Cycling Holiday in France

Jim Stynes

Didn't want to hijack the Marmotte thread so thought I would start another one.

Half tempted to sign up for the La Marmotte again but would also like the idea of a stress free cycling holiday in France with a few club mates. I loved the Marmotte last year but found that it was very stressful getting prepared for the event and I was surrounded by all these class climbs but not able to do them as I was resting for the event.

A few of the lads are looking to go to France to do some famous climbs around July time and have put me in charge of organising it. Thinking of 5 days with 4 of those cycling and trying to keep the cost down as well.

No doubt people on the board here will have done some similar holidays so I was looking so ideas.

- Looking for a good base close to the famous climbs.
- Somewhere that has decent accommodation (clean, internet, bike storage etc)
- Bike hire or bring our own?
- A few ideas of what climbs to do or what itinerary worked for you.
- Is it possible to drive to Mont Ventoux and do a day there?
Anything else you would recommend or do?

Edit: Should also have said we would consider doing a smaller scale local sportive over in the alps if anyone has any knowledge of that sort of thing.

Wishbone Ash

Consider hiring a van if you have a group. I go with a group who do this each year. The advantage is that the van carries the bike boxes and luggage so you can keep moving to a new destination each day without looping back to the start. It can also act as a broom wagon for major mechanicals. Draw lots for driving or seek volunteers (some lads who are not accustomed to climbing every day will be glad of a break). You would probably need at least 6 people to make it viable.

Hotels in the Alps are generally very facilitating for bikes especially smaller family run establishments or ski hotels. Many are also happy to do up the bill so that everything (food/drink/bed) are divided evenly and charged for the next morning.

Buzwaldo

http://www.cycling-challenge.com/100-cycling-climbs-better-than-alpe-dhuez/
Came across this in my endless cycle-googling and found it interesting. Might give something for some to think about planning such a trip.
(Was thinking of Marmotte next year, but maybe something like you suggest might suit better)

Jim Stynes

Buzwaldo wrote: »

http://www.cycling-challenge.com/100-cycling-climbs-better-than-alpe-dhuez/
Came across this in my endless cycle-googling and found it interesting. Might give something for some to think about planning such a trip.
(Was thinking of Marmotte next year, but maybe something like you suggest might suit better)

some cracking looking climbs there alright! Col du Madeleine and galibier are ones that I defo would like to do. Mont Vonteoux as well but I know that is a long way away from the alps.

Kaisr Sose

Some great alpine roads in Austria - just back from the Timmelsjoch. Plan was to do Stelvio too but the weather was bad. Superb vistas. Great surfaces. I would say the gradient are slightly higher than France. Easy to get to (via Munich). Cheap car hire in Munich. Fly with Lufthansa and your bike is free (as your checked bag -max 23kg.
I know where I will be going next June /July!

meercat

Velopeleton who's posts in this forum regularly (check the photos on your cycle thread) runs his cycling holidays business from there. You won't go wrong

ford2600

meercat wrote: »

Velopeleton who's posts in this forum regularly (check the photos on your cycle thread) runs his cycling holidays business from there. You won't go wrong

Stayed for 4 nights here in August; stunning area.

Other than cycling up and back to Lourdes every other road goes up. I was a little tired when I got there so didn't get to ride as much as I'd have liked. There is a limitless amount of climbing for a week or if you had the energy even longer.

Paddy knows the local mountains better than most people know their back garden. Do the famous climbs of course but go ride the less well known quieter roads also, again ask Paddy

Secure garage, bike wash, workshop toolkit and quality carbon ultegra lapierre in tipped top shape. He changes fleet every season.

Bed and board, really quite village you will sleep well and won't be hungry.

Saint Savin has one cafe but if you want a night out Argeles would be a great option.

Paddy is a reserved man, has it all done in cycling, and has a really well set up facility in cycling heaven. You won't be disappointed

Jim Stynes

Sounds perfect lads! Has he a website?

meercat

Jim Stynes wrote: »

Sounds perfect lads! Has he a website?

http://velopeloton-cycling-pyrenees.bike

Jim Stynes

We were looking more at the alps but I suppose the pyrenees would do for a 4 night suffering match as well!

meercat

Ah sorry. Misread your op but still highly recommend paddy Sweeney.

2 Wheels Good

If the Pyrenees appeal to you, we stayed in Argelès-Gazost near Lourdes last year for the Etape. It's at the bottom of the Hautacam and is a good starting point for the Tourmalet, Luz Ardiden, Col de Soulor, Col d'Aubisque, and lots more.

I think Velopeloton is in that general area so he should be able to give more info.

Jim Stynes

Aren't the Pyrenees harder than the Alps?

Kaisr Sose

That lodge is quite hard to book for summer months though. Bike hire prices are very high, (why so -will start another thread on this) so better to travel with own if at all feasible!

Wishbone Ash

Kaisr Sose wrote: »

Some great alpine roads in Austria - just back from the Timmelsjoch....

That's a fantastic climb. I did it in 2013 from the Italian side. It was bitterly cold at the summit and the descent into Austria is the longest I've ever done - downhill for something like 60k.

Wishbone Ash

Jim Stynes wrote: »

Aren't the Pyrenees harder than the Alps?

The Alps are higher but perhaps the gradients are steeper in the Pyrenees (I've never been).

Irish Raven

I'd highly recommend the Pyrenees, having cycled in the French Alps, Italian Alps, and Dolomites and the Pyrenees the past couple of years, the Pyrenees are magical....

A great base for cycling their, for 4-5 days is argeles gazost....it's located in France...from here you can climb the famous climbs of the Col du tormalat, Col du Solour, Col d'Aubisque, Col du aspin, Luz Ardiden, contadors favourite the Hautacam and onto the Col du tramassal....and on a long cycle you could also reach the Pourtalat...fab cycling....

brownian

Another option if you can squeeze in a couple more days (or are dead hard) is fly into Biarritz and fly out of Gerona. Bag lots of good stuff - Aspin, Tourmalet, Aubisque.... Take a credit card, a pair of thin slacks and a merino top, plus a pair of flip-flops and a toothbrush. The Pyrenees really are great.

A few of us do a trip like this (but for 10 days!) every couple of years, and I can only recommend it. More satisfying than loop days.

You have a certain amount of ass-pain getting your bike packed for the way home, but the rest is great.

Another good option for bike-centric accommodation, if you must stay in one place, is velo-pyrenees.com. Stayed there a few years ago for a week of MTB, but the road biking is also magic. Good grub, excellent coaching, nice place.

Jim Stynes

Anyone ever rent out an apartment with 'More than 21 bends'?

Cant believe the price of rental bikes in some places!

letape

I have been to the Pyrenees a good few times. Generally we stay in Andorra and Font Romeu and have also spent a week in Bagneres-de-Luchon

Bagneres-de-Luchon is a great place to be based if you want to climb the more well known climbs like the Peyresourde, Port de Bales, Superbagneres, Col d'Aspin,and the Col du Tourmalet (although a little further away).

The accomodation we had was very reasonable - twin room for about €40 a night. Certainly not luxury but had character and was clean with breakfast and a large garage with all the tools you could need. We brought our own bikes with us don't know about renting bikes there.

Jim Stynes

A lot of love for the Pyrenees here which is surprising to me. Where is the best place to fly in? I went to the Alps and we had a 2 hour drive to get to dublin airport then a 2 1/2 hour from Geneva to Bourg d'oisans. Bit of a pain.

Carawaystick

Pau, Toulouse, Carcassonne, Perpignan.

Pau is by far the nearest, it faces the Pic du Midi, the Tourmalet is behind it. It's probably pricy to get there though, unless you get a deal from Airfrance, they'd take the shirt of your back sometimes...

Rua_ri

Jim Stynes wrote: »

Anyone ever rent out an apartment with 'More than 21 bends'?

Cant believe the price of rental bikes in some places!

I did, only 4 weeks ago.
Rented bikes from them too.

The apartment was very good.
The bikes were only average.
Really cheap tyres, I was slipping on the flats.
So descending was pedestrian, which ruins half of the alpine experience

They owner was not the nicest person I have ever met .
I am saying that mildly.

Kaisr Sose

Jim Stynes wrote: »

Cant believe the price of rental bikes in some places!

€52 per day from Velopeleton (from their online booking). Ok for up to three days for convenience of travelling light etc, but anymore than that it's better to invest in bike bag or rent one and travel with own bike.

Rua_ri

Jim Stynes wrote: »

A lot of love for the Pyrenees here which is surprising to me. Where is the best place to fly in? I went to the Alps and we had a 2 hour drive to get to dublin airport then a 2 1/2 hour from Geneva to Bourg d'oisans. Bit of a pain.

We flew Dublin to Lyon, think it was around 1 1/2hrs drive to Bourg d'oisans.

Check out Grenoble airport as it seems close too.

Jim Stynes

Rua_ri wrote: »

I did, only 4 weeks ago.
Rented bikes from them too.

The apartment was very good.
The bikes were only average.
Really cheap tyres, I was slipping on the flats.
So descending was pedestrian, which ruins half of the alpine experience

They owner was not the nicest person I have ever met .
I am saying that mildly.

Wouldnt be renting a bike off them. There is another place in town that I've seen. Still very expensive to rent a bike but not as bad as most places, something like 45 euro a day.

Would you recommend them? They seem to have their own properties and then one main cycling base?

Thanks for all the information lads. It's a great help. It's going to be tough deciding between the Alps or Pyrenees!

Rua_ri

Jim Stynes wrote: »

:mad:

Would you recommend them? They seem to have their own properties and then one main cycling base?

Thanks for all the information lads. It's a great help. It's going to be tough deciding between the Alps or Pyrenees!

They have a shop in the town that is headquarters.
They seem to sublet other peoples property's.
We were in a 3 bed house that belonged to a retired English couple.
They were skiers and only used the place for the skiing season.

I would be conflicted on recommending them as the owner was a dick.
If anything went wrong it would pain you to deal with him.
I checked them out on TripAdvisor and other review sites when I got back and it seems like some had issues.

brownian

I stayed for one trip at the Villa Florida guest house in Bagneres de Luchon - I can only say good things about the place and the couple who run it, Nicole and Daniel. Great table-d'hote experiences.

I rented a pretty decent carbon bike with 105 gears for not stupid money from the bike shop on the main street (name escapes me, but it's on a corner, and has a shop on one side of the road and a rental place on the other). Cycling up to Superbagneres was great - vultures hanging over me as I zig-zagged up the spurs.

That said, if flying in and out of same airport I'd certainly bring my own bike. The only hassle is packing the bike; I scrounge a box from my LBS and pack with gaffer tape and bubble wrap - no issues in about 10 trips. If you could hold onto the box until you went home, this saves the annoyance of looking for one abroad.

Why do we love the pyrenees? Here's a few reasons
- less traffic
- surprisingly dense network of roads - often more than one way to get from place to place
- generally good road surfaces (compared to, say, Tuscany. But no better than Alps or Dolomites).
- better weather, most of the time, than the alps
- less tourists, lower prices, people less jaded and friendlier (certainly, than Chambo)
- easy air access via Biarritz, Pau, Lourdes, Carcassonne, Gerona, Barcelona, Perpignan...
- great food

velopeloton

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

The Alps are higher but perhaps the gradients are steeper in the Pyrenees (I've never been).

In general the Pyrenees are a bit steeper and road surfaces while still good are not as good as the Alps. The real difference is that the climbs in the Pyrenees are more irregular. The Pyrenees are more rural that the Alps. The climbs tend not to be main roads so the traffic volume is much less than in the Alps. In either there are not many roads over 2000m. Why would you build them when they will be closed for 8 months of the year. There are some higher roads in the Alps but not many. The highest in the Pyrenees is Port d'Envalira in Andorra which is 2408m. The highest in France is Col de Tentes which is 2207m.

Weather wise the Pyrenees are further south and border the deserts of Northern Spain so can be hotter than the Alps. The hottest I have experienced was 39c in the shade. Out in the sun that is off the scale. As we are closer to the Atlantic we also get a lot of rain so the landscape is much greener that the Alps. The further west you go the greener it gets and afternoon thunderstorms are very common.

velopeloton

Kaisr Sose wrote: »

€52 per day from Velopeleton (from their online booking). Ok for up to three days for convenience of travelling light etc, but anymore than that it's better to invest in bike bag or rent one and travel with own bike.

I have no idea about the economics of car rental so I can't comment on that.

I like to give good value for a good product.

The bike you are referring to is a 2016 model Lapierre Xelius SL 700 with Ultegra Di2. I also have the 600 which is the same except for the shifting, which is Ultegra mechanical. Which is less per day. The retail markup on bikes is nowhere near 50%, more like 35%. I replace all our bikes each year so bikes are always new and in good condition and are the latest models. On top of the cost of buying the bikes I spend several hundred euro altering them to make them more suitable for high mountains. Different derailleur, cassette, chain, tyres.

To cover the cost of purchase and maintenance over the summer takes 10 weeks rental. Our summer season is approx 16 weeks. Most of our bikes don't rent for the required 10 weeks. Over the summer we make an operating loss. At the end of the season the bikes are sold on. The final calculation depends on what value the bikes are sold on for. If I'm lucky, averaged out over all bikes between rental and resale, they produce somewhere between 125% and 150% of the profit a retailer would have from selling the bikes new, but with a lot more work and risk involved.

The same bike will cost more to rent near ventoux or Alpe d'Huez. Everything is cheaper in Spain and perhaps in Majorca or Canaries they have a longer season and can spread the costs out further and have a reduced price.

I don't rent bikes which I would not be happy to ride myself. It is possible nearby to rent for €25 per-day, cheap frame, cheap wheels, cheap tyres and cheap brakes. I would not want to ride them up a HC climb and I certainly would not ride them down one.

I hope that goes someway to answering you question.

Jim Stynes

Started off this thread leaning towards the alps and renting a bike and now I am leaning towards the Pyrenees and bringing my own!

ford2600

Jim Stynes wrote: »

Started off this thread leaning towards the alps and renting a bike and now I am leaning towards the Pyrenees and bringing my own!

If you can get flight to Lourdes it gets you right in middle of it.

Safest flight you'll ever have...

Jim Stynes

Looking for flights to Lourdes today and there doesn't seem to be any direct flights.

velopeloton

There aren't any. Ryanair to Biarritz or Aer Lingus to Toulouse.

Jim Stynes

How close are they to your place VP?

velopeloton

Biarritz is 180 km and Toulouse 200 km.

Jim Stynes

stupid question no doubt but how do you get from the airport to these places? Last time I went to the Alps it was good going with a tour company that they could come and collect us and leave us back. Took all the hassle out of it.

Esroh

Jim. There are charter flights to Lourdes from Knock. Dates would have to suit but it has been know for passangers and bikes to get a cheap seat to fill the plane

letape

I generally fly Ryanair direct to Carcassonne. While not the nearest airport to the haute Pyrenees it's a very small airport and easy to get on the motorway from. Car hire isn't expensive and I always like to have a car to be able to go places.

Carawaystick

You could get a train to Argeles Gazost from Toulouse or a train and sncf bus(single ticket, bus run by the train company) to Laruns

Or rent a car for the day to get the transfer in and for a day to get the transfer out

Irish Raven

This year I flew to Biarritz, and drove down to argeles gazost, bout 2hours or so, rented a car, could fit couple of bikes! Handy to have car too if you've interest in driving to a particular climb that's a distance away!!

Also....to throw another spanner in the works.....the Italian Dolomites are stunning, and by far the hardest of the mountain ranges I've done, they are very sheer and steep! And amazing to look at, and they're close to the Italian Alps so the stelvio and gavia and that are options to do!! Fly into Venice,!

velopeloton

Jim Stynes wrote: »

stupid question no doubt but how do you get from the airport to these places? Last time I went to the Alps it was good going with a tour company that they could come and collect us and leave us back. Took all the hassle out of it.

Rent a car. This is the best option, but you'll need to be sure it's big enough for bike boxes.

Use a transfer service
http://www.lourdes-transferts.com/GB/index-GB.php

Get bus from airport to train station and then take a train to Lourdes.

Jim Stynes

Looking more at the Alps again due to the flights being more expensive for the pyrenees! Def not ruling out the Pyrenees, if I can convince my mate to pay the extra money we will be there!

Anyway, what areas should I be looking to stay in to cycle the more famous Cols in the Alps. We would probably be doing 60-80 mile per day. Bourg looks good but it is a bit far from the airport (Geneva) if I can remember correctly. Does anyone even have recommendations of places they have stayed in and places they have rented bikes off in the alps?

Cheers.

Irish Raven

Briancon is prob best to base, old town is stunning too for evenings. It's close to a lot of the famous climbs!!

FrankGrimes

I've organised a week long trip for a gang of lads for the last 4 years. Twice to the Alps (Bourg D'Oisan), once to Pyrenees (Bagneres-de-bigorre) and the Dolomites (Cortina D'Ampezzo). Aim for us is to get famous climbs in but also have a bit of a holiday with the lads - first 3 trips were staying in a very quiet town, no nightlife, so we did the weekend in a city (Lyon or Toulouse) for a major blowout. Cortina is reasonably lively, so was the closest to a holiday week of the 3 locations.

So for us the idea of one of the tours where you're changing location every day isn't a good fit. We rent a van and a car (generally 8-10 lads), get settled in and then you can do as many or as little climbs as you like, so lads that want more beers than cycling have options. Generally, though, the chance to do the epic climbs is too tempting to miss and even with a sore head, everyone gets up and gets them done, just pace may differ.

For a van, a 9-seater can generally hold 5 bike boxes/bags and 5 adults we found and generally worked out at about 800euro for the van for the week. Good thread here on models: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=73646542#post73646542

For route inspiration, this guy's site is champion: http://www.cycling-challenge.com/ he has great guides and loads of climbs that we wouldn't have otherwise known to do, but found to be stunning.

I started out thinking the Alps were the be all and end all of cycling. Now, I'd rank it 1. Dolomites 2. Pyrenees. 3. Alps.

That said, the Alps are still absolutely fantastic and have to be done, above is just a relative comparison, in absolute terms, the Alps still make for fantastic climbing and personally I prefer the more consistent gradients they offer vs the others as you can settle into a rhythm more. While a couple of others may be tougher, the Galibier remains my favourite climb, something truly epic about it.

If going to the Alps, can't recommend enough doing Villard-Reymond, a little-known route I found in the brilliant Cyclist magazine. I mention it in this thread (which includes great info from velopeleton also): http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=89416214 - when you're down in the valley you don't get to see the full top to bottom view of Alpe D'Huez in all its glory, climbing to Villard-Reymond gives this stunning view and was one of our most memorable days out on the bike.

Would be interested in hearing more about what Briancon is like as a base for the Alps, as we will go back at some point. Bourg D'Oisan is about 2hrs drive from Grenoble airport.

For the Pyrenees, there's plenty of options on where to stay, each with pros and cons. Bagneres-de-bigorre is a nice village, tiny and quiet as it is, but does have a fantastic natural spa. So if looking for nightlife, this ain't great, but for quiet retreat, it's perfect. Argeles-de-Gazost seemed bigger but not huge, and Luz-Saint-Saveur struck me as lovely little town while riding through it. Realistically, to hit all the best climbs in a week would likely involve some driving to a starting point a couple of days, no matter where you stay as though distances aren't huge, journey times can be high given small roads and winding and hilly terrain.

The best kept secret in the Pyrenees is Lac de Cap de Long (here) - were it not for the hero that runs the Cycling Challenge site, we'd never have heard about it, but it is both a really testing climb and an absolutely stunning site to behold, the dam at 2200metres looks like something out of the Lord of the Rings. Any locals we told that we rode that gave us a knowing nod, seems very few visitors find their way to it. Unmissable. Scenery on the Col D'Aubisque is also truly amazing. Best mountain biking I've done was in the Pyrenees too.

The Cortina D'Ampezzo gave us something very different - staying in what's closer to a city than a town and has plenty of good restaurants and a few bars. And we stayed in a slick apartment from AirBnB. Everything about Cortina, flights, accommodation, car/van rental, food etc. was noteably more expensive than either the Alps or the Pyrenees though. But it has such amazing scenery (the view from Cortina is like being in Sound Of Music), and offers a broad range of activities (hiking, amazing mountain biking, all sorts of water sports and other outdoor pursuits), as well as more going on in the social side of things, we felt it was worth it.

Due to flight schedules, we flew into Milan Bergamo and it's a long drive - easily over 4hrs. Ability to chop down that journey time is minimal as it's narrow roads for the latter half. Venice would be better.

In and around the Dolomites what looks like a short journey on a map is generally not - there is no such thing as flat road around there, it's all steep terrain and journey times go up as a result.

It's hard to describe the scale of the scenery in the Dolomites. It's like the most jaw-dropping other-worldly sheer cliffs of the Galibier. But everywhere. As you climb, you find yourself distracted from the hurt by the beauty of it. And boy is there plenty to cause hurt. There is no end of brilliant climbs everywhere you look. We did an adjusted version of the Maratona dles Dolomites route which added in an extra 5km of climbing from Cortina to join the route which made it 4750metres of ascent in 140km vs 4850m in 174km for La Marmotte. Given that you go over 2,200metres elevation 5 times in that route, we all found it a tougher challenge than La Marmotte, which is saying something (we've done both routes in 37degree heat).

Another Cycling Challenge hidden gem was Tre Cime di Lavaredo (here) which finishes with easily the toughest 4km section I've come across. Gradient maps always seem under-stated vs the more accurate barometric altimeter on a Garmin, but never moreso than in the Dolomites where the phrase of the week was 'average gradients mean nothing'. Those last 4km never seemed to go below 14%, even on the hairpins, they were utterly unrelenting but made for a great sense of achievement when you get to see the view at the top. As a keen descender, this was the first time I've ever been really nervous as that gradient had 2 of us blowout on the descent, thankfully we were both scratching off all speed in a straight line before entering the hairpin, so were able to control it. Be careful though.

The peaks of Lavaredo and Falzarego climbs both have treks or cable cars up to open air World War I museums where you will be stunned to find the scale of the tunnels the Italians and Austrians dug into the mountains up to 2800m up to fight each other and control the valleys below. One of the best touristy things I've done in Europe, a real bonus.

As advised here, it turns out Cortina isn't a good location for Stelvio, Mortirolo and Gavia. But we did an epic day trip to Passo di Stelvio - about 4.5hrs each way. But so, so worth it. Having done almost all the biggies in the Alps, Pyrenees, Dolomites (excluding Gavia and Mortirolo, which I believe is a monster), and also done Ventoux & Lagos di Covadonga (an Alpe D'Huez equivalent in northern Spain), the debate about what is the toughest climb we've done generally rages on and on. Until Stelvio. It is just quite simply the Daddy of them all. When you get to the restaurant near the top, the sight to the finish is incredible, you've got about 6km left to do and about 700m more to ascend, but yet it feels like the finish is within touching distance. It is almost as if a ladder has been leaned up against the mountain, such is the zig-zagging steepness of the road ahead. And you have done about 19km of climbing before that point, most of it above 9% gradient. For me, there is no combination of climb length, gradient and awe-inspiring scenery to match it that I've come across. Definitely worth factoring into your choice of base, or planning a day/overnight trip to.

We'll be back to hit up Gavia and Mortirolo at some point for sure.

Anyways, just wanted to share these thoughts in case any of it is useful for boardsies planning trips to these areas as we benefitted from plenty of advice shared by posters here when originally planning the trips. Bottom line is, you'll have a great time in any of these locations.

marvin80

This thread has had some very good and informative posts but @FrankGrimes, yours is top class.

Jim Stynes

Frank, amazing post!! I will get stuck into those links later on when I get home. Thanks again everyone!

Jim Stynes

Velepeleton- If we fly in on the Monday morning to Biarritz would it be possible to still get some cycling in that afternoon or evening? We are planning on spending 4 nights with yourself in early July but wouldnt want one of those days being a waste of time due to travel time etc. What would be a realistic 4 day itinerary of cycling from Monday to Thursday (Flying home Friday)? We would want to try get the most famous climbs done. I would love to spend the week there but as I said before one of the fellas is getting married so he is watching the budget and I wouldnt get a week stamped from the boss (wife) either.

Frank, thanks for the following link. Looks like a cracking climb.
http://www.cycling-challenge.com/lac-de-cap-de-long-and-la-route-des-lacs/

kerry4sam

Hey OP, I'll be in France cycling in July 2016 also. Thanks for commencing this thread. I'll be ticking two-definite-cycles off my bucket-list but have given myself extra days in around certain areas from the research I've been doing.
Still plans to finalise and some current plans are off-the-wall unless I kick my ass into gear, however,

Thanks for this thread and Thanks all for the replies & guidance thus far,
kerry4sam

brownian

+1 for the Dolomites, so long as you go out of season. Otherwise, there is a lot of traffic, compared to the Pyrenees or even the Alps, especially motorbikes. But the Dollies are certainly very beautiful, and the Stelvio is a cracker, from either side.

The Mortirolo is certainly pretty steep, but I didn't think it was nearly as enjoyable as the Stelvio. One to tick off, but not so much to love.

Jim Stynes

Made the decision. Going for the Alps as the wife wants to see Annecy and that area.

Is annecy a good place to base myself for some cycling or is it too far away to the famous cols?

Also in terms of sight seeing and driving around where are the must see places from Geneva airport. We are going to have about 10 days or so after I finish cycling to tour about.