24.07.2008, 13:29
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 | Member | | Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Lausanne
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| Re: Road Cycling Routes (route discussions are on another thread)
Name: Col De la Croix Being able to tell your family and friends not from Switzerland that you rode up and over the alps makes it worth doing[/font] Area: VAUD Date: Sunday, July 20th 2008 Length: 60kmGPS: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6311364[/font]
Time: Took me 3:18 ridding time but allowing for stops (lunch/water etc) it took 5:00 Total Altitude: 1,500 meters Difficulty: Medium/Hard for me as it was my first one, Ascents: Pretty much only up for half and down for half so one assent really Traffic: Very light Transportation: Aigle is a main stop on the route from Geneva-Lausanne-Brig with services twice an hour Highlights: Views J oh and over taking cars on the way down, the roads are nice, wide and safe Lowlights Flies, they seem to stick to me and I was bitten by a horse fly or something my leg the next day was Very swollen Description in Detail: Ok so Three of us arrived in Agle at about 11:00am for the short ride to BEX, this is along a flat stretch of road and is the busiest part if you ask me, however there is a cycle road about 3m to the right one the main road so its not all that bad, I will say that in the other direction its not available and you are on the main road with all the other cars, Turning in to Bex we left out the back of the town towards Villars, this is where the hill starts it’s a pretty even 8% climb for most of the way with the villages allowing for a more gentle 5% plenty of switch backs and not to many disheartening long straights to annoy you(I know I hate them) Villars is about 3 quarts of the way up the route, and provides a great place to stop for some lunch, as it’s a tourist town most things are open on Sunday and we had no trouble finding a safe place to put the bikes on the main street allowing us to get some food from one of the bakeries, after a nice slow lunch we continued the route towards Diablerets where I think the official start of the Pass begins, this was a more gentle climb at first as the first few km after lunch were not to hard allowing the legs to get warmed up again. The final climb to the top was a bit steeper but with the end in sight it was not to much of a problem. After reaching the top it was time for the decent. With the holiday traffic and the “Sunday” drivers I had no trouble in overtaking 6-8 cars on the way down. The roads were nice and wide with no surprising bends at all. Once in Diablerets you have to pedal again after 10 minutes of doing nothing, the route we then chose was the main road back down the mountain to Aigle. While this is the main route down the hill it’s not super busy like it is in winter, but there are cars, however being the same speed as them if not faster makes it fun J The motorbike rider I came up next too had a very jealous look on his face and tired to leave me on the straight only to find I caught up again at all the corners J Well once again in the main town of Aigle it was time to take the train home, A very nice route, one which I shall repeat on my new full road bike rather than the heavy hybrid I did it one that weekend I would recommend this one for anyone for one simple reason as its up for 50% of the way you can at any point turn around and ride 100% downhill where ever you are so if you can’t make it in one go it doesn’t matter. I was not sure if I could but im glad to say I took on the pass and won i would say doing the route in reverse would not be fun climbing for me is nice on roads where i am on my own, so this way round is the only way it should be done. Thanks for reading Sam Cole  |