Stress Test

The promised rain materialised today. We spent the morning indoors. Andrew had managed to acquire the final episode of this season's Game of Thrones, and watched it on his phone, while I did a bit of reading. The rain eased from time to time during the morning, and it looked as though it might hold off for a while early in the afternoon.

Andrew decided to go and try a run at altitude. He drove up to Alpe d'Huez, and ran there. I wanted to do a ride with some steep climbs, without venturing too far from home, in case the weather closed in again. I elected to ride to the balcony road, starting at the end above Le Freney.

I started off with the now familiar ride up the gorge, and through the two tunnels to reach Le Freney. The turn to the balcony road is at the end of the village. It is signed Auris-en-Oisan, which is actually a collection of small villages, and the ski station.

The first 5 km of the climb are steep. The gradient never falls below 10%, and can hit 14% in places. This was just what I needed after the relatively moderate gradients of yesterday's climb to the Galibier. It stayed more or less dry for this part. Once up the steepest part, the balcony road splits from the road to the ski station and continues along, roughly parallel to the main road past Bourg d'Oisans in the valley. Soon, the vistas over the valley open up. The challenge quickly becomes one of identifying well known landmarks in the valley.

Le Vénéon near Le Clapier

Le Vénéon is the most obvious landmark from the balcony road. It flows down from glaciers above Venosc, forming a large flood plane near Le Clapier. Here it joins La Romanche, to continue the journey towards Grenoble. La Romanche can be seen merging with Le Vénéon near the centre of the frame. At this point, La Romanche is in a channel running from the barrage at Le Clapier. Le Clapier itself is hidden behind the hill in the foreground.

With the weather closing in once more, I elected to cut and run. At one point I waited in one of the tunnels on the balcony road while a shower passed through. I rode as far as La Grave, and descended back to the valley on the road from Alpe d'Huez. There were several rivulets running across the road, which made picking braking points more important than usual. The rain had abated by the time I reached the valley, and then it was just the matter of time trialing along the main road back to Le Clapier.

The Activity for this ride is available on Strava.