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Tour du Mont Blanc: Voie Toller- INTRO

Introduction:

Jo Toller is my skiing touring partner.  He has been cycle touring for many years all over Europe, and last Autumn he cycled across America aboard is "ultimate touring setup" with 700cc wheels, Rholoff internal gear hub, Ortleib panniers and silly shaped handlebars.  He also climbs and walks alot around Cham valley during the summers.  

For a couple of years now he has had this hybrid TMB route in mind.  Last year when I went to watch the Downhill World Cup in Val d'Isere I picked him up from Courmayeur on my return over the Petit St Bernard.  He'd left Cham and in 7 hours had reached Courmayeur.  He hadn't gone the road cycling route via the Grand St.B & Aosta, no, near Verbier he'd headed up the Swiss Val Ferret Valley as far as the road went past La Fouly and then pushed his bike over the Grand Col de Ferret and descended all the Italian Val Ferret Valley to Courmayeur town.

Having walked the TMB in the same, non classical, clockwise direction twice last summer whilst assisting a guide I knew that the second half to this trip back into France would be really tough.

But neither of us {can} run, so the UTMB is out of the question, as is doing the road TMB of 300km.  Which to be honest is nothing like the classic TMB taking in lots of the Val d'Aoste and Beaufortian area of France mies away from the Massif.

So TMB Voie Toller was created and a plan was formed having debated where we wanted to be in daylight, Col de Croix du Bonhomme basically! (I've never been up there in nice weather)  I was as fit as I was going to get this summer having done a few 2 hours climbs and many long hours standing around marshalling the Trans Savoie and I'd also rented a CUBE 29ner from EchoBase in les Praz. Jo was full of enthusiasm and had 3 caffeine energy gels from Aux Vieux Campeur.

Comments

  1. Unknown10 September 2013 at 09:41

    Thanks Oli, fascinating reading - and well done.
    Heinz (Jo's Dad)

    ReplyDelete

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