the river, but instead of turning onto the bike path, we turned left at
the 5-way intersection towards Beaufort on a departmental road. The
weather forecast was iffy (rain in the morning, thunderstorms in the
afternoon), but we ended up having nice weather all day. Beaufort is
well-known, at least locally, for their cheese. We did about 20
kilometers of gradually rising terrain as we hugged the Doron River. The
biggest excitement was the double-trailer of cordwood that passed me on
the curves along the rock walls, after waiting patiently for only a
semi-dangerous place to pass. I've had no serious close calls, but I'm
finding the riding here on the mountain roads requires all my skills and
attention. In our favor, there are so many serious cyclists out and
about that the cars are accustomed to us.
At Beaufort we had an option for a two-col day. Tom had parked at the
junction. Andrew, Lars and Luther choose to go directly to Cormet de
Roselend (not even the locals know what a "cormet" is, it is just another
high mountain pass). Evan had opted for the detour via Col de Pre. So
did I. Halfway up I came to the small village of Areche, where I refilled
my water bottles at the public fountain, and located an espresso at the
hotel where the road left town. Now the climb became a series of very
short switchbacks, each one providing a view seemingly straight down to
the previous ramps, down to Areche, and down to Beaufort. It reminded me
of the photographs of the switchbacks of Alpe d'Huez. As I climbed, the
view of the valley expanded. I almost got pinched by a huge baby-blue
tour bus on a right-hand hairpin turn, as it descended, and tried to share
the apex of the turn with me. Presumably, it hit one of the weight
restrictions further up, since I recalled it passing me. Not sure just
how it turned around, though.
I took several rests, carefully considering the location of each, owing to
the difficulty of restarting on the steep one-lane roads. The markers
every kilometer, designed exclusively for cyclists, frequently advertised
the upcoming kilometer as having an average 10% or 11% grade. With two
and a half kilometers left, Evan surprised me by coming down my way. He'd
been to the top, but not gone far enough over to find the restaurant Tom
had promised. So we rode together to the summit of Col de Pre, having
climbed about 1500 meters total on the day to get there.
At the col, we chatted some with a Parisian cyclist, who was proud of his
membership in the Mount Ventoux Cycling Club. I noticed his Mount Ventoux
water bottle, which was nearly identical to the one I was using today, a
souvenir from a stay in Vaison-la-Romaine in 2004. We had a good laugh
about that, and he told me that the bicycle shop there had since closed.
We dropped over the crest, and very quickly found the bar and Tom. Lars
was there too, having reached the lake, but then running out of gas and
now riding in the car. The scenery was terrific with the blue Lac de
Roselend 200 meters below us, and the Mont Blanc massif before us. By
now, my formula is an large espresso (grand cafe), a soda (Coca or
Oranginna), and a fruit tart (tartelle). In this case, the raspberry tart
was quite delicious.
Col du Pre is just a waystation. We dropped down to the lake (formed by
a dam) and rejoined the main road. Another seven kilometers or so, plus
another 500 meters of elevation, took us up through an incredibly scenic
alpine meadow, bisected by a raging mountain stream, to Cormet de
Roselend. There was a herd of cows pastured just below the col, clustered
around a portable milking station. The high peaks, the raw rock faces,
the meadow, the cows, the blue sky and the stream made for a
picture-postcard-perfect scene, to say nothing of the cowbells. There was
a restaurant or two along the road, but we turned back down after
obligatory photos.
Back the way we came, though not over the Col de Pre. As we left the
lake, the road entered a very bowl-shaped valley, with a very narrow exit
in evidence some hundreds of meters below us. It was hard to imagine that
a road was going to take us there along the very steep wooded slopes. But
it did.
It was a long, hard climb, but it felt good to have done it. You cannot
describe the thought of the Tour de France riders climbing several cols in
a day and finishing with something like this. A ham and cheese crepe in
Albertville was my reward.
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