There is a heatwave at the moment and many people on Strava were complaining about the temperatures. At the same time the weather service predicted afternoon storms.

The Colle del Piccolo San Bernardo is the only mountain pass that links the Italian Aoste valley from the Tarentaise.

I'd not road cycled since before the lockdown and it was hard. Far too many kilos to carry and no real zip up the hills. Had to use my x32 far too often on the climb.

I don't usually road bike until the spring but as the weather has been spring like I thought, why not? The Murianette is a shaded climb so not ideal at this time of year but it is relatively easy comp

No ski this weekend so I decided to use a spare hour and a half on Saturday afternoon to ride up and look at the snow conditions on the road to the Col du Coq.

Well not really storming but more grovelling with a time of around 16 minutes to the top. It is a very very steep climb for the first 1km.

I hadn't been out on the bike for some time so took the opportunity of a dry day to ride into work then up the Venon climb.

The Col de la Loze is a new paved road pass in France having only been opened in the spring of 2019. From Brides-les-Bains there is 23.5km of climbing with a total vertical of 1700 meters.

I crossed Jean Marc Mora on the climb to Lancey, I'd last seen him about 5 years ago.

Climb via the Lancey road then the Mont short cut with a descent. Hard work up to the cross roads with St Mury but able to maintain a better pace afterwards.