Les Gets – Day 4 – …and relax

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After pushing my limits in the heat yesterday, I’d marked today as my day off. An easy day. Originally I’d booked a hire car and the plan was to drive somewhere and visit Cluses or Thonon but as that didn’t happen it was a day chilling and trying to recover locally

I woke early again, about 7.30am The sun broke over the mountain to beautiful blue skies. Coffee on I just sat outside on the balcony for a bit soaking in the rays, breathing in the fresh mountain air and listening to the hub-ub as Les Gets woke up around me. Big bowl of museli and the day was set, but what? Well not a lot, I watched telly and read. I was still thinking about the rides and decided on impulse I’ll write a blog about the week. I’d been relaying snippetts so far to my girlfriend, my mom and my sister. I don’t generally like texting anyway, so get it out, get it down. All can see, read (or ignore!) in one place, its there to look back on and it would kill some time. So off I went. Setup my wordpress account, banged up a couple of images and begun writing up the first few days.

This killed a few hours playing about with themes etc and I was getting peckish. I got changed, walked to the supermarket to replenish my yoghurt and banana reserves and stopped off for a coffee on the way back. Purchases stored, back on the laptop to finish off and then a time check. Lunch time!

I walked across the square, ordered a beer and found out they had stopped serving lunch. It was 2.15pm, a bit late. I gulped that down and sat down over the road and unleashed my french on the waitress. Asked for the menu, ordered my drink, a Salade Mozart, said no to dessert and had a coffee. Tres Bien! Then, shit me not, the muppets from my Airport transfer walked straight past….and still talking shit!

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Salade Mozart

I sat in the sun after lunch. Muppets messing with their bikes at my 5 0’clock begun talking to an english family. More ‘stuff’ they were on about and then they rode off.  See ya!

I’m at 1200m here and its 25+ degs. After soaking it up and boosting my Vitamin D levels off the scale, I went back to the room. My attention was now drawn to tomorrow. I checked the weather forecast and Sunday looks grim, rain all day and storms, so my planned ascent of the Joux Plan on closed roads was now off and I had to rethink the remaining days. My top two climbs to do were the Joux Plan from Samoens and Avoriaz. I played with a few ideas and opted to go all-in. Straight to Taninges, up and over the Joux Plan, up Avoriaz, down the Joux Verte and back home. 85km, 2900m climbing, forecast – hottest day of the week. Better planning required this time though. Leave earlier, eat more, drink more, stop and refill and if the worse happens I can bail after the Joux Plan and come home and do Avoriaz on Monday. My other thought was it’ll be so hard I’ll need Sunday off anyway to recover when its raining.

Bouyed by whats to come I decided I at least needed to go for a spin to check the legs and aid the recovery. I left it late PM so the heat had receeded a bit. I spun down the valley to Morzine, swooped into the town, did a lap of honour and spun back up towards Les Gets and I was getting a rattle. It had started yesterday so I stopped. Its one of them, you can’t make it happen unless you ride. I thought it was cables, so I held them, no good, held the frame in case it was them rattling inside the frame, still no good. I was a bit frustrated now and stopped again to diagnose it once and fall. I bounced and walked the bike and then ah! My fork steerer cap had rattled loose. 6mm allen key resolved that and I spun on up the valley, rattle free.

My legs were feeling ok so I decided to do a couple of hairpins to Les Chavannes (Day 1 ride) to see how they felt on steeper slopes. Hmmmm….ok. I saw a sign for an adventure park and a lake so I turned off onto a new road. I passed the entrance and carried on 100m to a dead end so I turned and had a look at the lake. Another stunning Alpine scene, I took a photo and another further down the hill of Les Gets basking in the late afternoon sun.

18km done, I got back and found the cycle store rammed with downhill bikes which made racking mine a pain. I downloaded my ride and chilled out for the evening. I made some phone calls, cooked my dinner and soaked up the evening on the balcony with some red wine and a beer.

As the night drew in, I watched some TV and then bed not before I took a pic of the mountains silouhetted against the blue night skies.

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Les Gets at bedtime

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