On Saturday Maciej and I went to a quite challenging bike trip from Orsieres (cca 900m) to St Bernard pass (2470m). It was very good trip. We started at Orsieres and used forest roads along the river all the way up to Bourg St Pierre (except for a special "bonus" section right before Pont de la Tsi where we needed to carry our bikes 200m uphill on a hiking trail with traverses and wooden steps).
From there, we continued to dam of Lac des Toules, where we climbed up and started second bonus part -- trail along Lac des Toules is just a big hiking trail and we were glad that most of the part was downhill. After the dam, we crossed the river and tried to go to Bourg St Bernard. Except ... it wasn't easy. There were two possibilities: a) cross another stream on an iron bar probably 30cm wide which would be fine on foot but a crazy idea on bikes b) cross the stream on a very inconvenient place c) take stairs to the roof of the tunnel. We took last option in the hope that it was designed as a hiking trail -- a big mistake. The roof wasn't particularly good for biking (or hiking for that matter). So we went down on the other side of the tunnel but our problem remained -- there was a road but there was also a big stream through it. After enumerating possible choices, we went for the easiest -- cross the stream with naked foot. And it was really cool (or I should say really cold -- water was probably from melting snow). This was however final obstacle and we reached Bourg St Bernard (1900m) where the majority of cars go to the St Bernard tunnel and thus there is less traffic on the old road. There we had a lunch and started the last part of our trip -- final (and quite hard) 600m of ascent on an asphalt road.
Hungry for more photos? Here they are.
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