It is here that the Peleton à Quatre rebrand our group as The Musketeers!
Athos – Adam
Porthos – Neil
Aramis- David
d'Artagnan- Chopper
'Tous pour un, un pour tous' does not last long as d'Artagnan kicks in and leave the Muskateers - the Marmottes rescue division to storm the mountain. Half way up Athos (me) leaves too! The descent from Iseran was amazing, fast and very long.
Great Loss Alert! Our band of loyal riders manages to lose one of their numbers. Yes somehow despite being on the same mountain, dressed in bright and distinguishable colours we lose Neil. We think he may have descended before us. At the bottom a Peleton à Sept was formed and we flew down the valley for 60km into a strong head wind to the base of Telegraphe.
Happily Neil was waiting at the bottom in a café. He had taken a slight detour and ended up on the Autoroute!!!! After 4km the support vehicle found him; he jumped the central reservation and rode back to the junction! Doing the 60km plus solo but just look what happens when he goes off on his own!
Through the valley of Iseran on the way to Telegraphe we pass a local elderly 'Tour de France' cycliste! Chopper decided to race him! The 'Tour de France cycliste' had over taken on the way down as we stopped to photograph a monastery/fort hanging off the cliff side. Chopper caught him up fast and booted past; the cycliste looked up in disgust and charged after Chopper. We all followed on into town. Chopper stopped in the town and the cycliste glared in scorn and rode past out of the saddle!
An hour later the Musketeers passed him again. The process repeated itself and a fun filled day of annoying the locals was had by all. At the bottom of Telegraphe Chopper bought some sun cream and after sun only to later realise it had cost him 40€!!!!!!!!!! (Note to self shouldn’t pick on locals).
Climbing Telegraphe which is basically a shelf on the side of Galibier, we had some nasty headwinds all the way. It is really a preamble to the massive Galibier. We did not start it until 5pm and we knew from last year that it was going to be very, very tough.
Chopper was expecting to bonk (Wikipedia: In endurance sports, particularly cycling and running, hitting the wall or ‘the bonk’ describes a condition caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles, which manifests itself by precipitous fatigue and loss of energy) half way up!
So once Chopper left his wing men to save himself and his knees! Stuffing any food he had and struggling all the way. He cleverly distracted himself with games of I- Spy (Who won Chopper?) in fact playing any games to keep going including the A-Z of 80s pop stars which has always been one of his favourites!
Two thirds of the way up Galibier it started to really rain with 15 people still left out on the 2,500 foot climb! The rest of us were hiding in the van with the heaters on without our wet weather gear which was in the other van - on its way.
We were very nervous to descend in these awful conditions with the wind and rain making it very slippery. The van arrived and with it our macs so off we went. Breaking distances for corners had increased significantly and with no more than five feet visibility it was best and safest to stay in the middle of the road! We were freezing and shaking, conditions were so awful that some people had to go down in the van. The good news is nobody fell.
Everyone arrived safely! Lauteret - We knew there was a restaurant 10 km from the top so we stopped there and borrowed bath robes (see photos) drank hot chocolate and brandy and a strange biscuit that tasted of Izal Medicated! Then a drop in to La Grave through some cool tunnels and it was finally getting drier and warmer, we were the last in town - arriving at 9pm! Sadly missing the start of dinner but we had all made it. Dinner. Bar. Brandy. Bed!
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