I bought some delicious bread and one eighth of butter, one croissant and 6 cookies at the panificio in front of the apartment and enjoyed breakfast.
At about nine one hour earlier as normally 🙂 I started because I knew I had to climb 1.400 meters to colle sestriere.
My knee felt fine. Preventively I creamed the bonset cream (beinwell).
As written 1.400 meters up and about 40 kilometers. That means it wasn’t very steep.
After about 5,5 hours and a cheese sandwich brake at a bar I arrived at the pass.
Fortunately during my rest at the bar a little shower of rain felt so I must not dress the rain clothes.
After a visit in the Chapel to say thanks to the Lord for the power to do the climb so fine I prepared for the 700 meters downhill to Cesana.
At this time I firstly realized that there will be another climb. I didn’t see before. Nevertheless I enjoyed the downhill with 54 kmh highest speed – according to the LocusMap.
While dashing down I saw a fox. Yes, really a fox! But it was a horrible but lucky situation at the same time.
Sometimes while driving I tried to look back to see whether a car is behind. If not I could use the whole wideness of the street.
So I did. Turning my head forward again I saw the fox crossing the street only two meters in front of me.
Arriving at Cesena I undressed my rain clothes filled the water bottles at the water well and started to climb the next 500 meters to Claviere and Col Di Montgenevre.
After some sharp bends I arrived after a bit more than one hour at the second pass. In this moment it started to rain so I had to dress the rain clothes again and did the last meters up and turned into France.
The downhill to Briançon I also enjoyed very much. The rain stopped soon so I arrived at Briançon with some sunshine.
Now I looked to find my booked B&B but neither phone nor internet service were available. I saw that the provider (HOT) had texted me to send me a welcome to France.
So I had to check LocusMap for the B&B. Fortunately I found the street there so it was easy to navigate there.
At the B&B Wi-Fi is available but it breaks down nearly every hour so I have to ask my host for a reset.
Actually I saw that it had not been necessary to do the climb to Sestriere. If I had chosen to go through Val di Susa (the next valley in the north) I would have arrived directly at Cesana Torinese. So I did an extra climb of 700 meters 😉 so I learn to be more careful while planning the route.
