We ride on the moon
“Ils on roulé sur la Lune” (‘they rode on the moon’), was journalist Philippe Bouvet’s description of the Grand Boucle’s venture up Col de la Bonette in 1993.
In fact, that year the peloton passed over the extension of the Col to the summit, the Cime de la Bonette, which, at 2,802 meters high, is the highest point the Tour has reached in its entire history.
While Google encourage employees to spend 20% of their time on personal projects and Amazon apparently still make their desks out of old doors, here at Café du Cycliste we have a few of our own eccentric traditions. One of which, with the village of Saint-Etienne-de-Tinée only 90km away, is to ride the Col de la Bonette as soon as it opens.
This year we had to wait what felt like an agonising full five days after the scheduled opening until the snow ploughs were finally able to do their job. We received daily updates from the Valée Ubaye organisation until the Col finally opened on the 13th May and on the 14th, we were there.
This is what it looked like.
As a result of more snow, the Col closed three days after we rode it so if you plan to go, check with Valée Ubaye before leaving as anything can happen when you are so high above sea level.
And don’t forget if you want to come and ride it with us, we are opening our new premises very soon and have some exceedingly special bikes to take you up an equally special road.