Waiting at Le Harve ferry, an hour to go before checkin.....
Whilst at Lanslevillard we traversed the local mountain passes, the one to d'isery being listed as one of the more dangerous routes dans le apls but it was a good ride both up and down, lots of hairpins and many shear drops were you dumb enough to venture too fast.
At the rear of the chalet was mount Cenis as mentioned in the previous blog. This led into Italy a small town named Susa but we traveled via the Turin tunnel at a cheap €28.50 for one way per bike, quite a long tunnel though. Before we even reached that point the heavens opened with the most violent thunder and lightning I have ever seen. The hailstones were so large they hurt our fingers even through the biking gloves. We took shelter under some industrial units and watched the lightning strikes, one of which struck some conifers on the mountain side half a mile away and set them ablaze. Don't think the fire lasted too long due to the rain.
The storm subsided after 15 minutes and we set off to Italy and Susa in order to approach the chalet from mount Cenis.
Apart from the crappy weather it was a good trip.
A few days later there were dozens of emergency vehicles headed for Cenis pass, we were travelling the opposite direction that day and passed even more sirens for a long time. Turned out to be a light aircraft from Venice enroute to Lyon and the pilot failed to climb high enough through the pass crashing into the mount and seriously injuring all on board. The cloud cover at the mount from the chalet indicated violent turbulence he certainly should have been at least a thousand foot higher.
The weather did get hotter, 36c, which on a bike with clothing is too hot. We went canyoning to cool off but they didn't do an age comparison, I'd have won easily, the next oldest was probably under 40 and at 60 jumping 30 feet into freezing water is exhilarating.
The return journey for the bikes on autotrain was seamless and recommended.
Thanks for reading!
