Day 2

Today the Fireflies and our brave Mill trio set out from Tallories and headed out on their second day in the Alps.

It was a very wet, hot and humid morning as they faced the majestic Alpine climbs of the Col du Forclaz & Col Col du Cormet de Roseland finishing with the assent to the world famous ski village of Val d’Isere.



The guys found a cycle path through some woodland and around six of them grouped in a peloton. They sped along but were facing a massive 3900m of climbing and incredibly will finish 1800m higher than they started.

With a couple of tough smaller climbs (10km and 6km each) behind them they started to climb the beautiful Cormet De Roselend, a staggering 21km climb that takes them through luscious alpine forests (although the weather made them feel like rain forests) before reaching the mountain top. Adam, Chris and Neil were all very excited about Cormet De Roselend as it's such a beautiful mountain but it was still raining hard, in fact it hadn’t stopped and they guys were feeling disheartened that the rain would spoil one of their favorite descents down!



Luckily the sun broke through and although a tough ride to the top everyone stuck together and as they reached the summit it was sunny and had finally stopped pouring down.
The guys were very happy and excited to reach the top and looking forward to a clearer descent – actually they hammered it down picking out the dry spots so they didn’t accidently fly off the mountain!

Here the our trio picked up their top speeds of the day with Adam taking first place clocking an impressive 50mph closely followed by Chris and Neil (the youngsters) with a 46.8mph – Go Adam!
Riding on to Bourg Saint Maurice they stopped for food before embarking on the final leg of the ride for day 2 and heading back to the hotel.

Chris feasted on his homemade flapjacks (he made himself) with Adam and Neil opting to eat real food! Although the waiter seemingly stiffed Adam with a bill of 200 Euro’s after inadvertently charging him for other people’s food - Adam using his best French explained to the waiter that he was not best pleased!

Day 2 was proving to be a really hard day with heavy rain, humid conditions and overhanging clouds and the route to the hotel was now all up hill and it had now started to rain heavily again.

The sun was beginning to set and it was getting late – Chris was hungry – he should have eaten one of Adam’s free meals! And was ‘bonking’ (for non-riders this simply means he was running on empty). The guys flagged down a support vehicle and Chris and Neil gorged themselves on a banquet of biscuits and sweets, Adam pointing out ‘like teenagers on a hangover’ but it gave them the boost they needed to continue the ride.



At the top of the mountain they now were only 5k from the hotel and as the sun was setting the views were stunning snow capped peaks.

Once they had descended they cycled through some imposing tunnels built through the mountains and into the rock face, James Bond car chase-esq! Of course our guys woo-wooed and shouted as they whizzed through – not very James Bond really!

Finally reaching the hotel at Val d’Isere they joined the entire team for a well earned drink!

Stats from the guys:
Top speed: 50mph (Adam)
Climbed: 10,000 ft
Distance: 90 Miles