Week 2, Annecy–Grenoble

Weather always nice and warm

About 110 kms

On Monday morning we left Annecy having recovered for two days. It felt good, and the ride to Albertville was great. The tailwind allowed for high-speed cruising towards the mountains. We had a short break in the former Olympic town before we approached our first serious pass of the French Alps, it will turn out to be our Last too. Read on to find out why.

The climb was hard, as we have a lot of gear on our lugagge racks. Rather unfortunately, all the hotels were closed because it's a very remote region and at this time of the year clearly off-season.

But there was that angel, her name is Pascale Cartier, and she let us stay in her holiday house as she left back home.

The night would have been not very cosy as it got quite cold outside. So we were more than just grateful.

The next morning started with the last nine kilometres and the last 700 metres of ascent. And it was hard to start the day with one of the steepest passages of the col. But we reached the top and had a good two hours' break in the snack bar, where we had to talk a lot to the other cyclists about our bike and our plan to reach Marocco. And we were proud. Proud that we managed – around all those race bikers with their high-end light-weight carbon bikes and we with our heavy loaded recumbent tandem which is not actually what you call weight-optimized.

And we were looking forward to the downhill which awaited us not knowing that we would come to a sudden stop after about 10 kms. Our back tyre burst and we fell as the bike was not controllable any more. We were very lucky: Apart from a few scratches we were not hurt, but the bike was seriously damaged. A ruined tyre, a bent front crank and the fork was out of shape too.

Till we had all sorted out, we stayed on the campsite in La Chambre, a tiny village at the South end of the pass, and then dislocated by train to Grenoble, where Michelle brought us the old fork of the bike to.

We spent three lovely days in Grenoble, which is really a fine city. Would be a good choice for holidays as you can do a lot of things here and around, and then the city has a lot of atmosphere, too.

So, that was a week with a bunch of luck – good and bad. The good one was more important though.

Tomorrow we're heading down south, avoiding the high passes. And we hope to reach the Mediterrean in about three or four days. Without accident!!!