I had ridden this ride before, Col du Sabot, but only from Vaujany in our early days of renting the apartment there before motorhoming.
We set off on the straight road out of Ferme Noemie, warming out legs up towards Allemond. Climbed up the two switchbacks to Lac du Verney and up past the power station. We know this area pretty well now and the next right hander took us on to the accent up to Vaujany. The temperature on my Garmin was reading a thirty degrees plus and the sun was blasting down on us. A demanding ride by anyone’s standards with 15% gradients and the only glimpse of flat being around the hairpin turns. We made it and rewarded ourselves with a Coke, which we would never usually drink.
Next step was the gravel road to the top of Col Sabot, 2100m. A lung exploding decent with amazing views. The road is quite, and a dead end so only the occasional sight seeing car passing by and very few bikes. That thirty degrees at the bottom of the climb had turned into a struggling twelve degrees and a clouds had come over. We walked with our bikes over the top on the grassy path to view Lac de Grand Maison below and then began the decent. It was getting darker with a few spots of rain so we donned our lightweight coats and took a steady ride down.
In the mountains the weather can soon change they say. The mountain did give us a bit of warning and then the heavens open upon us. Freezing cold rain made the decent even more treacherous than it already was on the gravel road. It was a mixture of do we get down quick into the dry and sun or do we stay put and see it out. We got down quick(ish) to where there had been no rain and the temperature was back on the thirty degrees.
What a day, what a ride.
