

Total trip statistics:

• Start: Geneva
• End: Menton
• Distance: 610 km
• Total gain: 13684 m

(Thanks to Dick for the following image.)

We arrived in Nice the evening of Saturday, September 7.  Sunday was a day of well-deserved rest, relaxation, and eating.  Sheila and I walked around for a few hours and took a grand total of one picture (Hmm, Nice looks like a good place to retire, as well):

Sooo, Monday we drove to our friends at Montpellier.  This should have been a 3 hour drive, including lunch.  Remember the clouds on Saturday that looked rather ominous but never rained?  Well, they did drop quite a bit of rain, and we drove through the floods. Dave’s sister Ruth and a friend drove from Manchester to Nice.  When the two of them arrived in Nice on Sunday, they were weary from driving through heavy rain.  I really didn’t pay attention to their story.  I should have…..

We took off from Nice about 11 am.  After sitting dead stopped once for 90 minutes and two detours from the autoroute, we decided to take a ‘national’ road, instead.  We drove past field after field of grape vines under water.  The Rhone river and its tributaries was flooding its banks.

Even on the national road we drove through water.  The roads in France are not that wide and they usually have a deep ditch on either side.  Fun.  7 and a half hours later we finally arrived at our friends’ house.  It was quite the ordeal.

A few days after we returned to the US I heard that Rob and Sandy Parker (remember them?) were driving back from Entibbes on Saturday, Sept 7 to Geneva.  They didn’t make it back to Geneva that night.  Their car floated off the road and had to spend a couple of days in a shelter.  They are OK;  Rob sent this picture to me, but I couldn’t say exactly where it is taken.

On to the wineries…..

So many wineries, so little time….

First, our friends found a list of wineries in the area (appellation) — Coteaux-Languedoc — which included addresses for the wineries.  That’s not to say the addresses, even the towns, were correctly listed in the book…..

Then, if we happened to find a specific winery, who’s to say where the caveau (tasting room) is….  It may be at the winery, but more than likely it is somewhere else.

Then the map may not be precisely correct, either….  Fun time was had by all.  The harvest was just starting so many of them were bustling with activity.

One afternoon we did more sightseeing and drove to Grotte des Demoiselles.  This is a large cave filled with stalactites and stalagmites.  Here’s a view from just outside the entrance to the cave of the valley looking south.

Here’s a view of the mountain holding the cave (looking north from the same spot as the photo above).

And some views from inside (who knows what direction I was facing…).

One day whilst vegging out in Montpellier we all went mushroom hunting in the hills.  While we didn’t have much luck in finding appropriate mushrooms to eat, we did have a good time traipsing around the hills.

The terrain in that area is called ‘garrigue.’  I can’t think of a good translation for it, neither could our friends living there…. Think of southern Montana.  Fairly rocky, scrub oak trees, some deciduous trees.

We did find an interesting rather old rock wall.  I think it was actually a field as it was completely enclosed.  It surrounded about 3 – 4 acres of land.

After we drank our fill of French wine and ingested enough bread and cheese for a family of four for a month, we decided to head home.  Besides, we couldn’t pack any more wine into our suitcases.  Another great idea from the wineries in France is the distribution mechanism of table wine.  Why go through the bother of bottling the wine into glass bottles?  Why not just allow consumers to fill their own containers with wine on a periodic basis?  Hmmm.

Many (all?) of the wine cooperatives dispense wine in this manner.  The dispensing unit looks very similar to a large gas pump with nozzles for each style of wine produced by the coop.  The locals can bring their own containers to fill with wine as they wish.   Now that’s civilized!  I seriously thought about stuffing 6 or so of these 5 liter containers of table wine in my bike case — who needs a road bike in the winter in Minnesota?!?

Before we flew home from France we spent some time in Carcasonne, which includes an ancient walled city — La Cite.  La Cite is actually a working, thriving (tourist trap) city.  Of course we had to visit some wineries along the way…..

La Cite by day:

La Cite’s back yard:

La Cite by night:

Well, that’s about it.  I hope everyone enjoyed our little vacation to the south of France.  If I could only find a job in the French Alps…….