Day 6: Sat 19th June 2010
Ride: Col du Petit St. Bernard - 147 miles
After a night on the pop no one was up very quickly the next morning. There had been a fresh snowfall overnight on the higher lower slopes of Mont Blanc so it was likely that the higher passes would be closed. Nonetheless the weather didn’t look too bad.
Parked up at Chalet Le Bois Rond
At midday Cat and Kyle decided to get going but couldn’t wake Phil who was having a post breakfast snooze, so they left him behind and headed for the Mont Blanc Tunnel. It costs €23.20 one way to travel through the tunnel on a motorcycle. Their route took them from Chamonix, Petit St Bernard, Moutiers, Albertville and back again to Chamonix.
Cat's V-Max and Kyle's GSX-R1000 at the top of the Petit St. Bernard
Bob, Gaz and Pete were in let’s watch the TV and veg out mode. Phil awoke to find he had missed Cat and Kyle but couldn’t face the thought of lying around and doing nothing – this was meant to be a bike trip after all - so he thought he would just try a trip on spec wondering whether he could get round to Col D’Iseran to climb it from the South side.
Phil set off in dry conditions but after Megeve it started raining so he stopped and put his rain suit on. This was a good move as the rain got steadily worse and the descent through Flumet was tricky. Arriving at Pont de Flon he was irritated to find that the main road to Ugine was still blocked, as it had been 2 years previously on the way back from Briancon. The result was that he had to use the back road, which was tight, twisty, poorly surfaced and full of amateur cyclists to get to Ugine.
Ugine and Albertville strangely seemed to be enjoying a microclimate, as there had been no rain there at all. Phil reckoned his chances of his ride coming off were looking better. He set off down the motorway A430 towards Grenoble and then turned onto the A43, which takes you to the Frejus tunnel into Italy. At this point the heavens opened and when he saw the motorway sign advising that you needed “equipement speciale” i.e. snow chains, for Col D’Iseran it was clear that it was pointless to continue. He exited the motorway at La Chambre and headed back to Albertville and Ugine. He was having a break by the start of the roadworks at Ugine but who rode up but Cat and Kyle.
After stopping for a coffee at Pont de Flon the trio retraced their steps to the chalet where they found that the other three, predictably, had gone on the lash in Chamonix.
Kyle, Cat and Phil outside MBC
After getting cleaned up they too got a taxi into Chamonix and met up with the other group before heading to Casa Valerio for some god Italian food.
