Day 12 : The Galibier

It had again been a cold night. As long as the sun wasn't shining on our bivy bags we stayed inside. It would be too cold otherwise. We heard the frat boys talking about why the three Italians on the other side were laughing. It turned out they were laughing about our bivy bags. When Bram turned around I could hear them too. One of the frat boys shouted 'commando style', he thought we were still sleeping.

When I wanted to get up the three Italian guys came up to me to ask how our bivy bags work. It wasn't easy to explain, but they nodded like they understood. The frat guys had piled their garbage bags on top of their van so they didn't had to carry them to the cans at the campings' exit. Then they drove off like that. Bram heard them say that one time they had forgotten about the bags, so they had fallen off while they were driving.

We had to climb back uphill all the way from Bourg d'Oisans to the top of the Lautaret. The first part wasn't that steep. It was 15 kilometers to get back to the village where we had slept two days before. There we got some food and drinks before continuing. It was another 10 km to reach the Lautaret. We saw a lot of cyclists going downhill with a number on their frame. Perhaps today was La Marmotte, a well-known cycling race. At the top we bought some more bread. It was too warm to sit in the sun, but we found a nearly empty terrace with benches and parasols. We sat down but shortly after a lady came to tell us 'a drink or no table'. We ordered two cola but they still didn't seem happy we stayed. As usual we cut the bread in 3 cm thick slices and put on a fat layer of chocolate spread. I thought the drinks would cost 6 euros, according to Bram it couldn't be that expensive. It turned out to be 5,90. Now we were allowed to stay at the terrace I decided to use their bathroom as well. There was a huge line. A French man there told me that La Marmotte had already been ridden earlier this year.

It was 8 kilometer from the Lautaret to the top of the Galibier. Those were a lot steeper than the kilometers we had already climbed. We cycled slowly, otherwise 50 km of nearly continuous uphill cycling wouldn't be possible. From the Galibier we had a very nice view. We stopped to take some pictures.

View towards the north

A few children suddenly started shouting 'ground hog'. Apparently there was a groundhog somewhere on the mountain. It was wobbling from one stone to the next. Fortunately I carried a really good camera, so I managed to take a clear photo.

The groundhog
 

When we thought we had finally made it to the summit we discovered that the indicated 8 km wasn't the distance to the top, but to a tunnel through the mountain. The real summit was another 2 kilometers uphill with a 10% incline. I didn't like that idea too much, but Bram really hated it. We still decided to climb them though. Next to the tunnel was a souvenir shop, but we figured there would be another one at the real summit. The view from the summit was really nice, so we took some more photos.

Col du Galibier
 

We walked towards a viewpoint.

We had cycled up from this side

We would descent in this direction, below is the souvenir shop we would visit later.

An Orientation table at the top of the Galibier
 

Before we went down I quickly checked my bike. My brake pads lasted the entire trip. The part of my luggage carrier that might touch my tire was getting closer and closer. I told Bram 'I need to find a rigid piece of metal about 20 centimeters long, so I can fix it'. He said 'good luck finding that on the top of the Galibier'. I also figured I would never find something like that.

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We descended a little to the souvenir shop. I put my bike against the wall and noticed something brown on the floor. I used my foot to remove some gravel. It was a piece of rebar exactly the right length to fix my carrier. I picked it up and was very happy. So happy that Bram wanted to take a photo.

I hadn't smiled so much the entire vacation
 

In the store they didn't sell many nice things. The only thing rigid enough to bring home and with 'Galibier 2645 m' on it was a small metal plate, which I bought. Bram wanted to buy a hat of every big mountain we climbed. He already had ones of the Tourmalet, Mont Ventoux, and Alpe d'Huez. They didn't have any in this store, but maybe the one on the other side of the tunnel did. While Bram went back towards the other side of the mountain (through the tunnel) I once again set out to fix my bike.

The repar with two pieces of rebar

The broken piece I had fixed on the day before
 

Bram had found a hat in the other store. Together we descended, from there it was only a small climb to reach the top of the col du Télégraphe.

Bram

Bart
 

The descent from the Télégraphe was nice. This year there were few mountains where we could cycle downhill and easily reach 65 km/h. After the descent we reached a busy road. It went uphill so we couldn't go fast. In the next town we bought some food. After the town followed two more climbs. It stayed hilly. The plan of today was to get over the Galibier and then find the nearest campsite. However, climbing the Galibier didn't take as long as we anticipated and it was still early. We only had one choice for tomorrow's campsite, otherwise we needed to cycle either very little or extremely far. That meant we had to decide to cycle a bit further today or do that tomorrow. We decided to stop early today, it had been a tough day with 50 km of climbing. Just before we reached the village an oncoming car nearly drove us off the road.

We quickly found the campsite, which had a funny owner. He told us there would be a mobile bakery in the morning, that supposedly sold very good chocolate buns. In this part of France they sold more chocolate buns, while in the Pyrenees it were raisin buns. We didn't have much cash left, just enough to pay the campsite and two beers. There was only half a spot left on the campsite, all the way in the back. Around 20:00 we had everything set up, which was not super early but sooner than usual. As the beer was still cold we drank that before showering. The campsite was right next to a river, which meant there were a lot of mosquitoes. The battery of my phone was almost empty, fortunately I could call for 10 minutes, then I heard some beeps and it switched off.

At 22:00 we crawled into our bivy bags to sleep. An hour later, two loud bangs!! Then more. I was completely shocked. What could there be on a campsite that can explode this loudly?? I looked outside and saw some green stuff in the sky. Fortunately they were only fireworks. At night it was cold again.

Distance cycled : 124 km