Onward and upward - a tour of the French Alps

Riding the Grand Traverse of the Alps had been on my someday/one day list since a friend had given me a copy of the Cicero Guide to Cycling in the French Alps about 20 years ago. It seemed like a great way to combine a holiday with collecting some serious altitude points for a long-overdue Ordre des Cols Durs claim. In late 2019, I had made plans to ride it the following September, booking accommodation all along the suggested route, only for Covid to force me to cancel. It remained on the someday list until I again had the opportunity to get away for a few weeks last September.

The 700km route, as suggested in the Cicero guide, takes in some 14,400m of climbing – and a commensurate amount of descending. Although the route as originally envisaged in 1911 (as a challenge for pioneering motorists) began in Thonon-les Bains, on the southern shore of Lac Leman, and reached the Mediterranean in Menton, on the French-Italian border, the guide recommends starting in Geneva, as it’s easier to get there by plane or train. From there it’s a flat 51km ride along the shoreline to the start.

I chose the train option and, after a very leisurely ride from Switzerland into France, I stayed overnight with some good friends who have built a stunning house on the lakeside near Thonon. I had good intentions but, as we’d not seen each other for a few years, inevitably left the next morning a little later than planned and with a promise to myself that I would stay off the wine for the rest of the ride. (Spoiler alert – I didn’t.)

After a fairly gentle first day, peaking with at 1121m on the climb away from Lac Leman, my second day began with the steady climb of the Col des Aravis. A breakneck descent into Flumet was followed by the more challenging Col des Saisies, which rises from the town in a series of short, sharp hairpins, very much like the lower slopes of Alpe D’Huez, before settling into a 6-7% drag, enlivened by spectacular views, including of Mont Blanc.

Here, as throughout these northern Alps, there was a constant clattering of cowbells to accompany my weary breathing. I half expected to encounter the Von Trapps warbling away at the top of some mountain but the only Austrians I met were a bunch of motorcyclists on their own Grand Traverse. The route is very popular with bikers and, while the cattle were replaced by goats as the terrain became more rugged, the roar of approaching motorbikes was a frequent occurrence almost all the way to the coast.

Although I was looking forward with some trepidation to the famous passes, such as the Col de l’Iseran and the Cime de la Bonnette, the first real challenge for me came without warning on the third day, on the Col du Pré – a tiny road that barely warrants a mention in the guide but which climbs sharply out of Beaufort and includes around 4km of relentless 9.5-11% gradient. It’s a quiet alternative to the main road leading to the start of the Cormet de Roseland. I suspect the reason it’s so quiet is encapsulated in this understated comment in the book, Legendary Climbs of the Tour de France: “It is not a nice climb”.

While taking a breather on one painful stretch, I encountered a fellow Audax UK member, Mike from Inverness. He was following the same route as me, also self-supported with hotel stops, but had compressed some of the stages into longer days to complete the trip in fewer days. A little later, when we were having a coffee at the café at the Col du Pré summit, a grizzled old French rider in racing kit came over to ask us what gears we were using to be carrying so much luggage, going away shaking his head in disbelief when we told him.

Over the following days, life slipped into a repeated up and down pattern as I ticked off classic climbs such as the Cols de Telegraphe, Galibier and Izoard - the latter being the setting for the crucial event in my forthcoming novel, What Goes on Tour. I’d climbed the Izoard in 2006, when it formed part of the Etape du Tour route from Gap to Alpe D’Huez. On that day, I’d stopped for a coffee at a friendly cafe about a quarter of the way up the climb, which inspired the Cafe Barguil, at which the novel opens.

The lower slopes of these climbs were often forested and I was plagued by tiny flies, persistently buzzing around my face, particularly on the Col de Telegraphe. At times I felt like PigPen from the Peanuts cartoons, riding along in my own personal cloud. I’d reach each summit dripping in sweat only to be immediately bitten by the cold and reminded to layer up for the descent.

I became used to being overtaken by stick-thin racing snakes on carbon fibre bikes that probably weighed less than my water bottles as I hauled my 30-year-old Dawes Galaxy, complete with full panniers, up the slopes. Often their ‘bonjour’ would be followed by ‘bravo’ or ‘bonne chance’. I also encountered several groups of British riders on organised tours, their luggage being carried from hotel to hotel in vans. In the café near the summit of the Galibier, one spotted my London-Edinburgh-London jersey and, having boasted about how easy he was finding the climbs, proceeded to tell me that he didn’t understand the appeal of Audax events and thought the whole concept of riding through the day and on through the night was ‘a bit autistic’. I was happy not to bump into him again.

In Briancon, taking a day off, I met Mike again. He was planning to cross both the Col d’Izoard and Col de Vars the following day. I was planning to take two days. I hope he managed it without too much pain.

After the Col de Vars - where the photo above was taken by one of the professionals who position themselves at key points on most of the big climbs and descents - only one hard climb was left, or so I thought, before a couple of days’ steady descent to the Mediterranean. It’s well-known that the Cime de la Bonette is not a real col but a completely unnecessary loop road contrived solely to steal the Col de l’Iseran’s crown as the highest through road in Europe, at 2,860 metres. Nevertheless, it’s there so it had to be ridden. As I approached and viewed the wall of scree from which the narrow road had been gouged, it was hard not to think about John-Lee Augustyn, the 2008 Tour de France rider who, having led the race to the summit, lost control of his bike on the descent and shot off the road and down the slope. It’s amazing that he was able to stop his descent and, eventually, clamber back up. I took my descent much more cautiously.

Over the whole trip, descending was tricky at times. I’m normally confident going fast downhill but riding a loaded tourer with traditional rim brakes on steep and twisting mountain roads meant having to stop regularly to allow the rims to cool, or else risking them overheating and causing a tyre to burst, which is not something to welcome when descending at 40-50mph. I came to envy those racing snakes with their disc brakes.

After the Bonette, the Cicero guide promised only two small climbs on my 90km penultimate day: to the pretty village of La Tour-sur-Tinnée, at 603m and then, after dropping back into the valley, up to the medieval town of Utelle, at 800m. I was in for an easy day, I thought.

The turning for La Tour rose up from the gently descending valley road to Nice at an immediate 8% and then became steeper, peaking at around 14%. A group of local riders on electric road bikes came by and complemented me on my efforts. Encountering them again when I stopped for lunch in the village at the summit, they took it in turns to pick up my loaded bike and offer shocked expressions at the weight.

“You’re not going to Utelle, are you?” one asked. “It’s too steep for you to ride up on that.”

I laughed and explained that I’d ridden many much more serious climbs over the previous week. He shook my hand and wished me luck. I took my time to finish my lunch. Even if it was a bit of a slog, it was still only going to be a couple of hundred metres above where I already was. Hell, I’ve ridden the Bryan Chapman Memorial several times, for goodness’ sake.

I should have listened. The road to Utelle was narrow and spectacular, at times in dense woodland, at other times opening out with stunning views of the surrounding hills and the river valley below, but it was also in atrocious condition in places and had stretches with gradients of between 17% and 24%. On one such pothole-ravaged hairpin, I lost control. My front wheel reared up and lurched sideways; my cranks were turning too slowly for me to unclip from the pedals and down I came, my landing being softened only by the bulk of a pannier. The road was too steep, and the surface too poor, at that point for me to be able to achieve enough momentum to get moving again, so, much as I would like to claim to have cycled from Geneva to Nice, I’m afraid I walked about a kilometre of the route.

I cruised gently into Nice the following day, seeking out the wonderful Café Des Cyclistes in the harbour. It seemed like an appropriate place to finish and, again, my ‘classic’ tourer attracted a great deal of interest as the owner summoned me to bring it into the shop and placed it reverentially against one wall while I enjoyed some juice, coffee and cake. Ahead, I had the overnight train to Paris and a mad ride across the city to catch another train to Caen but, for now, I was content to sit back, enjoy having achieved a long-standing ambition and start thinking about where I might go next.

WHAT I TOOK WITH ME

I took my 1996 Dawes Galaxy. A couple of extra teeth at the back would have been helpful but I still think I’d have been walking up towards Utelle.

I had two sets of bib shorts and two jerseys, plus a fleece top and waterproof top, which were needed only on some of the descents, along with arm and leg warmers and full fingered gloves. I had one set of lightweight clothes to wear off the bike.

A two-pin plug with three USB sockets took care of all my charging needs – camera, phone, Garmin, lights and earphones and I got through a couple of paperbacks, which were donated to hotel ‘libraries’.

The heaviest item in the panniers was my tool bag, which included anything I’d need for basic repairs halfway up a mountain, plus four spare tubes and one spare tyre. The only time I opened it was to find a screwdriver to remove a stone that had become wedged in one of my cleats.

GETTING THERE

Working well in advance, mainly using Booking.com, I was able to find accommodation in most of the towns suggested as overnight stops in the guide. A greater challenge was navigating the French railway system, with its mixture of trains with bookable spaces for bikes, those on which bikes are not permitted at all and those on which bikes are allowed but at the discretion of individual guards. After spending far more time than can be good for my mental health on the SNCF website, I finally pieced together a route to Geneva, taking the ferry from Portsmouth and then trains via Caen, Paris and Lyon.  Fortunately, I have friends in Lyon so was able to spread this over a couple of days.

For the return, I took the sleeper train from Nice to Paris, leaving Nice at 7pm and arriving around eight in the morning. Having been spoiled on my Scottish adventures by using the Caledonian Express sleeper, this was a bit of a let-down. The cabins were cramped, with six berths and very little floor space, and there were no onboard facilities - but it did what I needed it to do. From Paris, after a leisurely breakfast watching thousands of commuters whizzing by on their bikes, thanks to the city’s newish network of dedicated cycle lanes, I took the train back out to Caen and spent the afternoon at the Caen Memorial Museum, which I’d firmly recommend. The only reason I left at 6pm was because it was closing; there was still more I wanted to see. I then had time to ride out to the coast and alongside the Normandy beaches, have a huge dinner in Ouistreham, and - because the French know how to treat cyclists - be first on to the overnight ferry back to Portsmouth.

This article was first published in Arrivee, the magazine of Audax UK, Winter 2025