A big black dog darted out after me. I stood on the pedals to try and get away but I was in the wrong gear and he was coming too fast. His teeth were barred and I yelled, “no” at him but he didn’t even flinch. In mid sprint he open his mouth and licked my calf. This was the first badly behaved dog I’ve seen in all of Europe, but he was really just an an enormous dopey lab charging out to say hello.
I was pedaling up Col de la Faucille and it was a beautiful warm day. It was a heck of a lot easier than the Col Croisette a couple days ago. At around 7% gradient I could still (kind of) spin a gear and inch my way up the 6.2 mile/ 10km climb. There was a lot of traffic and the climb reeked of diesel fuel which made me cough.
From half way up the climb I could see Geneva below in the distance still in sunlight. Directly above me the the weather was turning as dark clouds marched over the mountain top. Slowly the rain started to fall and it got a lot colder. I had some gloves and that helped. The rest of me was staying warm enough through exertion. On the last 2km the wind picked up blowing over the pass and it was frigid but I was so close I wanted to get to the top. The rain picked up too and soaked me completely.
At the top I forced down a chocolate bar, tightened up my rain jacket and felt absolutely frozen. There was nothing to do but head back down. I knew it would be warmer at the bottom so rather than completing the loop I made a U-turn and went straight back down. It was a good descent and would have been excellent without the hard rain and freezing cold. About half way down my hands and feet had gone completely numb. I tried to stretch out my left hand and found I couldn’t even bend my wrist. You know how your friends who go on adventures in the mountains warn you to carry a bunch of extra gear? This is one of those moments I wished I had listened to them.
Soaking wet canvas shoes, thin shorts, sleet in the air and 35mph downhills meant I was only getting colder. The bottom of the mountain with warmer air couldn’t be that far though so I kept going. When the mountain had almost run out I stopped and had to use my teeth to pull my gloves off. I was so shaken I couldn’t remember how I had gotten there and had to type my hotel’s address into Garmin with my hands frozen into the shape of shovels.
When I got pedaling again I worked extra hard to try and warm myself up but the chill seemed set in me. Finally in the hotel shower it still felt like I couldn’t get my core temp up. My feet felt like I was standing on broken glass with lightening bolts shooting at them as they thawed out. All this and I was only 3000 feet high! If I had been on one of the big Alps with serious elevation I would have been in serious trouble.
Traffic, cold, dog attack… almost the makings of a bad day except it was such an anomaly amongst the good days of this trip that I’m counting it as a good one just for originality. Back in the hotel I still couldn’t seem to get warm so I wrapped up in blankets and tried to understand the rugby that was on TV.
A quick and cold 32 miles/ 51.5 km.
Think Up Good Things 
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