Tales from the Damp Side: Baby Won't You Drive My Car

Driving
After waving goodbye to Chalet Colinn and bagging Col de l'Iseran we drove to our next destination, the Hotel La Ferme de l'Izoard in the village of Arvieux in Queyras Regional Park. It was a three hour drive and required weaving our way about on Italian highways and mountain roads before scooting back into France.

While the driving times in the Alps never sound very long, I'm quoting 'actual driving time'. However, 'perceived driving time' was much longer, maybe double, since I always found the driving to be somewhat hair raising. I'd say that a 3 hour drive aged me by about 6 hours. It was always worse when we had to finesse our way through towns, even small ones. For all of my years (ok, weeks) of studying french I still couldn't read many road signs. So entering even a small village could be a challenge. We eventually agreed that, as much as I did not want to drive anywhere near civilization (I was fine on the remoter mountain roads), Chris has superior navigation skills and since he could not look at maps and drive at the same time (unfortunate), we'd need to switch as we got closer to towns so that I drove while he navigated.

On this day Chris drove all the way from Col de l'Iseran, through Italy, and back into France toward the town of Briançon, an 'old city' encased by a newer city with lots of activity and narrows roads and loads of little traffic circles. The upshot of those traffic circles was that if you got off on the wrong exit coming off the circle it would shoot you in the wrong direction and then god help you figuring out your way back. Unfortunately, we couldn't skirt around the edge of Briançon; we had to go right through the belly of the beast. We hit the town at rush hour. Luckily, we had a GPS to help us navigate. The GPS displayed the desired route on our iPad, and made announcements whenever it wanted us to steer the car in a certain direction. Unluckily, the GPS sometimes didn't really have a grip on our location. Like, it sometimes thought we were one road over from where we actually were; or, it would tell us to turn but it wasn't clear whether it meant that we should turn at the exit we just passed, or the one coming up. We learned early on not to trust it. So our conversations as we made our way through Briançon went something like this:

Ellen (driving toward a traffic circle): "What should I do?
Chris (navigating): "Hold on."
Ellen (about to enter traffic circle): "Which exit do I take!"
GPS: "Take 2nd exit"
Ellen (now in the traffic circle): "Is that true?!"
Chris: "No. Follow that car"
Ellen (in the traffic circle): "What car?! The blue one!?"
GPS: "Take next exit"
Chris: "No, ignore him. Yes, the blue car"
Ellen: "Here, here?!"
GPS (thinking we had missed its instructions): "Turn around"
Chris: "Yes, here"
GPS: "Turn around"

Chris is always calm in these situations but my blood pressure raises exponentially. By the time we made it through Briançon the tension in the car was palpable; at least, it was on the driver's side. The last circle was particularly troublesome (requiring a final split second decision) and when we finally cleared it I whooped and fist-pumped in elation. At the moment it seemed better than conquering any mountain pass by bike.

Once outside Briançon we headed back up into the mountains toward the village of Arvieux. We had two rides scheduled for this area: Col d'Izoard and Col Agnel. Izoard is frequently ridden in the Tour de France. The Agnel is much less well known. The road toward Arvieux took us along the same route as the north face of the Col d'Izoard, so we got a preview of it in the car. Ugh. We'd left behind green valleys and glaciers for....dirt. The higher we drove the more barren the landscape became, and not in a good way. Ugly. It put us in a funk. Our mood didn't improve when we descended the other side to find our hotel (ugly) in the town of Arvieux (ugly) surrounded by not less than 20 red and black Ducati motorcycles, which were in turn surrounding by a large group of Germans, all of whom seemed to be smoking. Apparently there was a tour group in town that was spending the week at our hotel. Not liking the scenery, the hotel, or the Ducatis, we immediately began planning our escape. We had not even entered the hotel lobby before we began scheming how to get out of our three night reservation in just one night. Fortuitously, the reservation I thought I'd made for three nights somehow ended up as only two nights. And then they didn't seem to mind that we wanted to bail out after just one night. Which we did.

The early exit from Arvieux meant we'd have time for just one ride. I decided to use the next day as a rest day while sagging Chris in the car. Col d'Izoard had not looked appealing from the car and he really wanted to ride Agnel. So it was an easy decision. It was a great choice. None of the hype (or dirt) of Col d'Izoard, just pretty valleys and the place almost to ourselves.

Ride #8: Col Agnel

Chris: 13 miles (one-way), 4,450 feet climbed