We had a good rest day at the Chalet Colinn overlooking the Lac du Chevril, a reservoir for a hydropower plant. The owners, Elizabeth and Mylène, are wonderful hosts and we felt more like staying with good friends than in a hotel. So much so, that on our ride today, we were thinking of ways to go back for a hiking or skiing trip.
Mylène told us about the crazy story of how the two of them bought a house in ruins, and then spent several summer seasons to build the chalet in the traditional style and technique with lots of help from a seventy-year-old, retired stonemason. Besides being a great host, Mylène is also a great chef and made the most delicious Tartiflette we had so far, a local specialty.
We used part of the rest day to service our brakes. The brakepads got thinner from all the downhills and we had to readjust spacings so that the brakes would be responsive again. The pads on my bike were so worn down that I decided to replace all of them.
While we were servicing our bikes, we listened to stories about the bike travels that Elizabeth did when she was young: On a tour to the Black Sea and then down to Istanbul, she would start the day before dawn to avoid the heat; and on a trip to the North Cape she found that the only place to stay safe from the millions of mosquitoes was either moving on the bike or underwater in a lake.
After Liz explained our motivation for the bike trip, Elizabeth phoned her friend at the Val d’Isère TV and radio station, and we promptly got interviewed, in French, which was a bit of a struggle. Here is the video!
Last night, Mylène made fish and spaghetti to fuel our legs for the challenging climbing day today: We first rolled down to Val d’Isère to meet Valentin and Thomas at the TV and radio station so that they could film us rolling off toward the first pass of the day, the Col de l’Iseran, which is the highest mountain pass in the alps at 2768m (9068ft). Due to this fact, it also opened just ten days ago, which is lucky for us!
The climb went very well, and we saw many other cyclists, probably due to the fame of the l’Iseran.
We were starting to get hungry, and in Bonneval-sur-Arc at the foot of the pass, the boulangerie was closed, so we only bought some locally made goat cheese and hoped to find an open boulangerie in the next town. No luck, so we did what we usually try to avoid and had lunch in a restaurant. Of course, we both ate too much and regretted it for the next kilometers to the foot of the last pass of the day, the Col du Mont-Cenis.
This climb seemed harder, either because of the lunch or the elevation we already had in our legs. Counting down the kilometer markers to the top, we eventually made it and were rewarded again with a stunning panorama over the Lac du Mont Cenis, where we booked our last night in France. Tomorrow, we’ll roll down to Italy! Pasta and amazing coffee, here we cooooome!
Total distance/elevation to date: 3056km/23’388m
Rest days: 10
Day 40 Route and Stats
Relive Video
The 1948 Tour 
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