The Big Climbs, Pt. V: Cime de la Bonnette [7/20 - 66mi, +8440ft]

Woke up early and tried my best to pack up before I disturbed the mosquito masses and headed down into the village of Jausers for a pre-ride coffee and croissant. Today is the "Route de la Bonnette: La plus haute d'Europe" which I take to mean the "highest road in Europe." Hot diggity, here I thought the Galibier was tough! Steeled for an epic climb to 2802M, I'm kind of feeling like I've got the routine down to a science now: find an easy gear, pedal, admire the views, pedal, admire the views, repeat. All the popular cycling climbs are nicely signed with a marker every kilometer than tells you a) current elevation, b) km to the top, and c) the avg grade for the next km. It's a nice way to gradually tick off the distance and elevation... but sometimes hard to stomach the math when you realize that you've been climbing for 3 hours and aren't even halfway to the top.

Up top the views were simply endless:

Cime de la Bonnette at 2802M.... highest road in Europe!!!

The other day I spied 3 other touring guys while grinding up the Col du Galibier, then met them at the campground that night in Briancon. Today we ran into each other near the top of the Bonnette- 4 morons with full gear on the top of the world! [this photo is a good example of why I prefer to use the self-timer on my camera, rather than ask some moron to snap a photo. Seriously, how can people possibly take such an awfully composed photo?!? Do you really need to cut off our feet so our faces are centered?!?!!!  ....but I digress]

Scary fast dropping down the valley on the other side, then a pretty decent headwind whipping up the valley as I dropped way down to below 500M. No rest for the weary, as there are still 3 more climbs to come on my journey to the sea. I planned on pushing a bit up the next one, the Col du Saint Martin and find another free campsite somewhere along the way. However, these canyon walls were so steep that there was literally no where flat enough to lie down, and it wasn't high enough elevation to gain the treeline. Luckily as it started to get too dark to safely ride, I stumbled across a municipal campground and set up for the night. Exhausted, I'd made it 3/4ths of the way up the climb in the process! One more day, one quick morning summit, one big climb and one piddly 'hill' on the docket for tomorrow...