Cycling French Alps

Summer or Winter? Its been a bizarre few weeks in the Alps. A week ago we had 26 degrees, now its 2.6 degrees and snowing! I guess its that time of year. One day its Winter gear, next its Summer gear. The weeks are flying by towards the Etape du Tour and the Tour de France however before that we're all training very hard for the local Time Megeve event which is only 3 weeks away and excellent conditioning for anyone undertaking the Marmotte or the Etape du Tour. The Time Megeve always coincides with the Criterium Dauphine and this year we'll be watching the Queens stage of the Dauphine on Saturday June 9th immediately before the Time Megeve on the Sunday. The Dauphine goes over the Joux Plane this year. We tried to go over it on Monday however its still closed about 3/4 way up due to snow! The Dauphine also goes over the Grand Colombier on Friday 8th June so we'll be off to that stage too as this climb will also feature in this years Tour de France. Even though the main Cols in the area (Grand and Petit St Bernard, Colombiere, Joux Plaine, Roseland, Madelaine) are still closed due to the epic amounts of snow we had this Winter there's still plenty of challenges in the region and Monday saw us over the Ramaz which is passable with care at the summit ( we met a snow plough just before the Summit) and the Encrenaz.

3 weeks ago on the Col Des Aravis No further on the Joux Plane

In the sun last week we also had a ride over into Switzerland and the 80KMH an hour descent to Martigny and to prove its not all eye balls out climbing in the Alps we had a 100kms on the flat around to Samoens and back Tomorrow sees the first Sportive of the year near Lyon (yet another Bank Holiday in France tomorrow!) and we're forecast a sunny day. Then its a likely trip down to Mt Ventoux in 2 weeks, followed by the Time Megeve and then its all down hill to the Etape!