After a rain day yesterday, we woke up to perfect weather for the Col Cormet de Roseland .. the premiere ride of the region!
We road out with Doug and Carman and then they turned off to do Les Arc 1800 (as they had done our ride before we arrived). We started the ascent after a relaxing 8km warm up along the bike path.
The ascent was very nice as we watched the temperature rise from a low of 3C this morning to 6C at 1100m and finally some sun and 12C closer to the top! We saw quite a few 8% and 9% grades and even a stretch of 12% for a km .. but it helped having a day off yesterday to rest the legs!
Towards to top we found snow .. and as we peaked a light wind greeted us in time for some pics! ... then a 6km descent down the other side to see Lac de Roseland which was quite pretty... but we were getting cold and happily found a small restaurant! Marion had fun talking with the owners and they pulled out the portable heater for us to warm up by and to dry some clothes! We had an excellent souffle omelette with Beaufort cheese .. mmm!
The climb back up to the Col was not as hard as feared as we did the 6km 350m with sun and maybe a tailwind!
Then we cruised all the way back down to Bourg St Maurice and Landry with all our recently acquired clothing on ... nice and toasty .. well, almost!
Tomorrow we have a change of plan! With the low temperatures forecast for the mountains for the next week, we decided to skip Saint Jean de Maurienne and instead catch the train to Saint Martin d'Ardeche .. Just up river from Orange! We are expecting low 20C and sun!
