With the Col du Galibier only being opened a mere 7 days ago and being cancelled from the Giro due to snow just last month, we knew it was going to be a cold one but we didn't expect it to be quite as bad as it turned out to be.
The first climb for the day was the Col du Lautaret, a long (18.8km) but relatively tame climb at an average gradient of 3.3% reaching a total altitude of 2,058m. The climb proceeds along the national route 91 which is the main road connecting through to Grenoble. From the second we reached the base of the climb the rain began and it was a very wet and miserable ascent to the top. By the time we reached the top we were all pretty much frozen solid and made the decision to have some lunch in the local cafe at the top and try and defrost.
While sitting in the cafe the weather conditions continued to worsen and it quickly became clear that Galibier was not going to happen today. We saw a couple of brave riders come down from the mountain looking very purple and shaking uncontrollably, not something we were to keen to experience. The photos below show the worsening conditions and were taken a matter of seconds after each other. One second you can see Galibier in the background. A few seconds later the mountain has disappeared behind the cloud cover. A good example of just how quickly the conditions can change up in the mountains.
With it looking more and more unlikely that Galibier was going to happen, we decided to call it a day and began the descent back down into Briancon so we could watch the opening stage of Le Tour. The descent was not a lot of fun with very icy and slippery roads making for some very sketchy conditions so we decided to take it fairly easy. It was a shame as the descent would have been super fast if the conditions were dry.
Today we head to the Col de Granon which looks set to be one of the hardest, if not the hardest, climb we will do on the trip.
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