Les Carroz, France

If you have read the previous article on the Alps, as promised, next time we rode the Joux Plane. The whole idea of the holiday was to see Le Tour as it passed through Arrache, lower down the mountain from Les Carroz. Our party this time numbered 27, our families came as well so it was a mixed cycling and family holiday.

By Monday night, all had arrived and we took over The Marlot pub and downed a few jugs of ale.

Tuesday dawned and our first ride was planned, The Joux Plane and some other exciting cols that Washer had planned. The JP was a great start to the climbing, as it rises straight out of Samoens and kicks up without warning. The climb took us between 51 minutes and 1hr 30 depending on the rider! Great views from the top looking towards Chamonix and Mont Blanc. The descent took us to Morzine then the next climb, the Col d'Encrenaz which we toiled up to emerge at a water trough and a lunch stop. Then down the other side and up the Col de Ramirez to the ski resort of Prai de Lys, over the top, great descent again and through a building site where there was a new tunnel being made following an avalanche last year. We tried to get through but unfortunately M. LeJobsworth was standing in the way. Lots of pleading, offers of money, threats of storming him resulted in a climb-down defeat or more like a climb-back-up to Prai de Lys. Sadly we couldn't mirror the British success at Waterloo. Anyway it was a blessing in disguise, the ensuing drop to Taninges was fantastic, super fast, the holidays max speed was reached, my computer read 48mph at one point, at the bottom it read 74mph but that must have been a glitch in the clockwork somewhere. Then back to Cluses (we lost 2 who decided to take a different route back to Arache), the rest of us rode the big climb to Arrache from the bottom of the mountain - after already climbing 4 cols!. We timed the ascent, Washer previously held our record at 30 minutes, now there's a new time to beat: 24.26, the gauntlet is down, anybody can attempt it so watch this space for a better time! Maybe it can go in the club records! All I can add to this is, did anybody see 5 orange-clad Brits and 4 bikes in a Landrover between Arrache and Lex Carroz for the last leg of this climb on this Tuesday evening? The shame! BTW the tour riders do it in 17 minutes.

Wednesday: LeTour is in town! Due at Arrache at about 3.30pm, the mountainside was transformed with a KOM sprint set out at the top of the climb, barriers round the sprint area, loads of campers - who had been vying for position since Sunday - writing on the roads and walls, locals had made decorations, thousands of people had appeared to watch the spectacle. We positioned ourselves about 150m from the line, on a bank, it rained and rained while the caravan passed us but didn't dampen any spirits, a real carnival atmosphere, people diving for freebies, then there was a lull, then more tour vehicles appeared, tv crews, team cars, gendarmes, security, President Sarcozy, then it went quiet, then the helicopters came round the mountain, two lead gendarme motorbikes and between the headlights of the lead car was Thor Hushovd, amazing spectacle, a sprinter on his own at the front on a mountain! A small group followed, then another group with Astana on the front , Contador second in line, followed by Armstrong, Wiggo, George Hincapie all hammering along to catch the leaders, a little faster than we rode up the day before! the rest of the field followed in small groups, Cadel Evans on his own looking shattered, then the autobus with our sprinter hero Cav almost at the back. That was it. Finish. We went back to Maurices place to watch the rest of the stage over the Romme and Colombiere on tv.

Thursday, the time trial was at Annecy. We had planned to all ride over there but there was bad weather forecast so we changed our plans, rode to the top of the Colombiere and went back to watch it on tv. Three of our party continued to Annecy.

Most of the party left for home on Friday but we stayed another day, Ian & I took a late ride heading for the Col de Romme. Mistake. The weather had been fine all day but was waiting for us to start our ride. An early puncture should have been a warning but no, we carried on, into Cluses where the rain started, took the road to Romme, hugging the cliff and a fairly steep start. It was quite warm at this point so we didn't think twice about continuing, Ian made the misquote of the week "actually this is quite pleasant rain isn't it". As the altitude increased so the temperature decreased until we reached Romme shivering, having lost about 12 degrees and looked down towards Le Reposoir into thick fog. We turned round and froze on the descent, became parted for a while, then were reunited and completed the ride back to Les Carroz.

Great week despite the poor ride at the end (still we made Romme which was the object) will definitely do it again.

Most impressive place: Chamonix!