Briancon Day 5 - Col du Granon

Day five saw the final day of riding in Briancon before we head to Grenoble. The feature of today's ride was the brutal Col du Granon. The profile of this climb looked seriously hard when we were doing some research on it and looked set to be one of the toughest climbs we are going to come across on this trip. We knew that if we made it up this climb we can easily do any of the other climbs we have planned over the next few weeks. For that reason this climb was a must.

The climb didn't disappoint with 11 long kilometers of brutal climbing averaging a gradient of 8.6% and reaching a total altitude of 2,413m. By far the hardest section of the climb was the 7th kilometer which averaged over 11% making it very hard to get comfortable and a lot of time out of the saddle. Sadly, we were actually releived to see a gradient of 8-9%, something I don't think any of us have experienced before. 

The top of the climb proceeds through a military base which appeared to be some kind of training camp. At the summit lies nothing more than an empty car park, somewhat of an anti climax after the pain we had just put ourselves through. Despite this, at an altitude of 2,413m there is always going to be some spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. 

The roads up to the summit of Col du Granon are extremely narrow and the road is a little rough in sections with a lot of loose gravel and no guard rails. For this reason we decided to take the descent relatively easy. To our suprise the descent was actually quite an enjoyable one, despite a few blind corners where it was a little difficult to ascertain any oncoming traffic. I would love to give this one a crack with a closed road allowing for full use of the road into some of the corners.

Overall it was a pretty tough but extremely satisfieing day in the saddle and we are all pretty sore as a result. That brings to an end our adventures in Briancon, it has been a blast and definitely one of my favourite places I have visited in my journeys so far. We now head to Grenoble where we will eventually link up with a few stages of le Tour de France and do some more riding including the most famous climb of all, Alp d'huez. I think all of us are looking forward to a couple of well earned rest days and a couple of cheeky beers.