A Stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné, Chambéry

Zagan the motorhome’s breathing a sigh of relief after being battered by hail, tree-felling wind and white-out sheets of rain on his descent from the Col du Granier, where we’d popped up to watch a stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné cycling race. Yesterday, while watching the race on the TV, Ju spotted it was near to Chambéry where we were still in our campsite haven, and by the magic of t’Interweb we quickly worked out it was passing nearby the following day, so off we went. I’ll get back to that though. We’re currently parked up at the foot of the Col de la Madeleine, in a free aire in the village of La Chambre (N45.363334, E6.297303). We’re relieved to be here in one piece after today’s weather.

Yes, we’ve written a book about motorhome touring and yes, it has checklists for what we do when we park up for the night or pull off in the morning. But no matter how long we do this style of travel and how many times we’ve parked up and left in the morning, it still feels like we’re going to do something daft. Over the years we’ve:

• left the main skylight open (result: it got ripped off later on),
• left the fridge unlocked (a white sauce jar flung itself out under braking and smashed, at which point Charlie went straight for it, glass splinters and all),
• forgotten to properly secure the bikes (we got lucky, and managed to properly attach them by the side of a fast road),
• left the steadies down (again got lucky and didn’t damage them),
• driven straight over the ramps (kaboom! unbelievably we didn’t break anything),
• not locked the water cover (I could see it seemingly about to rip itself off as we drove along, unable to stop, but it stayed attached),
• and probably a heap of other errors which I can’t remember.

The biggest risk seems to be when we’ve been still a while, so after five nights on the campsite at Challes-Les-Eaux, I was in triple-check mode. And then I did a bit more checking, walking round the van pulling at all the lockers and covers to make sure they were secure (a good job, as we were in for a battering later on). Finally convinced all was OK, we headed off to Lidl for a quick stock-up, then up the road to the Col du Granier. The riders were due through at about 2:50pm, and we were up there for about 11am, so we left a fair bit of time before the road was closed for the race. Unlike the Tour de France, where we’ve had to camp out for several days to get a place near the top of a col, we found we could edge into a space by the road a hundred metres or so from the top, just a few hours before the riders arrived. The drive up the col was fine, although there was a short section of full-on cornice, narrow, sheer overhanging cliffs, you get the picture. Thankfully we didn’t meet a bus, as we once did on the nearby Col du Chat on the way to that Tour de France stage.

After a cuppa and a look around the col (where a small collection of cyclists and spectators was starting to build), I headed out for a short run while Ju got to task with the above flags. A wee while later, having nourished ourselves on Lidl’s finest (we’re buying more vegetables than pastries these days, honestly), the sun came out, as did the chairs, and we had a sit alongside the road watching the world go by. Recreational riders, not even vaguely out of breath, breezed past us. A team car appeared and a couple of bored-looking blokes lounged around it (later they pulled on team jerseys and handed out a drinks bottle-gel-paper package to their riders. We *think* it was paper for shoving down their top on the descent, but we don’t know to be honest. We’re not really big cycling fans. We had no idea who the BARDET sprayed on the road alongside us was. The fog cleared and the sun came out, revealing huge cliffs above us closer to the col, and having us smearing the factor 50.

The Tour de France has a famous ‘publicitie caravanne‘ which drives along the road in advance of the riders. This consists of a sort of cavalcade of corporate-sponsored carnival floats, each blasting out music with folks chucking stuff out at the crowd: hats, jerseys, bits of sausage, pens, sweets, you name it. The Tour also has deep pockets, and can easily afford a buzzing collection of helicopters to record the riders and surroundings from above. The Critérium had a bunch of police outriders, urgently blasting their motorbikes up the hill like Valentino Rossi, but not much else. We didn’t mind, it was great fun to just be among the growing collection of enthusiasts and wait for the elite riders to arrive. Finally two riders came through, followed by team cars (which sport the most precarious-looking roof racks, wedged with spare bikes and wheels), and a few minutes apart two big groups of riders flew past. British rider Adam Yates was wearing the yellow jersey (leading the race), but we couldn’t spot him, so just shouted encouragement to the lot of ’em.

Chris Froome had been riding the same race but suffered a horrific crash practicing in an earlier stage, losing a lot of blood and busting a lot of bones. He’s probably out of racing for many months, and his injuries serve as a reminder to us just how much risk these guys take riding at the speeds they do on these roads. Respect. As we descended from the col after the final stragglers had gone through, the weather went biblical-bad. Thankfully we’d passed the cliff section, as the road whited out first with sheets of wind-blown water, then with a hailstorm. Fearful of crashing we found half a space by the road, got the hazards, fog and brake lights on and sat it out. Over time we’ve seen two or three sudden storms like this one while driving, and every time it amazes us the skylights don’t smash. After about 20 minutes the worst of it passed, we defogged the windscreen (which had just been semi-frozen by the hail) and crept off the hill, through streams of water and over small branches.

After we’d passed through Chambery, we crawled along with the traffic past our campsite, amazed to see the state of two trees in the park we’d walked beside the campsite. One was uprooted, the other snapped and twisted like a twig. Both were decent-sized trees, and when we next came upon a queue of traffic crawling past a car hit by more falling trees, we thought ourselves lucky to have escaped unharmed. Unsure if we could get through the gap, Ju jumped out to have a look, but when another motorhome drove past us we happily followed.

After that is was like being on iceberg watch, peering through the rain for fallen branches in the road. Thankfully we didn’t come across anything too big and after another hour rolled in here, eyeballing the half-meter width of the trees besides us and edging in between another couple of vans to shelter from the wind. It’s backed off now, and the forecast’s again for sunshine in the coming days. Our plan is to do some mountain running tomorrow and then start to head towards Switzerland where we’re booked into a campsite near Bern for the Formula E race on 22 June (which just happens to be my birthday, cracking co-incidence).

Cheers, Jay