Tour du Mont Blanc - one hell of a day

A few years ago, here at Traverse, we did the Tour du Mont Blanc. We had two great weekends over a couple of years. As is standard, I got myself excited about making up jerseys. For this event, I went for an Eddie Merckx mustard yellow colour. The route is pretty self explanatory, it goes around Mont Blanc and crosses three countries with some monster high mountain passes. The Cimi Coppi, the highest point, is at the Italian / Swiss border, at the Grand Saint Bernard Monastery. The first edition was great as we had some help for the cars and I could join the cyclists. A first and last time! It was epic.... and very tough. Day 1 was Flumet to Bourg St Maurice, Day 2 Bourg Saint Maurice to Grand Saint Bernard and Day 3 Grand Saint Bernard to Flumet. Over the two weekends, we had 40 people complete the route.

Views like this are hard to resist (Swiss/Italian border)

That should have been the end of it.

But I wore the jersey a bit and a few people mentioned the challenge of some people doing it in a day - a seed was sown!

It will not come as much of a surprise that the summer of 2020 has not seen much business in the way of bike tours. But every cloud… I have managed to get out on the bike a lot. Clocking up the miles, it was a great way to fill up the days and I started to do longer and longer rides. 150km rides turned into 200km and I suddenly realised that I was perhaps in the form to do a 300km ride. And then it hit me. I should try the Tour du Mont Blanc.

As this was a new adventure, I did not want to do it in the same direction as last time so I did a bit of research and found the page for a small sportive, that does it every year. I thought that I would try their official route! For what appears an attempt to get a ride of over 9000m, they chucked in two extra climbs!!

A route of over 330 km means being in the saddle for 16 to 18 hours without a break; I knew it was going to be a challenge - I would have to leave at 3 am- latest.

So, after a nice BBQ watching the FA Cup Final (shame about the result) I set off in the van with a bike, a frame bag and loads of energy bars to Flumet. I had also soaked some porridge oats to have in the morning.

After 4 hours sleep, I left the van and went to the water fountain in the village and then it was time. At 2.30am, there was some sort of village party going on and a few party goers could not understand what a guy wearing a cycle kit was doing! They were pretty excited and as I left, I could hear them telling their friends! It was not an epic send off, but appropriate.

The first 100km flew by. It was exhilarating doing the climbs at night and I could not believe my luck when I looked up at a moonlit Mont Blanc and saw a shooting star - an omen? The sun rose just as I entered Switzerland.

Cycling for 90km in the dark was both peaceful and exhilarating at the same time

A couple of the smaller cols ticked off. Now it was time to turn off the road to the Grand Saint Bernard for the little addition to Champex. I was livid, what were they thinking putting this in as an extra, it was ridiculously steep, I think my computer said 17% on one bend. I tried not to go in the red but I had to get up the road! Champex was pretty though!

A beautiful village but I am not sure the Champex detour was really worth it!!!

Then for the big one, the last 7km from the tunnel was again steep and with these double-digit gradients, I was starting to doubt whether I could complete the challenge. Simply the speed that I was travelling meant that it was going to take more than 17 hours. After the descent into Italy, the route took its second detour, a balcony road to Verrogne, it was steep again and now the Italian sunshine was making it harder.

By the time I had got down it and ridden up the valley road to the start of the Petit Saint Bernard, I was pretty low. I just thought that I had three more climbs and that I did not have it in me. They were all longer climbs at around 20km too.

This is where I met Marjolein, who had driven across to bring a second bag of bars and give me a potential exit strategy. I was pretty grumpy and downbeat. She said that I did not have to continue but sometimes I find strength by reminding myself that I would have to probably try again, and I did not want to do that.

I would be glad to see the back of Saint Bernard, he was always showing up

She went up to La Thuile, halfway up the next climb and pre-ordered us some pizzas. It was great as it broke this climb up and at 3pm, I could have my first break from cycling - 12 hours in! I was still anxious but I thought that I would continue; to my surprise the last 3 climbs were a much kinder gradient, 6-7% rather than 10% +.

When I was into France, I could see storm clouds everywhere, Marjolein was back home and it was raining, she said that she could come and get me, “don’t be stubborn” she said. But there was no rain! As I cycled up the Cormet du Roseland, I could see the clouds parting. Weirdly on the descent, there was rain on the reservoir but not on the road that skirted it! I guess some things are just meant to be.

I got up Les Saisies at a steady pass and at 9.30pm it was just getting dark. It was pitch black as I returned to Flumet at 10pm. Done! Just get in the van to drive it back home over the Aravis!

And that was that, the biggest challenge that I have ever done, just a memory!