Watching some old videos of training rides around Lac du Bourget made me fancy riding around the lake again.

Today’s objective was the Col Luitel, a 1,265 metre pass above Séchilienne in the Romanche valley. It is not one of the most famous climbs in Isère, but it has a proper cycling pedigree.

I wanted to tick off Strava’s Gran Fondo 100 km challenge early in the month.

It felt ambitious for early season—just over 100 km on the bike but the route had a certain logic to it: two halves of roughly 50 km, stitched together by a single, steady climb of more than 1,000 met

Slight variant to the summit of Mont Thou via la Dargoire. It's an 8km direct climb around 6%. Today's vam was 700m/h which is not bad on the roads around here.

The plan was to go over the Mont Joly pass, then come back via Les Saisies and Bisanne for a total elevation gain of 1,900 meters. But that was without taking into account the road works.

Finally made it to the village, it wasn't much beyond where I stopped last time but still a few very steep 20% ramps to conquer to get there. I didn't explore too far.

I'd intended to climb to Alpe Loccia but it was too hot and I'm not on form at the moment so cut my climb short by taking the Loreglia loop back to Omegna.

With fantastic autumn weather, I couldn't resist another big pass. This time the “half” Col du Joly. Half because, like the Sabot two weeks ago, it's only surfaced on one side.

Route Description The Col du Sabot - at 2100 m - is the highest of the Isère passes and the only one over 2000 meters. Its near neighbor - the Col de la Croix de Fer at 2064 m - is in the Savoie.