Tuesday 7th October 2025: Day 8

Today was big hill climb day. We’d decided to climb to the top of Semnoz who’s route started on the road past our camp site. The top is at 1699 meters and hosts a ski resort as well as mountain biking, hiking and paragliding.

Its a recognised cycle climb with markers every kilometer giving distance to the top and average gradient for that kilometer. The climb is 18km long.

The route winds through beautiful forest before finally clearing the tree line for the last few kilometers. I’ll not bore you with the details but it is a hard 18km with gradients up to 9%. Near the top I bonked, felt faint and was very slow. luckily at the top the cafe was open where we consumed several chocolat chaud & a fromage baguette. After a short lie down I regained enough strength to cycle down. The descent was the best ever – pity I wasn’t on top form for it.

When I got back to the van we decided another camp site was needed rather than driving up the mountain for the night. Sadly the site we’d been at was full so we found one round the corner. I went to bed & Sarah looked after me for the rest of the day.