Lost in Lausanne: Allez-hup Alpe d’Huez….

When cycling up big climbs in Europe, particularly those in the Tour de France, you often see words of encouragement painted in middle of road where riders will clearly see them. A favorite seems to be “Hup!” which we think means “go” in Dutch.

Laurie and I decided to spend one of our remaining weekends exploring in the area around the town of Bourg d’Oisans in the French Alps. Actually, this time of year almost everyone travels there for one thing: to cycle to the top of Alpe d’Huez and we wanted to do the same.

Our plan was simple: take the train from Lausanne to Grenoble, ride to a chambre d’hôte (B&B) in Bourg d’Oisans, and get an early start up the 21 switchback climb up Alpe d’Huez. The timing was perfect: the Tour de France will go up Alpe d’Huez twice this year. Even better, this being Father’s Day weekend, Laurie planned the whole trip…

Resting up on train trip to Grenoble*

We had amazingly good luck. The weather forecast was cloudy but no serious rain. The bike route out of Grenoble was complicated but when I asked directions from a fellow cyclist he motioned that we should follow him and we had a personal escort for the next 50 km (30 miles). Turns out Aldo had already ridden 400 km in 3 days and was out to just “loosen up the legs.” He delivered us to our destination and then headed back to Grenoble. Feeling inspired by Aldo, I left Laurie to check us in and rode another 10 miles or so up the nearby col d’Ornon. Decent climb with spectacular views.

Col d'Ornon

The chambre d’hôte in Bourg d’Oisans, La Cle des Bois, was a real find. The charming owners, Marie (from nearby Vizelle) and Peter (a former restaurateur from Belgium), fixed up an old farm house five years ago. We met the other guests on the way to hot tub - 10 Dutch cyclists who planned to go up Alpe d’Huez the next morning. Hup!

Le Cle des Bois in Bourg d'Oisans

While Doug was climbing col d'Ornon...**

View toward col du Glandon from our balcony

Many chambre d’hotes offer dinner (“table d’hôte”) for an extra charge, which are usually fantastic and this was no exception. Laurie and I had a romantic dinner of beef vigneron fondue (made with red wine), ravioli, salad and cherry ice cream in the wine cellar (a converted goat shelter). Total cost: 58 euros (for 2) including a carafe of organic Cotes du Rhone wine. Wow.

After a big breakfast of fresh croissants, yogurt, fruit and coffee with the Dutch riders, we left our bike bags at La Cle des Bois and headed to the base of Alpe d’Huez. We decided in advance that we would each go our own pace and meet at the top. In addition to frequent encouragement written on the road, each switchback had a sign with the name of the stage winner in a previous Tour de France. Inspiring. Final results for the 13 km and 3113 feet of climbing: my time to the top was 1 hour 2 minutes, Laurie did it in a remarkable 1 hour 32 minutes.

Ready to go!

Final switchback on Alpe d'Huez

View from top of Alpe d'Huez

Most cyclists turnaround and go back down, but we decided to continue past Alpe d’Huez, climb the col de Sarenne and loop around to Bourg d’Oisans via a very remote route with a "technical" (that usually translates to dangerous) descent.

Col de Sarenne

Easy part of the descent of col de Sarenne...

Laurie descending the "technical" part of col de Sarenne

After lunch in Bourg d’Oisans we picked up our bags from the chambre d’hôte and started riding towards Gernoble. About halfway there we were unsure which way to go, and sure enough, along comes another French cyclist who points us in the right direction and says he will lead us to the train station! Hervé joined us for drink (“un verre”) at the train station before leaving us to take the train back to Lausanne.