For cyclists, the granny gear is the lowest possible gear you have at your disposal. Unless one is climbing something pretty steep it's rarely used. Yesterday and today, it was used often…very often. I’ve decided to name my bike "Bitch", mostly because that's what I called her numerous times yesterday, and today would be no exception.

We awoke around 8am and I was actually feeling pretty good, although a little stiff in the legs . Today’s forecast was for some light rain but, while the clouds were low, the rain never appeared and it turned out to be a sweltering day. We had the typical breakfast and got ready to go. Today Connie decided to leave at the same time as me and would wait at the top of Col de la Madeleine, a 26km climb averaging 8% with a total climb of 1800m. The total distance from the hotel to our destination in St. Jean de Maurienne would be 85km.

Let me see…how to sum up Madeleine. It was a cow…and my bike is a bitch. :-)

I had roughly 22km of fairly flat road to get to the base of Col de la Madeleine through some nice French Alps countryside. Once there I took a short pause to get a banana and power gel into me and some water then began the ascent. It was only 5km to Pussy, an interesting name for a small village on the way up. That said, that short bit was some of the steepest roads I’ve come against so far with numerous switchbacks and grades over 11% . After that the road eased into grades averaging 4 to 8%, which by now was not too bad…hell, there was actually even a kilometer of downhill about half way. It was not to last. Madeleine is renowned to be one of the toughest climbs around and it didn’t disappoint. The fact that I was bagged because I had done more climbing than planned the previous day didn’t help and at many points I was only going about 7-8km an hour. I was surprised at how many flies there were buzzing around me. There were hundreds and they drove me crazy for a good hour until I got high enough in altitude. I did make a couple of stops throughout to take some photos, but that was it and including the photo stops it took me 3 hours to make it to the top.

Connie made it up to the top fairly quickly and was there to meet me and got a photo of me in a pretty exhausted state coming in. I had gone through all my water and food on the way up and was running on empty the last 3km. The wind was blowing pretty good and we found a spot on the deck of one of the two restaurants behind a glass wall where we got some protection . With the wind out of the way and the sun shining it was pretty warm, but as soon as we were out from behind the glass and the clouds appeared it was damned cold. We had a good meal, Connie with her crepes and me hydrating with water and a nice local beer to accompany my charcuterie plate, which is a dish of delicatessen meats, cheese and bread. Is anyone starting to see a trend? Doesn't anyone eat salad anymore? And where can I get some spaghetti?

Once we were done eating I got on the warmest jacket I had for the trip down. I was still soaked from the trip up and the wind was giving me a pretty good chill. The road down was in excellent shape with a third of it newly paved, which gave me the confidence to get some good speed coming down and I actually passed a few cars on the way. It only took me half an hour to make it down and another 20 minutes to get into the town itself. The last kilometer was uphill...of course.

Connie passed me just outside of town and was at the hotel as I pulled in . We checked in and were guided to park the car in the closed in lot behind the building which was accessible only through a narrow doorway barely wide enough for a car. I was going to bring my bike up the room as usual, but the woman at the desk wouldn't allow that, instead taking me to a lock up out back. I wasn't worried about the bike...the lock up was 10ft deep and 40ft long with a bicycle stand running along the floor for the whole 40ft length. There were a dozen bikes in there already and I put Bitch right beside a Pinarello Dogma, worth probably around $12k to $15k. I figured nobody would mess with mine with that thing sitting there.

We got our stuff up to the room and I needed a rest, so we relaxed for a couple of hours being serenaded by a band warming up for a concert in the parking lot next to the hotel. We made our way into Centre Ville, which was just a 5 minute walk from the hotel. There we found a pizzaria to have supper at. The meal was pretty good, but the service was horrible. The two waitresses just couldn't handle the packed restaurant and were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Finally we got our meal and then got out of there. By the time we got back to the hotel, the concert was in full swing. It turned out to be a Jamiroquai tribute band that was putting on a great show for the large audience that had amassed. We stayed there until the last set and then called it a night.