Raid Alps 2024: Day 3 Praz sur Arly – Brides-les-Bains

Day 3 Praz sur Arly – Brides-les-Bains – 121 km – 2 600m D+ 

"The Col des Saisies is a great first climb to warm you up for the day’s challenges. It has a good road surface and is long enough to prepare you for the Cormet de Roselend, one of the longer climbs in the Alps. As you pedal along near the top, you will have the chance to admire the fantastic Lake de Roselend, located at approximately 1,600 m of altitude."

Here was the plan for the day:

3

Here’s the reality: 

So we called an audible, as the football crowd would say, to prevent anyone from being cold, miserable, slipping on the tarmac, or being struck by lightning. Have to hand it to our guides for the commitment to safety, and the happiness of their charges. The guides used the two vans to shuttle bikes, luggage and riders in two loads, to our days’ destination, Brides-les-Baines, where we hoped for a window in the weather to allow us at to do at least a loop ride in that area. To leave this morning en velo would be too risky, so a good call. 

While the 1st shift loaded up and made the one-hour transfer by van, those in the 2nd load, including Carrie and me, lingered around this lovely, lovely hotel,

read, chatted, had another cup of coffee, and enjoyed the pool adjacent to the lodgings. 

I had written the following to describe our typical morning, and although today has turned out atypical, the narrative still applies—or will, we hope, to subsequent days.

Our routine: at the end of each day's ride, hang up our bikes, find our room assignments (our support crew has already delivered our luggage to our room); shower; rinse our cycling "kit" (Carrie calls my bike clothes my "costume"-- have some respect!) and hang it to drip and dry; see if the hotel has a bar, and stretch out and recover with a cold beverage, in anticipation of dinner. Dinner, group debrief of the day's ride, and brief for the upcoming day; a bit of wind-down, then sleep, before lather-rinse-repeat. 

Morning's, it's rise and shine, choose the day's costume kit, organize personal stuff so it's ready to pack after breakfast; head to the dining room for petite dejeuner (which is not very petite). I LOVE the European hotel breakfast buffets, most with an assortment of pastries and breads, including--mai certainment!--freshly baked croissant and baguettes. How do they make bread this good? The butter--of course, butter!--is often served in individually wrapped logs, and always an assortment of jams like I rarely see in the US. Kiwi preserves, anyone? There's muesli or granola, milk, hard and soft cheeses, sliced meats, creamy, smooth, rich yogurts, and fresh fruit of all kinds. Boiled eggs, or raw eggs to soft- or hard-boil yourself, with individual egg timers. We've occasionally had omelletes, or crepes or pancakes. No biscuits with mystery white sauce here. And coffee: I think it's hard to find bad coffee in Europe, and rarely have I seen a drip pot. 

Then back to our rooms to finish packing up, butt balm and sunscreen, plus layers appropriate to the weather forecast. Finally we set out our bags for collection by the guides, and head to our bikes where we finish suiting up with gloves, helmets and shades before mounting up together. As I noted in my blog last fall, "'Raid,' in the name of our tour, translates as 'mission' or 'task,' according to guide Constantine. We speculated that 'attack' or 'conquest' could apply as well." And so we all prepare individually to join together for the day's episode of the Raid Alpes.

I like that we all ride out together, and do our best to stay in a group. Our Euroslackers (and adopted mates) have been fortunate in being very well matched physically, with very little off-the-front or off-the-back riders. We are probably most spread out as we climb, as our speeds differ, and some like to stop to rest along the way, others (moi!) prefer not to break cadence midway up the ascent and instead grind all the way to the top in one long effort. By agreement we gather at the top before starting our descent, and regroup yet again at the bottom-- different group members have different preferences and levels of risk tolerance for downhill racing, so we tend to spread out a bit once again, but not nearly as much as on the climbs. The group gatherings are when we adjust clothes (see below), grab liquids and snacks from the support vehicle as needed, and cheer on our mates as they finish the climb or descent.

We were each issued a day bag,

labeled with our names and in which we pack any personal gear we think we might need during the day. If the day starts cool we peel layers and stash them in our gear bags when we meet up with the sag van; or grab additional layers when we reach the top of a climb to keep from getting chilled--and to protect us on the descents, which can be chilling, as we race downhill with much greater windchill, and often into shade, as we approach the valley floor.

"A great first climb to warm you up for the day's challenges" is an interesting header describing what’s in store for the day. It's all come back to me from last year: after a hard-but-doable day's ride, and the night to recover, when we hop on our bikes in the morning and make the first strong strokes on the pedals, I'm instantly reminded of the previous day's ride in the form of some heaviness in my legs. But after a couple of kms the lagginess lifts, the strength in my leg muscles begins to reassert itself, and all is well. It's ideal if we have a couple of 10's of kms of flat, or at least easy rollers, before starting a good long climb. 

Today we got an extra respite due to the rain so I hardly felt any lagginess in my legs, more like twitchiness to get spinning. By the time we all arrived at the “chalet” in Brides-les-Baines and had a lunch in the hotel lobby, it was approaching mid-afternoon, and voila! The skies had cleared enough for us to do an “optional” ride to be lead by Constantin and David. 

The Workaround Route: Meribel to Courchevel

A bit surprising, every one of our tour members opted in for a an abbreviated route, a climb up to the village of Meribel, about 15km straight up, then the corresponding descent through the luxe ski town of Courchevel, and back to our hotel.

If you look in the background of the above shot, you can see the top of the mountain socked in with clouds.

That’s about where the Col de la Loze, our optional optional destination is, and where we would almost certainly have gotten caught in rain. We’re here to cycle, and cycle we did, in what looked like the only spot in all the Alps with a window of dry weather.

Shower, some card-playing in the lobby before our communal dinner, organize for the morning, and it’s bonne nuit.