High above Nevache in the valley of the Claree, riders take on the second major hike a bike section of the race. A beautiful track leading to a high mountain like. This is a tough and remote section of the course.
In September of 2025 I was part of the media team covering the Alps Divide Ultra Cycling event. A 1000km off-road ultra bike packing event from Menton on the Mediterranean coast of France to Thonon-Les-Bains on the shores of Lac Leman. This is a series of interviews, footage and race commentary that originally went live on both my Instagram and the DotWatcher.cc Instagram to provide ongoing insight into the race.
Uh good afternoon everybody and welcome to the Utal Du Claw. This is a spectacular part of the French Alps. Uh it’s a small little deadend road stopped about 3 km ago uh when I jumped on the ebike. It takes you up to uh three really high alpine lakes and over a pass the Cer Rashai I believe before descending down to the Cerier road. It it it really is beautiful all the way up. Now, this is one of the new sections of the course for this year, and it’s fair to say that from this point onwards, probably for the next 3K, it is quite tough and committing hiker bike. Uh but the views at the top definitely are worthwhile. Once over, the riders can descend down to Valawir and then on to Smashelle Demoren where they will be able to resupply before heading up the next section. Now, by this stage of the race, fatigue is really starting to kick in for the riders when they get here. The previous hard section will have been the culdele, which is a monstrous climb up to 3,000 m. I’ve just been chatting to Sebastian, and he topped out at 3:00 a.m. Uh, but luckily, uh, there is a brand new hut there, which is really quite special, and he managed to get in there last night and get some get some good sleep before coming down in the morning. But yeah, that that climb really will take it out of the legs of the riders. Then they got got to come over the cold which is a a stiff little road climb not very big but brings them back into France. So yeah hitting here and getting off the bike and starting to push they’re going to be feeling it in their legs. Uh hopefully they’ve stayed well fueled and did a big resupply in Bardinia after the uh colder sleier so that they can keep pushing forwards and uh yeah hope they I hope they enjoy this new section.