Resort DescriptionThe Plateau des Glières is one of the most distinctive Nordic landscapes in the French Alps: a high pastoral basin of open meadows, forest margins and enclosing limestone slopes, whe

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.

I should have done the tour in the reverse direction but following my GPS I had trouble finding my way in the mean streets of West Lyon.

Jackpot, both the climb and descent were closed to motorvehicles (except locals) due to road works but cycles allowed. This made things much calmer.

It had been a while since I'd ridden to Quarna Sotto. The climb is a nice 8% gradient up a series of switchbacks on the flank of the mountain which I managed at around a VAM of 735m/h.