Chambéry OAB #2

May 2, 2022

Ever since our rainout in Montélimar we’ve kept wary eyes on the weather, half-expecting that the day would come when we’d sit one out again or hop the train to our next base. We’re nine days into this impressive streak now, and we’re still waiting for a break from the saddle.

Before coming to Chambéry I sketched out a pair of day rides from here - the out and back we took yesterday, and an ambitious loop ride across the ridge to Lake Aiguebelette. The out and back was drawn with Rachael in mind, but the loop was a ride I expected to ride solo while Rachael took a hike, assuming we got lucky and were dealt two rideable days. Well, we’ve gotten lucky; and to my slight surprise Rachael wants to take advantage of the good weather while it’s still with us and go riding too.

She’s not interested in that loop ride over Col de l’Epine to Lake Aiguebette though, so I head back to the map and look for another reasonably tame OAB - not the easiest assignment starting from the bottom of a bowl surrounded by mountains. I end up with a hairpin-shaped track up into the Chartreuse that starts with a lazy climb southwest to Les Échelles and then doubles back northeast toward Lake Aiguebette. Like yesterday, we’ll turn back just as the ride crests and begins a steep drop to the lake.

The ride to Les Échelles begins reasonably enough with a gradual climb along the L’Hyere River, little more than a mountain stream. We’re on D1006, a minor highway that carries just a bit too much traffic to be enjoyable. There’s a good shoulder in the uphill direction for the first five miles, but then it pretty much disappears for the final two miles to the summit, where I find Rachael waiting for her photo to be taken by the summit sign at Col de Cuoz.

Climbing toward Col de Cuoz. This makes it look like a very quiet road, which at times it was; and like there’s a good, safe shoulder, which at times there was.

Over the top though, conditions improve considerably. The shoulder returns, and much of the traffic splits off to a branching highway. It’s downhill all the way to Les Échelles, interrupted only by a short, straight, reasonably well lit tunnel.

The Échelles tunnel looks forbidding, but it’s not bad. While we’re stopping by the entrance deciding whether to bother getting the lights out another biker zips in and another comes out, neither illuminated.

As with our ride through Le Chat yesterday, it’s a shock coming out the other side of the Échelles Tunnel. We’ve just crossed through that massive wall on the left, and on this side it’s much more open.

We spend a few minutes looking through Les Échelles and then when we head northeast toward Lake Aiguebette the ride becomes brilliant. We’ve lost all the traffic and have the road to ourselves biking through a verdant upland agricultural valley. Rachael’s gone as soon as we leave town, but she never gets all that far ahead of me for a change.

The old public school, Les Échelles. It’s a long, segmented structure. On the left is the boy’s school, the girl’s is here in the center, and the one for youngsters is on the right. It’s out of service now, replaced by the modern school just behind it.

I’m curious what this establishment was. Google Translate gives ‘turning all kinds’ as the equivalent for ‘tournerie tous genres’, which isn’t too enlightening to me. I like the two digit telephone number though.

This is a curious structure. There’s something up on top that might be a vent or chimney.

I liked how clean and colorful the Marie in Le Bauche is. It wasn’t until later that I realized that we biked along this road in 1995 on our ride through the Chartreuse - I took a photo of it then too.

I meet Rachael just before the end of our mapped route and we start backtracking together, looking for a suitable spot to stop for lunch. We find a perfect one, on a bench at the base of a hiking trail into the hills.

There’s discussion over lunch about today’s route, and a bit of regret that we didn’t load that loop ride I’d mapped out. If we had it to consider, we might go back to town that way, preferring to tackle the Col de l’Epine after all rather than biking down busy D1006 again. But we don’t have it to evaluate and we don’t want to just experiment in these mountains.

The ride back is much better though, because on the ride up to Col de Cuoz I noticed a side road that we could take and avoid the worst stretch of the highway. We take it when we get there, and for a few miles enjoy an idyllic ride dropping toward Chambéry on the opposite side of the Hyeres from the highway. It changes how we feel about the ride as a whole. If we ever came to Chambéry again, we might repeat it.

Back through Les Échelles, we find a few more reasons to stop.

In Chartreuse, heading back toward the tunnel - it penetrates that sheer wall ahead.

This peaceful alternative to a stretch of the highway changes how we feel about the ride as a whole.

Video sound track: Through the Woods, by Jasmin Williams

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Ride stats today: 42 miles, 3,200’; for the tour: 1,371 miles, 69,100’

Today's ride: 42 miles (68 km)
Total: 1,371 miles (2,206 km)

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Lucy MartinBeautiful!
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