We'd not been up on the coteaux for a while, since the start of June probably. So a return to our favourite singles. It felt tiring but we climb the Manival trail in record time, Tot 1 minute ahead.

Official RouteFrom Bourg d'Oisans to l'Alpe d'Huez. 21 hair pins. 13.2km. Start at 744m, Summit 1815m. Average gradient 8.1%, sections of 12% over 100 meters.

Loop but in the reverse direction. Average of 4.01/km but skates felt very slow in the muggy air. I was taking it easy as I had a bad back for a month and wanted to test things out. All okay now.

A short skate along the boardwalk mainly working on balance as I had no poles as my back is still hurting

Very hard climb due to bad back and a top gear that didn't engage properly. The road to the power station has been resurfaced for some reason, very smooth now.

Testing some Decathlon slow wheels, boy are they sloooowwww. Probably quite good for training and exercises as they don't tend to run away but you need a lot of effort to get them moving.

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.

Back to see if I could get a bit further up the road. In the end I made it to the top section although didn't have time to ride over to the village, next time. There is a segment of 17% over 0.5km.

This is effectively a rest day. A little ride up to Coiromonte via the hair pins. Riding out of Pettenasco is hard - a series of steep ramps at 15% but by the Coiromonte climb I was warmed up a bit.

The idea was to take the road above Luzzogno towards Alpe Busca as far as it is surfaced. But I was unsure of the route above Luzzogno so took the Inuggio road instead.