8/17/14 - Tour du Mont Blanc - Day 2

If you missed day one, you can find it here:  Tour du Mont Blanc - Day 1

So, we ended day one about an hour and a half from where we were planning on finishing, and we had a broken bike!  We asked the the people who ran the refuge (Plein Air, an awesome little place with awesome big dinners!) if there was a bike shop in town.  They said no, but maybe the sport shop in town would sell bike stuff.  If they didn't have what we needed they were at a total loss.  Apparently in Switzerland on Sundays, everything is closed.  They knew there were bike shops in Orsieres and Martigny, both relatively close, but they also knew they would be closed.  Upon further questioning they said that maybe the bike shops would be open in Verbier, since it was a resort town they actually kept stores open on Sundays.  The first thing we did, though, was wait for the sport shop to open at nine and see if they had anything.  We were met with a resounding no.  Our only option at this point was to head to Verbier.  We looked up some shops online and called to verify they were indeed open.  Their being open, and having Specialized repair parts, meant we had to find a way to get to Verbier!  We found that we needed to take a bus, two trains, and a gondola!  While we were waiting for the bus we discovered that it wasn't just the derailleur hanger that was broken, it was the derailleur as well.  This meant a much more expensive repair, but we had to do it if we wanted to continue.  We arrived in Verbier, got Bucky's bike all fixed up (for 200 euros), had some lunch, and started day 2 of the Tour du Mont Blanc!  It was about 1:30 in the afternoon, and we were about 27 km (18 miles) off track, but we were fit and healthy with fully functional equipment!  You really can't ask for more than that!  It was a long ride on the road, but we made it to La Fouly, CH (where we planned on finishing day 1) at 4 pm; 7 hours behind schedule!  We knew at that point we weren't going to make it to our planned destination for day 2, Refugio Elizabetta Soldini, but we would go as far as we could.  From La Fouly we had to climb the second big pass of the journey, the Grand Col Ferret.  Many people had told us that this climb would take three hours and involve a lot of hiking, so we were just hoping to make it to a refuge before dark!

It ended up only taking us an hour and a half and we found most of it rideable, so I don't know what those guys were talking about.  At the summit of the Col we crossed over from Switzerland into Italy and the quality of the trail maintenance between the two countries was striking.  The Italian side wasn't really all that bad, but they used these tall, thin, and sharp granite rocks to direct water off the path, which made mountain biking down much less fun.  About 10 minutes in to the descent these diversions also caused me to get a pinch flat and crash my bike!  A quick tube change, however, and we finished the descent to the Refugio Elena.  Once again, we had barely made it to the refuge in time for dinner!  Even though we were way behind schedule, I was confident we would make up a lot of time on day three.  We would be starting right after breakfast, with two healthy bodies, and two working bikes for the first time of the journey!
Check out the video of the trip here:  Tour du Mont Blanc - Youtube