8/19/14 - Tour du Mont Blanc - Day 4

If you missed day 3 click here:  Tour du Mont Blanc - Day 3


After about 125 miles of riding over the last three days I was really ready for an easy day on the bikes.  Luckily, our fourth day looked like it was going to be just that.  We had only two passes to climb and a total vertical on the day of only about 1000m (3280 ft).  Compared to the epic day 3, it was going to be a cake walk!  Of course, after three days of perfect weather, we woke up to a downpour!  Hoping it would quit soon and we wouldn't have to ride in the rain, we killed time staring at the map in the refuge.  Luckily, especially this summer, the rain totally quit at about 10:00 and didn't start up again for the rest of the day.  We left Le Gorge du Notre Dame and headed towards Les Contamines Montjoie.  We veered right at the town of Le Cugnon to meet up with a trail marked on our map as T.P.M.B.  The guide's blog that we were following for most of the journey simply said that they climb from Contamines to the Chalets de Miage refuge to start off the day.  I can't say what route the guide normally takes, but I am 100% positive it is not the route that we took!  We ended up essentially bushwhacking our way through the woods trying to find the T.P.M.B trail.  Bucky kept making comments along the lines of, "Hey, did you know they filmed Gorillas in the Mist here?"  And a little later, "Hey, did you know they filmed Jurassic Park here?"  Even if we weren't exactly on the right route, it was worthwhile to see so much Hollywood history in one small area of France!  

The pretty Chalet du Truc

We did, eventually, find the T.P.M.B trail after about an hour of hiking and made good time to the Chalets de Miage.  The Miage valley was absolutely gorgeous.  If you are coming to the French Alps just to sightsee, you need to go here.  We grabbed a quick lunch (and no pictures) and continued down a really technical singletrack to the town of Bionnassay.  I managed to endo once again, but at least I didn't land on my head and fractured helmet!  From Bionnassay we had one last climb, but boy was it a DOOZY!  I was in granny gear for almost the whole thing, and even that wasn't enough.  I probably walked about 25% of the thing.  Bucky, however, managed to ride all they way up to the Col de Voza.  From here it was a long descent to Les Houches, then a very gradual climb on paved roads just a few miles back to Chamonix, hot showers, and our own beds!  Les Houches has

Finally found the T.P.M.B!

spent the last few years developing their downhill MTB trails so I was excited to give them a whirl.  While we did manage to ride a short section of one of them (and man was it cool.  There was a Northshore bridge feature that was probably about 8" wide at the narrowest spanning a gully about 15 ft deep and then ended in some huge banked wooden "S" turns, but I digress) the next section of the trail was closed, and all the others below that!  Unfortunately we had to descend the majority on the road, but I will come back to try out some more of those Northshore features at a later date!  We arrived back in Chamonix after six hours, our easy day being a bit more difficult than expected.  The whole journey was about 160 miles, with about 27,000 feet of elevation gain, and about 29 hours of total ride time!  With all of that riding, especially on hard tails, I think it was pretty miraculous that we only had two broken bike parts, two flat tires, and one broken helmet!  Bucky and I agree that in order to ride the Tour du Mont Blanc, you have to go into it expecting an epic adventure, and not epic mountain biking.  There were a few fun climbs, and a few really fun descents, but the majority of the time you are on roads, either paved or dirt, and there is a substantial amount of hiking involved.  With the right attitude, however, you can have a grand ol' time; just like we did!

Check out the video of the journey here:  Tour du Mont Blanc - Youtube

8/18/14 - Tour du Mont Blanc - Day 3

If you missed day 2 click here:  Tour du Mont Blanc - Day 2

It was a really good feeling, waking up ready to ride on day 3.  The only bad thing was that we had a long, long way to go before we were back on our original schedule.  We rode down on the pavement from Refugio Elena to Courmayeur.  At this point we were essentially directly opposite from Chamonix with Mont Blanc between us and home.  After getting a little lost in Courmayeur we managed to find the road to Val Veny.  At this point we began the longest climb of the whole journey.  From Courmayeur to the Col de la Seigne is an elevation gain of 1390m (4560 ft)!  At around noon we passed the Refugio Elizabetta, meaning we were only 3 hours behind our original schedule.  Upon reaching the Col de la Seigne, and the border between Italy and France, we were looking forward to what many people had described as the best descent of the whole journey.  The descent did not disappoint.  Sometimes technical and tough, sometimes fast and flowy, the ride had everything.  We flew down to the town of Les Chapieux and had a quick lunch.  Next we left the hiking route of the TMB because it is too steep for bikes and began the climb to the Cormet de Roselend.  Although the climb is entirely on paved

Col de la Seigne, border between Italy and France

road it is still cool because the climb has been featured in many years of the Tour de France.  I think Bucky climbed the thing as fast as the tour riders do, even on a mountain bike.  Every time I looked up he was further down the road and I was getting more and more drenched in sweat!  From the Cormet de Roselend it was a fast descent down the road to Lac de Roselend, where we hoped to find a market to replenish our snacks and water.  We were very sorry to find that we could not replenish our snacks, but we ended up having a second lunch at a small cafe and at least getting our water refilled.  The next section, from Lac de Roselend to the Col du Gittaz looked very daunting on the map.  The topo lines are so close together through this section I thought for sure we were going to be hiking the whole thing.  At this point we had already been riding for 7 hours and we only had three hours to make it to Le Gorge de Notre Dame, the location of our refuge, before they served dinner.  We also had three passes and about 1300m (4265 ft) of climbing to go!  We made it up over the first pass and found our path blocked by a large herd of cattle lining up to get milked.  We had to pass over a series of electrically charged fences (without getting shocked, thank God) and continued on our way.  As we descended to the Lac de la Gittaz we could see the road that we were supposed to end up on, and it seemed the trail we were on was heading in the opposite direction.  I climbed up a side path to peek over a knoll and see if the trail we were on doubled back around or if we had taken a wrong turn somewhere.  Upon finding that we were indeed headed in the right direction I attempted to ride down the very steep hillside back to the trail.  I was nearly successful, but ended up endo'ing near the bottom and landed with my head on a rock and my shoulder in a cow pie.  Besides the smell I had only suffered some small cuts and bruises so I continued riding without thinking much about it.  We began the climb up to the Col du Gittaz and found that the road had a lot more switchbacks than were shown on the map, so even though it was quite steep, it was all rideable.  I managed to ignore the pain I was in by imagining myself in a hot tub, in February, in Vail, with a bottle of rye whiskey, some beer, and a beautiful woman.  Somehow that managed to get me through the arduous slog.  

Lucky Cows

I awoke from my reverie near the top to find that the road ended and we had to hike our bikes up a trail that seemed to have been used exclusively by cattle for time unending.  Upon passing some of said cattle, Bucky quiped, "You don't know how lucky you have it cows, you could be living in Nebraska!"  Instead they were living in a place that could only remind someone of The Sound of Music.  At the top of the Col du Gittaz Bucky looked at me and said, "Was your helmet always cracked?"
"No." I said.                                      "Well it is now!"                                I certainly wasn't concussed at all by the little spill I took, but apparently my helmet is not quite as hard as my head.  Anyway, from the Col du Gittaz we had a short but very fun descent (I thought the best of the journey, Bucky voted for the Col de la Seigne) before we started climbing again to the Col du Joly.  Luckily this was a very short (2km, 100m) climb and we arrived at the top at about 7:15pm.  At the top of the Col du Joly we entered the boundary of Les Contamines Montjoie ski area and found an extremely fun downhill MTB specific trail to take us all the way in to town.  We made our way to the refuge at 7:40pm after 11:10 hours of biking, but we had made up all of the time we had lost by the broken bike shenanigans on days 1 and 2!  The next best part was that the refuge didn't hold to the serving dinner at 7:00pm sharp rule so we were even able to eat!

Check out the video of the journey here:  Tour du Mont Blanc - Youtube

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

8/16/14 - Tour du Mont Blanc, Day 1

One of our major goals of the summer was to ride our bikes on the Tour du Mont Blanc.  With a favorable weather forecast for the next three days we decided to give it a go now.  On day one we had some last minute planning, packing, and purchasing to do.  Our plan for day one was to ride to La Fouly in Switzerland.  This would be conquering days one and two from a guide's itinerary that we were trying to follow.  This meant we had about 80km (50 miles) of riding and 2925m (9600 ft) of climbing to go.  With a noon start, we decided to bypass the Petite Balcon Nord trail to Le Tour and just take the road.  At Le Tour we took a bump up the gondola, the only mechanical assist we were planning on getting.  From the Col de Balme we headed down in to Switzerland.  The really nice thing about following the TMB trail in Switzerland is that they have two routes, one for hikers, and one for bikers.  The biking route is clearly marked, which makes the route finding so much easier.  The descent from Col de Balme to Trient was rocky and rooty and fun.  There were a few sections that were smooth and fast too.  From Trient we had the first pass to conquer over the Col de la Forclaz.  This was a relatively easy ride up the old dirt road, zig zagging with the new highway.  From the Col the hiking trail goes East in a more or less direct route to Champex-Lac.  We were told by a woman we met here that if you take your bike on this section of the TMB you were in for a 3 hr hike-a-bike.  The biking route we planned to follow goes down the road to Martigny (a loss of 1026m!) and then back up to Champex-Lac.  On the way up towards Champex-Lac I saw a hiking sign that said Champex-Lac was 4 hrs up the road.  Rather than riding the highway I thought it would be nice to take the side roads.  We made the turn and headed up the road.  We came to a fork where it was somewhat unclear which way we were supposed to go.  Bucky thought left, and we went that way for a little bit.  When the road went from a paved road to a double track and there was a mail box I assumed this was someone's driveway, a dead end, and the right fork was the way to go.  We went up the right fork and climbed very steeply for about an hour.  At that point we came across some guys hunting for mushrooms and asked if we were on the right road to Champex-Lac.  None of them spoke English, so the communication mostly involved hand gestures, but we got the idea that we were indeed on the wrong road and that there was no way to get back on the right track without going all the way back down to the bottom!  We were certainly disappointed, but we thought that there must be a trail or something from the end of the road we were on up to the TMB hiking trail, despite the men's assurances there was not.  We found exactly where we were on the map and realized we were very close to the end of the road so we decided just to explore for ourselves.  We got to a switchback that had a singletrack trail leading away in the direction of the TMB so we headed down it.  Not 10m down the trail Bucky ran over a stick that got caught in his wheel, spun around, jammed on his derailleur, and snapped the hanger right off!  At this point I thought it would be prudent to roll back the way we came to Martigny and find a bike shop.  Bucky thought we were headed to the TMB, which was a hike-a-bike anyway, and we would find a bike shop in Champex-Lac.  We went with Bucky this time and hiked on down the trail, which promptly came to a dead end at a 20 ft drop into a creek.  We noticed a bunch of heavy anchors on our side of the creek, as well as a trail that headed up the other way, and determined that there used to be a bridge, but the bridge was long gone.  We explored a little trying to get down to the creek, but couldn't find an easy way and decided to head back and hike up to the end of the road and see if there was a trail there.  On the way we came across some hikers who told us there was definitely a trail that connected to the TMB.  With that good news in our pockets we hiked on and on and on and on, up a very steep trail that was heading West, when we wanted to be heading South.  After about 2 hrs of hiking we finally arrived at the junction with the TMB!  We took off Bucky's derailleur and chain and figured he could roll all the downhill and hike the uphill.  We also decided that I should take all the tools and pump and charge down the trail and try to get us a refuge in Champex-Lac before 7pm so I could get us some dinner.  After I charge the downhill I met up with the road and started climbing the last few hundred meters up the road to Champex-Lac.  With the slower pace and the smooth paved road I heard my phone buzzing.  I missed the call, but I checked my missed call log and saw that I had missed about twenty calls from Bucky in the last twenty minutes!  Apparently, about a minute after we split ways, he t-boned a rock and got a flat.  Since I had the pump he was walking all the downhill now too!  I was too far down the road to go back, so I rode on to Champex-Lac and found us a refuge.  When I told our story to the lady running the refuge she said her husband could definitely go pick Bucky up!  He was about 6km down the road when we got to him, a very short drive, but it would have been a very long walk!  The best part of it all was that we made it in time for dinner!  Day one was in the books, we were about an hour and a half away from where we had planned on going for the day, we had a broken bike, and the future of the trip was looking a little hazy.
Check out the video of the trip here:  Tour du Mont Blanc - Youtube