...rest days...what rest days

Tuesday

So today was supposed to be a day of rest, yet with all these lovely roads and the Tour De France on its way, I couldn’t help but pop into the local Tourist office to get a leaflet on the local rides , and , of course it meant I wanted to do one of them – there are quite a few, and obviously around here not many easy ones. I picked one of the ones that’s is rated as ‘difficult’ – the ‘Col de L’encrenaz’ (rather than extreme – which is one of the famous ones – the ‘Col de Joux Plane’) and would take me about 1h 20 to 2 hours depending on fitness. I was going to use my lowest gears and just tootle along and get a feel for the roads and the new bike – after all I’ve only ridden it for 2 hours so far.  Waiting for the heat to go out of the day I set off at 6.15 – a nice cool breeze and a steady climb out of Morzine to Les Gets , which went steeper and steeper – at which point I ran out of gears – even with 3 up front and 9 behind! I also noticed my bike computer had reset itself into german and didn’t read any of the K’s I was doing…..As I breached the top of Les Gets the twisty downhill road kept me alert and on the rubber brakes most of the way down, at this point thinking – oh dear, the route to the real climb is much steeper than this , and if I want to abandon this, ive got to climb back up what I’m going down! I pulled right and to continue the route, up a fantastic cliff side on a quiet French road criss crossing up the mountain, I laughed, I was doing it – a real mountain climb just like on TV – however I had once again ran out of gears, rapidly losing lots of fluid from the very still evening , with the setting sun right in my face! After what seemed like an age of climbing I crested the top and began the steep descent , again on the anchors but slowly getting used to banking the bike around these tight roads… getting cold though as I was now in shade but soaked in sweat and descending at a rapid rate of knots….but it was all good – and to top it off my bike computer started working again – I tootled back into the village, totally exhausted but happy.  I think I’ll come back to do the best Le Tour climb later when I’ve got more road bike climbing in from other rides I hope to do in the region.

Wednesday

So today was supposed to be a day of rest, ok ok I know it was yesterday and supposed to be moved to today, but the other group were talking of a light an easy ride across country, using the chair lifts – and the sun was shining – I soon regretted it after the first hill, legs were mashed, but everyone was in the same boat and we all stuck together and enjoyed the countryside taking pictures, stopping for great coffee and lunch…. The day moved on into the late afternoon and we all went out for a pretty nice meal – huge salad + huge pizza + 4 scoops of ice cream….yummy.   It would be nice though when your in a foreign country to make some kind of effort in their language….i do as much as I can, it seems others don’t have the same attitude...

Just to tot up my riding then –

Friday = 40k easy mountain biking

Saturday = 45k XC mountain biking

Sunday = 88k XC mountain biking

Monday = 38k hilly XC mountain biking

Tuesday = 35k ‘difficult’ Col road riding

Wednesday = 35k XC mountain biking