Stage 7: Poncin -> Seyssinet, Grenoble.

5 september 2014 - Grenoble, Frankrijk

Stage 7: Poncin -> Seyssinet, Grenoble

Camping de l’Ain. That’s the place we arrived on the end of stage 6. We have a chalet. A nice Chalet on the border of the camping.  It took us a while to travel the last 2.500 meters to reach the camping: This final part of the track was meant for mountain biking, no cars, no race bikes.

Finally we could check-in, received the key and the WIFI code, (yes that is as much important as sanitary, water, electricity these days.

Unloading the car and organising our stuff, we are missing two persons. Yes, we have a problem. Missing persons, you know. Everybody busy, preparing, cleaning stuff and you are only with 4 in a team of 6. Aha. A lot of noise in the swimming pool. Are they swimming? I immediately take my swimming suit, change and run to the swimming pool. Jump into the water and from that moment, they are missing 3 persons in the house J. We are all busted, as the 4th person  notices it and also comes into the pool. After this very ice cooling down, we returned to the house and prepared our diner.

We go to bed, Stage 7 will be a tough ride, 155 km and 1.200 altimeters. By the way, my mountain bike has been separated from the other bikes during the night. Realy, it is true. I’m not joking. It sleeps in the kitchen on his own. While all the race bikes are sleeping like girlfriends together in the shed.

Waking-up at approx.. 7:30, we have a short walk on the camping site and along the river d’ Ain. The busy A 42 is passing the Ain via a huge viaduct. The view on the river is breath taking. It is pretty cold, but the sun is already rising. We will need sun cream again today. Preparing the ride means: loading the Vivaro, checking the bikes, prepare the breakfast, cleaning the house etc.. meanwhile, Arnold discovers a big problem in our storage of the bars. We seem to run out of marsbars, snikkers and that kind of stuff. After some investigation in the rest of the Vivaro, he luckily found another box, containing sufficient bars for a whole week’s ride.

Heading to Grenoble, we pass the village Poncin on our way to Meximieu , where we go south direction Grenoble.

Our first (coffee)stop is at approx.. 55 km. Sitting out-side in the sun. Relaxing, because the next part will be tough with a lot of climbing. Back on the bikes, we pass Lyon, and the traffic is getting busier.  At approx.. 77 km we indeed experience in the village Bourgoin Jallieu that we have to climb the hills, to get to Grenoble. This climb is taking the max from the team. A long climb of 14 % and the sun is so hot. On top, we decide to have our 2nd break, to recover with soup and stuff. We have a technical problem. The crank of Henri’s bike could not stand the enormous torque on the bearings and broke down.

We have to take our spare bike, to finish the stage. We will get his bike to the bike shop in Bourge d‘ Oisans to get it fixed again. So this leads to the situation, that I finish stage 7 on my race bike (the spare we took with us) and Henri ride’s my mountain bike. Biking on my race bike, after months on my mountain bike felt if I was riding on an e-bike.

Meanwhile, we enter “Departement l’Isere, the Haute Alpes”. Breath taking views and it is exactly as expected preparing the route. We take the bike lane along the river l’Isere, which leads us right into Grenoble, Seyssinet, where we stay in Hotel Bel Alp.

Parking the bikes in the garage at about 18:30, we call it the day. We take a shower and visit a nice Italian restaurant where we had our dinner. Then we went to bed. Stage 8 will start in the morning at 9:30 with the last part to our Final Destination: l’Alpe d’Huez.

We are going to meet the entire bike group tomorrow, the climb the Alpe d'Huez on Saturday morning.

 

 

Foto’s