It has been like winter this May. Rain, snow, cold, wind. Not very inviting. Finally a break in the weather, a bit unexpected and I decided to ride the Croix de Fer or Glandon.

I parked up at la Grande Croix d'Aiguebelle. A hamlet at the entrance to the Maurienne valley. In the drought the river was dry but the fountain still worked.

Second big col of the spring campaign. This time we drove to Beaufortain as Mike finds the Albertville road uninteresting and very busy. He's not wrong. We too the back road to Arêches.

I decided to start early 7h20 but could easily have started an hour earlier with the temperatures.

I took the back route into the Madeleine via the lacets de Montvernier Col du Chaussy and the lac du Loup. There are some sections of 13% above Montvernier on a balcony road.

DescriptionIt is a fairly logical loop.

It has been 7 years since I rode up this side of Mount Mottarone. This time I was just doing a return trip from Orta.

There are four routes up the Col de la Madeleine on the south sideThe normal route from la Chambre - 19.5km with some 40 wide hairpins.

Got the train to St Jean de Maurienne arriving in the early afternoon. A long 2h30 up to the col with a detour. It is a bit of a drag with hard climbing after St Sorlin.

The Haute-Route sportif was crossing over the Glandon so quite a few police around. I cycled the Glandon both ascending and descending.