Tuesday was really a very difficult day. I don’t know that I’ve ridden anything that demanding in quite awhile. I have no idea how far it was, only that it was an all day ride with a large portion of the time spent climbing. Once again we couldn’t see any of the surrounding mountains through the fog really – just glimpses here and there. We rode up out of town towards Montroc on a series of fun singletrack sections, then took a fun little trail around and down into the next valley to the base of the climb. Here we started a climb to the climb. Haha The real climb was an all out, serious incline. It switchbacked up and up and up, then more up, steep sections, more switchbacks and then finally to a lift.



This was only the halfway point but we stopped to regroup. At this point it started drizzling and the wind kicked up a notch. Perfect. We climbed some more and some more, some really steep pitches and of course more switchbacks. We arrived at another lift where I ducked under the building to eat a sandwich and wait for others. At this point a few people decided they were too cold and didn’t want to go any higher or climb any more and turned back. The rest of us pushed on…for more climbing. I kid you not, this is the most climbing I think I have done in several years and I have done a lot. It was a brutal grind to the top where I thought we would start a decent, but we climbed on some singletrack even further around to the other side of the mountain. HAHAh – we had to descend soon. Sure enough, we did. It was completely fogged in and raining so I got no pictures, but the singeltrack was really cool. It was a rocky little ribbon with switchbacks slashing down the mountain. We were above the treeline but soon descended into it and continued the fun descent. We ended up popping out on the road up the valley from Chamonix and rode furiously for the cake and coffee/tea that awaited us every evening upon our return. It was really the hardest day of riding I have done in quite a while and I would love to do it again and take some pictures. We all hit one of the local bars pretty hard for some cocktails and beer that night.