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Col de Joux Ride Review

Road cycling the Col de Joux Plane in May

featured in Activity reviews Author Ali Gibb - 44 South, Guest Reporter Updated

It feels great to be back here in Morzine after a few weeks away and even better to make the most of the lovely sunny weather and get out on the bike. There’s plenty of cycling to be done this summer with three big road rides coming up in June – Time Megeve, Bonneville and our own home grown Morzine Vallee d’Aulps Sportive on 22nd June.

After 6 months of skiing last winter (having started 10th November on Tignes glacier and finished May 16th on Hintertux glacier in Austria) the cycling legs definitely feel as if they have been in hibernation for a while. With these cycling events imminent it’s the annual challenge to get fit fast in May and what better way to do that than hit the Col de Joux Plane?!

We had heard a rumour that, although the Col was officially still closed, there was only a small amount of snow on the Morzine side to cross and the rest was clear. The Joux Plane climb from Samoens became a bit infamous after Lance Armstrong blew up/out on it in the 2000 Tour de France and effectively lost the Tour there. It doesn’t seem that hard when you look at its numbers – 11.6km long at an average of about 8.5%, but with a short sharp 13% section in the middle and not much respite after it feels much steeper. It’s also very exposed to the sun with few shady patches so you really feel the heat bouncing back at you from the road on a hot sunny day.

But it’s May right now, and with a fair amount of cloud in the forecast and a slight shower risk we would be fine. It is always a bit hard to set off leaving the layers behind so I stuffed my pockets with full finger gloves, fleecy arm-warmers for the descent and a windproof gilet just in case. And a vest under my cycling jersey.

So off we set down to Taninges and over through Morillon heading for a spin up to St Jean de Sixt. Having decided to add another 20km to the route by going up the valley further we (unluckily we thought at the time) had a mechanical on Robin’s front wheel making us turn straight towards Samoens and the climb home. Robin vocalised first that he was quite pleased he’d had a mechanical as it had luckily reduced our pre climb ride, the climb was enough of a struggle as it was. The feeling was mutual.

We were quickly stripping off as we started to climb out of Samoens and I was soon down to my vest that I really didn’t need on. Glad I’d carted all that extra clothing with me then, should have swapped it for more water as I ran out half way up the climb. Not a good idea when the mercury is showing 30 deg C in the sun. It took about 2 minutes of pedalling to realise that it hadn’t felt this hard last year, so we made sure we weren’t going too fast too soon and tried to slow down a bit. Hmmmm, I was already going pretty slowly and it was soon down to granny gear where I then stayed for the majority of the next hour and a bit.

I decided to see it as a good sign that the snow plough had come down from the col, chains and all, whilst we were on our way up. Robin had been so in the zone, or head down and dying as he otherwise described it that he hadn’t noticed! Three gendarmes had also buzzed past us on motorbikes and didn’t come back down a further sign that we were going to be able to get home to Morzine. For info the road is now clear of snow, there are a few patches on the road but you can go around them. There is quite a lot of salt, grit and cowmuck on the Morzine side so be a bit wary until we’ve had a few more rainstorms to clean it up.

I was fairly worried at times that this write up was going to need to be titled Joux Plane one, Ali nil as the temptation to get off the bike was at times almost overpowering. But happily temptation did not succeed and I kept on pedalling. Perhaps the reason I didn’t manage to take any photos on the second half of the climb!

I may not have made Joux Plane by bike sound easy because it isn’t, but it is an incredibly rewarding climb with beautiful views of the Mt Blanc massif after you have climbed past the meadows and farmhouses out of Samoens. It will be closed to cars and only open for cyclists as part of the 1 day 1 col initiative on Sunday 27th July so get the date in your diary and give it a go!

Location

Map of the surrounding area