Alps, Au Revoir!

The final day dawned gray and damp, with a light rain hinting that it might quit.  Markham and Charles had decided the night before to pack up their bikes this AM and head for Provence, where they planned to spend an extra couple days visiting small French towns—thereby receiving a second big DNS in two days.  The rest of us hung around the hotel for an extra hour, waiting for the rain to decide.  At 10:30 AM, we saddled up and headed out.  The sky gradually cleared enough for the sun to break through, and we had a beautiful day for cycling with temps. in the low 60’s. 

This was our final day and we were determined to savor it.  Andiamo had designed a fabulous route, replacing Crete de Chatillon, which some of us had climbed the day before, with a meander through the hills and narrow country roads above Lake Annecy.  We hit the point of reckoning about 1 PM—the Col de Forclaz.  This mountain looming over Lake Annecy displayed the steepest clinb profile of any mountain on our itinerary.  I was open to skipping it, given 6 straight days of climbing major mountains would justify a taper, but my intrepid bike mates weren’t wavering.  Up we went.  It turned into a wonderful exclamation point to a week of climbing the Alps, and provided two useful insights:  1) our climbing legs had gotten pretty good and 2) short (9 km, 12%) steep climbs now seem easier than long (25 km, 8%) semi-steep climbs.  

We took some pictures at the top, and Rich toyed with the idea of taking the fast way down, before we remounted our bikes and coasted down the road back to the lake and eventually the town of Annecy. 

We packed our bikes, had the best meal of the trip at an Old Annecy restaurant, and celebrated Todd’s 56th birthday, promising him a new hip joint for a gift.  He thanklessly turned us down, preferring titanium and a US surgeon to the iron and Burmese surgeon we could afford.  Oh well….. And then we toasted Nel and Mike of Andiamo for tagging along with us and keeping us entertained, and Rich—the Ride Commish—for making it happen and raising the bar--the top tube-- on what a bike adventure could be.

Now THAT was QUALITY!