Fun Climbs Not Found In ANY Race

Geneva-> Bonneville-> Mt. Saxonexx-> Brizon-> Morsullaz-> Solaison-> back to Geneva. 75.51 miles and 5.974 feet of climbing

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/ch/geneva/317128311044610899

Some of the best climbs I've done around here haven't been in any kind of race/Grand Tour and never will be. Today was full of them. 10%-12% averages (at the lowest), almost no traffic, and one of the climbs had a 1,000 foot drop off on the other side with only a 1 foot high stone wall that separated me and certain death. Almost no traffic, nice shade, and great views of glacial gorges make these climbs really hard, but also really enjoyable.

The ride out to the Alps has become completely monotonous. Through downtown Geneva, out to Annemasse (a rather crappy town on the outside of Geneva), down a busy road to Bonneville before crossing the river to some quieter roads/farm towns. The climb started rather abruptly and was quite steep from the beginning. I believe its 8% at its lowest and averages 12% for the first portion. The key to this climb is getting some speed at the start and doing whatever you can to maintain it. I was spinning my lowest gear, a 34-25, but once you get going it just comes down to not slowing for turns, cracks in the road, passing cars, fatigue or whatever. A lot of people go too hard on climbs like this and then lose speed when they try to do whatever they can to correct for their mistake. I've found that if you start at the right pace then it gets easier after the first 5 minutes. I've heard that some people 'get comfortable' for climbs and change their position/seating and try to use different muscles for different types of climbs, but for something like this I think thats kind of bullshit. They're not long and they're steep, but not ridiculous. Get a comfortable cadence and stick with it in whatever gear works. For stuff like this you can't worry about spinning fast to avoid lactic acid buildup or any of that crap, you just have to use sheer force to tough it out for a bit. Think of someone like Jens Voigt who isn't a climber, but can manage to tough it out for long pulls on the front. Same thing.

The first climb is on a very narrow road surrounded by huge gorges. Its hard, then it gets flat for a few hundred meters and goes back up. I turned around at the town, descended on the 8 foot wide single lane road and back to a left turn up to Brizon. I then took the road back to the top of the first climb via a flat byway between the two towns and climbed up to Morsullaz, which turned out to be a rather bad idea. The road is at the top of a ski station and better suited for mountain bikes so I was constantly swerving to dodge massive potholes, cracks, and hikers. I later found that if you go straight instead of going up this climb you end up at Le Reposoir, which is mid-way through the Col de la Colombiere right before it gets really hard.

After Morsullaz I went back to Brizon and found that I had originally missed a turn to Plateau de Solaison, which is yet another steep 10% climb up to a beautiful alpine meadow. These climbs weren't super long, but they were fairly scenic and quiet. The grades made them pretty challenging, but I've never had a problem with shorter, steeper climbs probably from learning to ride in Arizona and Central NY where things are usually short, steep, and fairly fast.

The ride home was the same as the way there and proved to be fairly quick. False downhills/false flats have a way of making things seem longer/slower than they really are, which always makes the ride too and from rather boring. Total ride time was 5.5 hours due to the slow, steep climbs even though the mileage was low. Despite feeling incredibly tired my climbing felt even better than the day before, but I know it won't last too long. My recovery is slowing down and my energy is dwindling so I will have to back off for a bit. There's quite a few more rides I would like to do before the winter, but my weeks are averaging almost 25 hours despite riding 4 or 5 days a week at most. Its also hard to eat enough with the high prices of food around here.