Alps Bucket List Trip

by Alistair Candlish

As Financial Advisers we spend a fair amount of time asking you, our clients, about your goals and bucket list aspirations.

I recently embarked on one such bucket list adventure, although survival could also have been the goal! I wanted to share my recent trip across the Alps on two wheels, so it might inspire you to think about your list!

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I do love friends with British Airways Gold Cards.

A few weeks ago, at the beginning of June, Leigh Hall (the aforementioned Gold card member) and I sat in the Business class lounge of Heathrow Airport in trepidation as we contemplated the journey we were about to embark on.

Over the last ten years Leigh, myself, big Rob and little Rob (Sterry and Senior), Andy Holder, Chris McEvoy, Paul Burnell, and Brad Hunt, to name a few friends of Carrington, have been fortunate to be involved in a number of cycling adventures, traveling from the Alps to the south of France by bike.

Having trained for three months in the Surrey and Sussex hills, a slightly smaller group of us (not everyone was available) decided that this was going to be our last such trip. With 60 just around the corner, and plenty of chat on new hips, knees, and a need to play more golf, the excuses were mounting up for making this the last hurrah!

The challenge – cycling an average of 100 kms, climbing 2000m a day, ascending at least one Col (mountain pass) a day for 4 days…it was beginning to feel like too big a test.

This year was also a bit special as we had planned to cycle the Col du Galibier on the same day as the Tour de France attempted the same thing! To be fair it was at different times of the day, and we were going from North to South, and they were going in the opposite direction. I swear we went up the steeper side of the mountain.

The trip involved ten riders and two support vans. The support vans originated in Val d’Isere and were driven by a very good old friend of ours, ML. A former bouncer at Dicks Tea bar in the 1980s, ML never returned home to Cornwall and instead got married and brought up a family in Bourg St Maurice…with hindsight, it was a brilliant life decision. His daughter has skied for France, ML kayaks on the River Isere every day, and when he’s got nothing better to do with his time, he drives the broom wagon for a group of MAMILs…the rest of us scratch our heads and wonder if the rat race was the right decision!!

Anyway, I digress, also along for the adventure he brought a young 25-year-old French ski instructor called Auri to drive the second van. Auri, it turned out, was known for his patience (and his good looks!).

From Geneva airport, we travelled down to Talloires in Annecy for the first night, where we watched the nail-biting England game which involved Bellingham scoring a great goal in the dying minutes against Slovenia.

Early the next morning we set off using some of the hundreds of miles of cycle paths that take you from Annecy to Albertville. Starting along Lake Annecy, much of the picturesque route follows an old train line and was a great warm-up before we turned right and started to climb the first Col of the Tour.

A nice gradual climb, the Col de Tamié wound us upwards and into the Maurienne valley.

We felt surprisingly strong at this point in the day, however, post lunch we started the ascent of Col du Télégraphe. We had clearly forgotten how tough this ride was, having last attempted it when our legs were six years younger! There was one last climb into Valloire, where we stayed for the evening. Unashamedly, I jumped into the van at this stage, happy with my efforts earlier in the day! The Tour were scheduled to finish in the ski resort of Valloire the following day, so it was buzzing with fans and great fun.

The iconic Col du Galibier was on the cards for day two. We set out early to make good time and avoid the road closures. Late-season snow had meant that the mountain pass was still closed until two days earlier. It was very windy, which made for a chilly welcome at the top. We took a quick photo stop and then had the thrill of descending down the other side, towards Briancon.  As the roads became busier and busier with noisy fans waiting for the Tour it felt as though we were in the race!

We stopped and joined in for a while with the madly dressed, music-loving, beer-drinking cycling-mad fans, before watching the tour come through Briancon. The leaders passed us doing 100kph, only a little faster than us!

We stayed in Eygliers that evening, with our biggest day to come – Col de Vars and Col d’Allos, finishing in Villars-Colmars.

We completed the first mountain, a 30km climb with 1200m of elevation, and at lunch we found that the second Col was closed due to a landslide. No worries, our intrepid ride leader Ben found another route, however, we were to learn that it included two more Cols, not just one and an extra 30km on the flat. Thanks Ben!

Our detoured route saw us finally descending from Col de la Cayolle (Col three of the day!) where a few days later Pogacar would take his fifth stage win.

Col three proved a step too far for the “B team” of the group, a few of us known for our ad-hoc lunch stops and Rosé tasting, me included. However, one of the memorable moments of the trip occurred as A teamer, Mark G, determined to complete all three Col (in his own time and pace), and fuelled by a combination of coffee and Benson and Hedges, made it back to the hotel in the dark just in time for dessert!

On the last day we travelled 150km through Provence. The scenery changing as we went through the spectacular Gorge du Verdon and then on to Saint-Maxime and the Mediterranean.

In any cycle trip there is always a last sting in the tail. This came in the form of the last climb of the day as our legs had decided we were done and we could almost see Sainte-Maxime, our final destination. And just like that it was all over. Our final day before departure was spent in recovery…read soaking in the sunshine, putting all those calories straight back into the body and rehydrating-we apologise in advance if this year’s vintage of Whispering Angel is sold out!

It’s wonderful how quickly the body forgets pain! For now, I have hundreds of photographs to remind me of the incredible feats (and literally mountains we climbed), the beautiful scenery we travelled through, the friendships and laughs…as well as the Rosé! Although there isn’t an adventure of this magnitude on the cards for next year, I bet we will get itchy feet and the need to feel the burn in our legs again, and another epic plan will be born! Who needs enemies when you have cycling friends, right?!