Our Tour de France, touching people
and scenery in Alps

Just below the Iseren, we were captured by breathtaking view and stopped on the way.
“I’d like to climb the Galibier pass some day”, The
dream of Michinao Sato, which he told to the
French people traveling in Japan whom he encountered in Kamakura, came true. The French people
are Vincent and Christine. They are the same age
pro-Japanese, live in the suburb of Chambery in
Savoie where the tour de France runs through in themountain stages every year. They are Judo-ka, Vincent is 3 dan and runs Judo club, Christine is shodan. They met in Judo club at the University andwere happily married couple.Their another interest
is cycling. They ran from Savoie to the Atlantic
ocean on the tandem bike along the Loire river.

Their tandem also conquered many passed in the
Alps. Once after they went home, they sent Michinao a great invitation. They invited us to the cycling
tour in French Alps for a vacation trip with them. In
addition to Col du Galibier, col de l’Iseran, L’Alpes
D’Huez, col de la Croix de Fer, Col de La Madeleine are all included as the critical points of mostimportant passes. We call this circular course “ourTour du France”. Racers are three of us, Vincent,his sons Lemi and Theophil and his Judo friend Gill
who used to be a member of French National Judoteam. Christine and Gill’s wife Cathy, their sons
were supporting us in the cars.

Etape1: People pride themselves of their local cheese
District of Savoie is named afterDuke Savoie, one of the noblest families ofthe southern Europe. The family had owned
not only French Alps area but also southern
Switzerland around Geneva and Piemonteregion in Italy around Torino. The last kingof Italy also had come from this family. We
could see pasture everywhere in this Savoie
land even near the mountain top. That’s
why everybody in this area recommend thevisitor to taste a local cheese because it is sodelicious.
The most tasty cheese of this area
which everybody agree is ete de Beaufort. It
is made from the milk of the cows which eat
nutritious grass in Summer. That’s why
taste of it is so rich and flavored. Departingfrom Albertville, we dropped in at the townof Beaufort as the first stop for lunch.
The team supporter had visited
Marche(market) of this town and had boughtbaguettes, ham, fruit and ete de Beaufort
already. The hard skin of mold being peeled
off with the Opinel knife, we tasted the soft
part of this cheese. Salty cheese and baguette
are so good after a certain distance of warm
up ride.
“Have more cheese. Otherwise you
might suffer from hunger knock in the difficult hill this afternoon.” Hearing this advice,
we could not stop eating. After lunch, we
gained 968m on the 8% slope. We were able tosee the great view of Mont Blank with someclouds thanks to the effort of the climbing.
Having passed Le Cormet de Roselend, we
arrived at the hotel in Bourg St Maurice.

Etape2：Origin of the word “Alps” and traditional stone house
Having finished the warming up day, we
started to the highest point of our tour de France,
Col de l’Iseran on the second day. First, we gained
about 1000m to the Val D'Iseren, one of the most
famous ski resort used at the Albertville Olympic.
Breathtaking view of the dam lake surrounded by
mountains cheered us up during picnic lunch time.
In Alps range, lots of cows and sheep were relaxing
and eating on the grass land even over 2000m alt..
Panoramic views let us forget difficulty of gradientof the slope though, 7 to 8 % of the hill steadilyharmed our leg muscles. Over the limit of the forest,
no tree was seen. At the top of the Iseran pass behind the road sign, stone made chapel was dignifiedly standing and facing to the snow covered
mountains. The word ‘Alps’ is thought to come fromsummer pasture, plural form of alp which means
female in old English or rocky mountain in Celtic.

Descending from the mountain, we arrived
at the dead-end village of the other side of the valley.
Many stone houses, some of which were going to decay,
were protected as heritage of the mountain culture.
What surprised me most was that not only the walls
and columns but roofs were made of stones. It wassuspected that the only available material to build
houses would have been stone. Stone churches, stone
houses and stone paved roads. We saw a shabby moss
covered house which could have been given up at theend of the village. Entering the building, I felt likebeing oppressed by the history of the mountain people
living against snow and stone.
We stopped at Lanslebourg to stay. It used tohave been a main hub village to be connected to Italy
through Mt Cenis pass before the tunnel between
France and Italy was made. Now it regained peacefulness as a local ski resort.

● A chapel at Iseren pass stands being fascinated with the mountain● Galibier pass is an exciting vista point seeing Mont
Blanc and Italian border.

● a couple of lovebirds. Vincent is the ace, Christine isthe director of our team

Etape 3:”Momotaro” legend in France!
Today must have been the day on which our dreams cametrue.
At first, we were going down to St Michel deMaurienne, then we were heading up to col du Télégraphe,
once were descending to Valloire, a ski resort, finally wereclimbing up to col du Galibier(HC). The very first part wasgood for warming up. But Telegraph building, which used
to be a fort, was up on the top of the hill wall far high. Fortunately, climbing road was covered under the shade of trees
in the forest. The average gradient of this road was 7% to thepass.
At the top of the pass, we enjoyed picnic lunch
under the beautiful sky behind the road sign. Today’s menu
is unfamiliar local tomme, baguette and couscous. The
bulletin board of the pass showed historical pictures andstories about the battle of the Tour at this part.
Surprisingly, in 218 B.C., it was written that
Hannibal, Carthaginian general, had passed the Galibier
pass to enter Roma with elephants. Vincent said “Every pass
has the same story around hear, but nobody knows the truth

for sure.” Roman people, the origin of western history andculture, were afraid of Hannibal as a human eater. But Gaulish
people who had been beaten by Roman army might take him
for a hero and a savior. Most of them might have wanted tobelieve that Hannibal had passed through their own village toinvade Roma in order to punish the Roman evil. We found a“Momotaro” legend in France.
Gradient was getting steeper and steeper like 3%,5%, 6% from Valloire. The end of the valley, we looked at the
knife curved road on the rock wall. We could not believe thatelephants had climb the wall. Over 8 to 10 % slope for several
km, we climbed up the 7% gradient easy open space where
many cows were ringing bells. In final 2km, 8% and 10%
slopes waited the competitors to win the Tour. Adrenalin was
fully coming out!
Only small parking lots and road signs were at the
top of the pass. We were able to enjoy spectacular mountainviews, La Barre des Ecrins (4102m) in south, La Meije insouthwest and Mont Blanc in far north. It was the special vista

point surrounded by higher peak than Mt. Fuji.
There was a gift shop and a monument of Henri
Desgrange, the great father of Tour du France just behind theother side of the pass. When he originally included this pass inthe course of the Tour, cyclists had to climb this pass on single

geared bikes. I was sorry about that because it was so
hard for me to climb with inner gear at front and lowest
gear at rear. Taking the way to the west at Col du Lautaret, we arrived at La Grave in Hautes-Alpes andstayed. The cheeses at dinner tasted a little bit different.
● Hotel Oberland contains some jerseys and historicalsouvenirs of the tours in house

This slope has a chapel too.Gradient is 11% for next km, 12km to Madeleine pass

Etape4: Prayer of Alpine people
Southern portion of Galibier Pass was registeredas National Park so that natural resource of the Alps might
be preserved. Mt La Meije was shining gloriously reflecting the morning sun. I saw a little chapel on the hill behindthe hotel. Only 20m climbing allowed me to look out marvelous views of mountains. In mountain area, most of
church gardens overflow with many tombs. Simple grave
posts faced to Mt. La Meije, suspecting peoples prayed
only to the god but to the mountain.
Today was another dreaming day. We weregoing to do time trial at L’Alpes D’Huez. We went down
to Bourg d’Oisans on mostly easy down-hill road. In somepart,
we passed through a blind tunnel, so front and tail lumpwere mandatory. Sometime I ran singing “Hakone no yama…” on the descending cliff road of a deep canyon. Once
we turned right at the road sign, many cycling were passing
by. We started every 2 minutes in order at the 0m sign.

First 2km which was extremely steep like 11% average suffered me because I did attacking from the beginning. Suddenly clouds appeared and made shade so that we did not feelso hot, however the gradient did not became easier. A chapelby the road was protecting both local people and challenging
cyclists. Many riders on MTBs came down on dirt, because
the upper part of this hill is ski slope. It might be more exciting to go down on MTB rather than road bike. Winner of ourtime trial was Lemi. He climbed the hill only 54 minutes! The
result showed us how strong this sixteen years boy was. He
had already won several local races before. It was muchcooler and nicer in the village at the top. It became 36℃ when
we went down 1100m to the bottom. Over the village at thetop, there was green cow field here and there in front of thebeautiful views of snow covered high mountains. After picnic
lunch, we enjoy half day off in the village as a reword.
The hotel we stayed was Hotel Oberland in Bourg
d’Oisans listed in the Cicerone guide “Cycling in the French

Etape 5: The heat of the tour remained on the passSouthern portion of Galibier Pass was registeredas National Park so that natural resource of the Alps might
be preserved. Mt La Meije was shining gloriously reflecting the morning sun. I saw a little chapel on the hill behindthe hotel. Only 20m climbing allowed me to look out marvelous views of mountains. In mountain area, most of
church gardens overflow with many tombs. Simple grave
posts faced to Mt. La Meije, suspecting peoples prayed
only to the god but to the mountain.
Today was another dreaming day. We weregoing to do time trial at L’Alpes D’Huez. We went down
to Bourg d’Oisans on mostly easy down-hill road. In somepart,
we passed through a blind tunnel, so front and tail lumpwere mandatory. Sometime I ran singing “Hakone no yama…” on the descending cliff road of a deep canyon. Once
we turned right at the road sign, many cycling were passing
by. We started every 2 minutes in order at the 0m sign.

Letters left after the Tour du France,
we ran over the letters withaffection

Picnic style lunch, anytime, many kinds of cheeses amused us

First 2km which was extremely steep like 11% average suffered me because I did attacking from the beginning. Suddenly clouds appeared and made shade so that we did not feelso hot, however the gradient did not became easier. A chapelby the road was protecting both local people and challenging
cyclists. Many riders on MTBs came down on dirt, because
the upper part of this hill is ski slope. It might be more exciting to go down on MTB rather than road bike. Winner of ourtime trial was Lemi. He climbed the hill only 54 minutes! The
result showed us how strong this sixteen years boy was. He
had already won several local races before. It was muchcooler and nicer in the village at the top. It became 36℃ when

we went down 1100m to the bottom. Over the village at thetop, there was green cow field here and there in front of thebeautiful views of snow covered high mountains. After picnic
lunch, we enjoy half day off in the village as a reword.
The hotel we stayed was Hotel Oberland in Bourg
d’Oisans listed in the Cicerone guide “Cycling in the French
Alps”. It was built in 1907, decorated with professional jerseys, bikes like a museum of the tour. We went to the town
and tasted local bear.

Japanese cyclist appeared to climb passes in this area, Dauphiné Libéré paper

Etape 6: Corporation in life in Alps
Today is the last day of our tour. We are heading to Col du
Mollard, Lacets de Montvernier, Col du Chaussy and Col
de La Madeleine, finally to Albertville. Before the departure, the host came to take a picture of us with Pentax camera. He said he worked for local news paper. The picture of
us in front of the pension appeared in the Dauphiné Libéré
on 8th of August with his article. Title is “from the place
the sun rises to the village in Alps”.
Morning warm up was to climb col du Mollard
then go down to Saint Jean de Maurienne in which themuseum of Opinel knife was. It used to have been a factory. Christine was born in this town and her parents
planed to offer us lunch at the top of the Lacets de Montvernier. But Lemi, who had gone to his gland parent’s
home to help them, called us that his gland father was sickand he had called a doctor. His grand father had been carried to the hospital before we arrived. We tasted homemade potato gratin and grilled chicken. Then we left for
Chaussy pass praying his grand pa would be OK.
Over the pass, we could go down without any
fear because the road had been repaired a year before. On
the road side, old men in the village were firing a hugeoven like a barn. They were going to bake breads for thesummer festival starting tomorrow. They shared a baking
oven in the village. We could see how people had lived together in the mountain.
We started climbing the Madeleine pass at thesecond quarter of the slope. This was the last hill to the Albertville. We finally finished climbing. Mon Blanc appearedand celebrated us for completion of our Tour du France far
from north. We took hot a tub and swam in the pool and relaxed at the spa center owned by Bernard Hinault then had
dinner at the brasserie on the pass. Everybody gave a speech
to appreciate efforts of planner and supporter, to tell about thiswonderful short trip over roasted duck dished and glasses ofvine de Savoie.
Especially, Christine was devoted to take care of us until the
departure from France, even if her father was in the hospital.
We became a kind of family through this trip. We exchanged
words of the appreciation and hoped to meet again. Difficulties of passes and beautifulness of the scenes were beyond
description. But what impressed me most were kindness,
toughness and spirit of corporation in lives of the people. ”
Vincent, Gill and everybody, we shall go over Izoard pass,
Bonnete pass and run into Mediterranean sea together!” We
finished this trip with this promise made.