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Day 15: One Month Ahead of the Tour de France - Col d'Izoard TdF HC 2,360m
Blue sky and sunshine, with cloud building during the late morning into afternoon. Cold but calm mountain air. It had been excellent decision yesterday to postpone cycling until this morning.
This year’s Tour de France route included, as Stage 14, a day when they came from the Col du Lautaret (been there) through Briançon and then climbed the Col d’Izoard (an HC climb to altitude 2,360m) before going on to a mountain top finish at Risoul. The Col d’Izoard was the highest col climbed by the 2014 TdF. It was 2014 and we were staying in Briançon, so we really could not turn away the challenge of cycling part of this year’s route and checking out the Col d’Izoard summit for them. No need to get carried away though, we were happy to leave out the stage finish at Risoul. Much of the climb was through wooded hairpins, breaking out near to the top into another different (to us) landscape of rather bleak moraine summit slopes with earth pillars described as ‘Casse-deserte’. Sheila looked as calm as ever, but John struggled to get going sweating enough for both of us. Perhaps two non-cycling days had an effect? There was the usual stream of motorbikes, cyclists overtaking us and heaps of wild flowers, with the climb interspersed with stops to eat, or have a comfort break, or just to stop. At the top we took photos of the monument, col sign and of various view out. 1km below the Col was an auberge – the Refuge Napoleon – built in 1858. We rapidly free wheeled around a few sharp bends to arrive there. It was a perfect cyclists coffee stop. We sat in the sunshine and enjoyed large cups of hot chocolate and really good tart. As we could not decide between myrtile and fruits of the forest, so we ordered both and shared half each. Fleeces on, pertex tops on, gloves and mitts on. One turn of the pedals and we were off on the descent. A few stops on the way down just to look at the views and the drop below. Once we had grabbed a snack lunch we packed up and motored to Barcelonnette ready to begin our exploration of the Mercantour. Click on any photo to enlarge and scroll through
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