Well yesterday I realised that bend 16 isn’t numbered. I have never noticed this before as I have alway had my head down concentraiting on the climb up.

Why did I notice this ? Well I thought I would time myself at each bend so I could see how long it takes me to ride each of the magic “virages”.  Bend 17 was great - I pressed the lap time – the next bend was bend 15 – how did that happen ? Actually its pretty easy because most of the bends are switchback i.e. they turn back on themselves but bend 16 is just a right angle turn. Further up the mountain there is another tighter bend that is not counted as part of the magical 21 bends- figure that one out.

Anyway here are the times between each bend – the first is from the roundabout just outside our base in Bourg d’Oisans – so this always takes a little longer than the rest.

to bend

21 – 5:36

20 – 4:17

19 – 1:23

18 – 1:24

17 – 2:22

16 – oops

15  - 4:36

14 – 1:45

13 – 4:14

12 – 2:44

11 – 2:43

10 – 3:17

9 – 3:19

8 – 3:51

7 – 3:03

6 – 6:51

5 – 2:44

4 – 2:40

3 – 5:08

2 – 2:43

1 –  3:21

finish – 4:30 

a total time of approximately 72 minutes and some way off my best time of 59:54 but not bad after a few drinks in the Cafe de Paris the night before…

For the record this is my first attemt on the road bike this year and it was loads easier than taking the mountain bike. The sun is shining now and its starting to warm up so I am looking forward to 7 months of warm climbs and descents.

I added an extra bit to my ride yesterday turning off left at the mysterious bend 16 and traversing across to Freney d’Oisans a long a very precarious road barely clinging on to the side of the mountain and then back to Bourg d’Oisans - a total ride of 46 km.

the red lines on the above picture highlight the climb of Alpe d’Huez as seen from our bedroom window in Bourg d’Oisans