France: Day 3

Hello everyone once again! What a day of riding today! Two big climbs were summitted today in our 52 miles of riding, the Col de Leschaux and the Col de la Forclaz. The ride started out with a ride around Lake Annecy, with the Leschaux climb thrown in for good measure. It wasn't too steep of a climb, but nice and long at 11km. It offered very nice views of Annecy and the lake below though:
After having lunch in Annecy (pizza...pretty good), we took off for our 2nd big climb, the Forclaz, which was ridden in the 2004 Tour de France. This climb was not as long (9km), but really got steep for the last 4km. One of the other trip riders has a GPS unit, and he saw grades as steep as 13% on his computer for the last 4km! Here is a pic of the Forclaz at the base: And here it is at the summit (3775 feet in elevation). All those people are gathered watching the paragliders, which take off on a ramp to the left of the pic. Unfortunately, our earlier plan to paraglide had to be cancelled, as the winds in the valley where they land were too high, so they were very backed up. So we spent some time at the souvenir shops instead. :) Cowbells are very popular in this area, as well as stuffed animal marmots (evidently marmots are all over on the climb up Galibier, and they whistle at you!). So we got a couple cool cowbells and some postcards.
We both did very well on the climb up the Forclaz. A few of the other trip riders were using too much energy up the Leschaux and were paying the price on the Forclaz. I got full KOM points among our travel companions at the summit, and Heather powered her way up the climb so much that one of our guides compared her to Jan Ullrich! That's my girl! :)

Once again, here is a link to the snapfish album for today's pictures: Click me!

Tomorrow is the biggest day of the trip, with 3 huge climbs (including the Galibier, the highest mountain pass crossed in the Tour de France) over 80 miles. I best be getting some sleep. Hope all is well back in the States!