Greetings viewers – here’s a ride Caroline and I completed whilst on our holiday in europe… Starting near the base of Alp d’Huez, Col de la Croix de Fer is altogether a different beast, much more scenic, a harder climb with statistics to match (63km and 1700m climbing for the round trip!) – watch to see how we get on!
hello viewers great you join us in lovely alamon or alamont whatever the French want to call it that one or the other pronunciation today or not and we’re about to head up called de laad which is quite a sizeable clim about 1,500 me elevation gain with a few undulations so feel a little bit harder than that some steep bits some very flat bits um Caroline’s on this lovely BMC alpen challenge amm it’s got a war and uh I am on my ro we’re about to set off not on the clim yet but just thought we show you the amount of water coming down the valley that we’re going to be going up there is tons it’s burst as Banks that’s how hot it is this time of year first little section completed some hair pins out of the town of alamont about 6 7% quite nice next we need to go around this Dam okay so we’re on the first or second actually I should say really steep bit it’s not ridiculous right now about 89% I think kicks up a little bit more but uh how we finding it yes good should we compare it to the first 10k of one two oh that was horrible that was so mucher it was ridiculous first well like the first 15K of vtu all of it actually all of vtu the whole thing unrelenting completely and the unrelenting but as you can see with the gradient map bits of red bits of orange and the Orange is like 3 4 5% what we just did and the red like now 8% 9% 10% 10% actually yeah and uh for us Brits who are quite used to going really slow and then really fast and really slow really fast not that 3% allows you to get really fast but you know what I mean effort wise I far enjoy it and it’s raining a little bit but it’s so much nicer than the other yeah so temperature on the Garmin is a Bing 15.7 de which is half the temperature in celsius than what we did have one too so yeah we’ll update you when we get to the crep stop which is probably what 1 to 2 and 1 half K yeah something like that it’s not halfway it’s on definitely the bottom half of the climb help us get over the next section so we got 21k to go 8.6% next k at 980 by sea level see you later okay excuse the moisture viewers but it’s quite a rainy day but we’re doing it so just got past the first really challenging section as all the route guides say kilometers 6 through 8 and uh we’re going to stop a place called VI Rivier something or another there we go by a restaurant Le hopefully it’s a creery okay guys um this news creery EST F we sound so dead but we’re okay we’ve been waiting here about half an hour we look to the rain radar the rain’s going to clear it turns out that there’s a c quad Affair and a mountain called quad Affair and there two very different mountains one of them’s in Switzerland and one of them is here the one in Switzerland is sunny which is the one one I had the forecast for uh the one here is raining but we’ve got a radar up and it looks like it’s going to clear so hopefully we’ll be on our way shortly I hope so yeah so update going uphill again plenty of landslide locations around here so there’s a short descent you might be able see in the background a road back there um we with this water really gets you quite chilly but you’re po up the hill again and you’re warm again so that town ruier do uh alond or something like that I think that’s what it’s called has toilet public toilet and water so no need to have packed the uh extra bottle that you can see there good to know we didn’t know beautiful climb tough really tough 14% not easy keep us warm though so a little history about the route from us what have we got on our left here geographer yes our resident geography informs us this is a massive Landslide it’s hard to uh convey in words just how much sediment there is up there so thousands of tons have fallen off that Cliff that’s where the road used to be that is where the road used to be so they had to rroo hence why they put that little descent in which I just spoke to you about um and then this climbs to get back to the original level which makes this this climb harder since that landslide in 1991 or something like that but uh oh well even more of the challenge see some geography on our way 11% but I see green on my Garin so going to get easier for a moment okay if you look close to you viewers you can see the barrage which is French 4 Dam damn Daniel it’s like this woo 10 11% currently some stats please I’ve done 19.4k wow 9% right now 900 M elevates 900 woo okay and how long uh 1 hour 50 of moving moving time cool have cool see you in a bit okay the bar how’s it going good enjoying it oh it’s hard it is hard but that last 2K was good wasn’t it not sure it was about 4% that was right w very nice sheep up there on the left Water full on the right it looks like they’re broken beacons just at 1,877 above sea level though that’s the only difference there we got less than 4K to go feeling the effects of the altitude though the burning is coming on a lot a lot quicker than at sea level this is just 6% in it and you feel it so yeah it might be a bit tricky tough 4K but the end is in sight you man to smile I just about Cano there’s a sign we’ve done it we done it 31 km there we go woohoo quite a fair now we need to go and buy that little thing wow it’s going to be such a good descent such a long one got, 1500 M to drop couple times in the middle but uh yeah 40K an hour so I go 100 in video and this is only uh it’s like 6% it’s like going back down boxill for those who know bit lumpy in places eh should have brought a bar mount that would have been nice wouldn’t it castros and uh vultures right up there so easy going down the way okay we go gland on get the Viewpoint and then continue so we climbed continuing on this road it’s right way down so that’s where we go down but uh glandon’s on the right we’re just going to get the Viewpoint there okay land on here we come oh partway on The Descent Caroline’s just around the corner and uh we just visited the peak of Candon oh she’s going to love this this bit yeah such a good descent loads of visibility woohoo greeting I saw the animal the one woo the Marmot been looking out for marmots little rodent type things right all right just approaching halfway on The Descent and uh yeah oh look at the gradient on that it’s a difference just between what’s coming down to this corner here and uh what’s leading down beyond the French now to built their steep roads aren they so this is the one that’s here cuz of landslide go for it wooo [Music] okay just ra some fellow Brits up a hill uh there is a a decent Interruption to this descent isn’t there yes decent Interruption and when you’re uh go on guys behind us when your uh Evite battery runs out two hair pins from the top then it’s uh oh yeah it’s not exactly ideal these are all the guys at the calf yeah heading back down catching us up oh we’re almost at the original cery yeah yeah yeah the original creery location yeah so guys if you come here to do laad Affair call thead Affair uh the cery what your the cery about what a quarter a third of the way up yeah yeah is uh Fair there 21 oh this is NE yeah let’s get down the hill okay I just had a puncture there was a bit of rough road like literally right along the white line in the middle and uh my rear tire just got ripped I’m very glad it wasn’t a front tire I was going about 60k an hour cuz cuz you can on these roads this is like 40 as it is very good visibility but uh yeah we are almost at the bottom got a very small climb out flat along the lock do ver and then uh back at our place what’s that doise it’s my break it’s like the guy in the video cuz it’s cut yeah break’s nearly there 57k our end is at 61 or so woo nearly there everything is so I know we’ve only got about 2k 3K flattened down oh well I’d rather this weather catch us up at the bottom than the top oh yeah we for most of that we were okay we’re doing really well yeah we got very lucky yeah the weather yeah I got very lucky that it wasn’t my front tire but you know why you’re going to order some new tires absolutely new tires when I go back to England it’s always a good day when it’s new [Applause] tie very nice so blue it’s very BL amazing amazing route don’t need to do a loop around here I saying to the viewers there’s no need to do a loop around here is there no up and down it has more than enough you see absolutely everything you see shower time we’re at the bottom and it’s actually stopped raining yeah to be fair we’ve just got soaked like my socks are actually just soaked through a little bit moist under for and in you see the plenty of water but yes that was a great climb um compared to ten Reef probably definitely more undulating it’s like no desense in the tenor climbs yeah this there was like a a decent bit of up and the down you know decent bit of up and down yeah gradient are steeper but uh to be honest when you’re not food poison like we were on on two the other day then uh all is good so 1710 M of climbing 62 and a2k wow and we set off at when half n uh 9:45 9:45 and we finish it at 4:24 p.m. that gets you all the way from alamont near bans all the way up C quadir so if you like that and you want more suffering from M then please like And subscribe and we’ll see you in the next one oh glasses to the sky