The beauty and the beast

the Beauty and the Beast: Col du Galibier (North side through the Col du Télégraphe) :

What a climb! I have done it many times and every time it feels like a major achievement! First it is very long, second it goes very high (2,646m), and third it is really steep especially at the end! You start with the Col du Telegraphe which is not really piece of cake, especially at the bottom where the percentages are the toughest! It can be hot down under in the summer even tough you are soon surrounded with pine trees. The last third of the Telegraphe is relatively easy and you can enjoy the scenery of the Maurienne Valley. Then you go down through Valloire and then right at the exit of this town you hit a very steep one mile climb. Not good for your mental! Then you "roll" gently to Plan Lachat but in fact it is steep and you start feeling the lack of oxygen. Do not look for shades or trees: there will be none until the summit! A short downfall leads to the last Chalet on the left side and then you hit a first hair spin steep as a wall! Welcome to Plan Lachat and the start of the real climb! This is the Beast! Before that, it was just the starter! This is the main course and God! French cuisine is sometimes hard to digest! You are now riding at over 2,000 meters above the see. Just breath hard and concentrate and keep pushing for at least 2 miles to start feeling better! It is a no man's land! Do not look at your counter and may want to just stop immediately ! Bikers around you look like ghost, breathing hard to go often at speed of less than 6 miles/hour! At that pace, you will still need more than one hour to finish the climb ! You will feel the effort until the very end no matter what! (the last two K are tough enough to force to throw your last forces in the battle). And up there, at the top, you reach the Legend! I have done it a couple of time after the Col de Croix de Fer. It is a beautiful and very tough one-day journey for fit bikers and then in the last kilometers of the Galibier, you may easily feel like climbing the Everest (so that I can imagine it since I never climbed it)!