CyclistRough and tough: Mont Cenis gravel rideThe food, the culture, the art, the accent, the sheer bloody romance of the place yet my favourite thing about France is that youre never more than a layby away from a bloke sat in a plastic chair staring at a road. Behind him is invariably a motorhome, beside him almost certainly his long-suffering wife, but whatever the specifics, Ive always found this bewildering and beguiling.Were pedalling past one of the most wonderfully blue expanses of water I have seen in some time at the tail end of a glorious French summer, vertiginous mountains on all sides, and although I too want to live a life with my shirt off, I cant understand why this fellow and his partner have positioned themselves at car exhaust level on the side of the D1006 to Modane. Theres an actual, spiritually life-affirming view just over their shoulders. But I cant fault them really. They may be sitting in silence, staring at a layby, but by goodness they look content.Juan Trujillo AndradesWe turn off the tarmac to begin an ascent of one such vertiginous mountain and its not long before the track has turned so steep and loose that were forced to dismount. Im left to push my bike and wonder at my life choices pedalling up steep things. I should like to be in that layby now too. I bet hes got loads of stubbies in that cool box.HardTo set the scene further: we have set off from a car park just up the road from the shores of Lac du Mont Cenis, a reservoir whose services are retained at 1,974m such that the gravel track were on will deliver us to 2,728m, atop the Col de la Met. Were in the Mont Cenis massif, right on the edge of the French Alps where the Savoie department borders Italy. Turin is little more than 60km away.Juan Trujillo AndradesThe highest peaks we can see are steely and snow-drifted, but the slopes were pushing our bikes up have a meadowy feel, their demeanour soft and rolling and their sun-scorched grasses speckled with wildflowers. Finally the gradient tapers off into a hairpin thats flat enough to remount, and we continue pedalling.The we is me and Kim, or Gravel Kim to her followers, an ex-tennis player of some calibre turned adventurer who youll be as likely to see pedalling round a high-altitude reservoir as you will drifting through a night market in Kathmandu. Still, despite such globetrotting chops, Kims happy to admit shes finding the going challenging, which is a relief, as so am I.Were high enough that were looking down on the colourful wings of paragliders, but each hairpin feels harder won than the last, my chest labouring, wheels spinning and derailleur with nowhere left to go. It feels odd to say its the altitude as weve only ascended about 500m, but when you start off close to 2,000m it feels safe to assume air thinness has something to do with it.Juan Trujillo AndradesWhat is rather lovely, however, are the sounds up here. It is quiet like wintery days and un-popped ears are quiet, the crunching of our tyres slightly muted and the occasional whistle of a marmot ethereal in a Star Trek-theme kind of way, echoing through the enormous spaciousness of the mountains. Ski lifts dangle motionless and snow cannons jut angularly from the snowless ground like giant javelins.I can just about make out the top of the Col de la Met, a section where the horizon ceases to present any more peaks and instead forms a crisp blue band above the plateauing brown of the track. We pass a loose-tiled shack that houses the end of a chairlift the only other way up here save for an exceptionally long and taxing hike. A few metres after the hut the mountain falls away and a viewing platform greets us, out on its cantilevered limbs to offer the best possible vista of the Lac du Mont Cenis below.Juan Trujillo AndradesAs rewards for climbs go this is a really rather good one, but it needs to be. According to my maths, that climb was around 8km at more than 11%, and there were several forays deep into the twenties that reminded me of the Lake District if transposed to a quarry. The only way back is to retrace our tyre tracks down, so we set off in search of the shore road around the lake to our second climb.HarderAs we pedal over the wall of the dam thats penning in the lakes waters, I add a few other things to the tableau of oddities nestled in this decidedly beautiful spot: military men jogging in fatigues with laden bergens; more men in plastic chairs positioned so they can see into a caravan park; a lone swimmer and a cat on a lead. All seem unfazed as we pedal by, except the cat who looks royally pissed off.Juan Trujillo AndradesWe turn up another track and pass a series of pieces of traffic furniture that, if not a direct instruction to stop, are at least a caution. We nip round a yellow and black barrier preventing cars from passing, then we lift our bikes over a red and white chain. I reason the chain would be pulled taut if they really wanted to stop us going any further, plus a cursory look at our maps suggests this is the only viable route to Mont Malamot at 2,917m.Much like the Col de la Met on the opposite side of the lake, the feet and ankles of Mont Malamot are bucolic in looks but brutally steep to pedal, and were soon pushing our bikes again. My tyres simply cant find the traction nor my legs the necessary power. Still, it provides an opportunity to guess at the abundance of wildflowers, which I shall call buttercups, daisies and purple jobbies, but might well be aster, campion and fleabane, who knows?Juan Trujillo AndradesBelow us the lake is still and Bond villain-blue, the very colour and flatness youd paint steel shutters designed to disguise a radio beam weapon for disrupting American missile launches. Probably. My bike computer barely registers 7kmh so I have enough time to think such things, albeit theyre not entirely without tenuous context.Situated as it is, the Mont Cenis range was a heavily defended crossroads between France and Italy, leading to various military fortifications erected from the 18th century onwards, and its one such base, Fort de Malamot, that we owe this road to, although right now Im thankful for none of it.Juan Trujillo AndradesThe high-contrast flora is disappearing, leaving balder, greyer mountainside in its place, the track riddled with gulleys carved deep by snowmelt. Rocks of all sizes scatter the way, and between them and the gulleys its a full-time job just to stay clipped in. It will sound like an exaggeration but I cant think Ive ever ridden up something so inhospitable to bicycles. Suncream is leaching out of my skin in milky, eye-stinging streaks, my wrists are both carpalled and tunnelled, and my legs feel tight and soft at the same time. Two more hairpins and this Sisyphean endeavour is wearing thin enough to snap.Juan Trujillo AndradesHardestWere high enough now that snow drifts are a consistent feature, and in another world thered be a certain magic to it. But as we pedal our way past the ruins of barracks used in the Great War and beyond, the mountain is a sombre place to be. Theres an inherent eeriness to any abandoned structure, and I can well imagine the grimness suffered by those unlucky souls once stationed up here in winter.Juan Trujillo AndradesWere at 2,800m, the wind is whipping in the way wind tends to at altitude, and the landscape is brutish and spartan. The odd wildflower clings improbably to a tuft on a rock, its delicate stalk and petals somehow taking a stand against the elements, and while theres surely a wonderful metaphor for life in such a flower, all I can think about is we still have another 100m of ascent to go and its getting really quite cold.Juan Trujillo AndradesEventually the track plateaus, offering a few metres of easier pedalling before sweeping back off to the left. We follow, the surface now truly lunar, make one more turn and then white. A huge snow drift has enveloped the track. I can see to the other side, but I can also see that shouldering my bike and walking across might lead to certain death. One way the track climbs up, the other way it drops into a mini-abyss, and Ive seen enough episodes of 999 to know that this is when good times go bad. Theres still some 20m of ascent to go and weve not yet reached Fort de Malamot, but we decide to be sensible and call it a day.Juan Trujillo AndradesWe remount and pedal carefully. Im conscious were both on non-tubeless gravel bikes and we only have a tube and a patch kit between us. Also the sun is dropping at a rate of knots in the mountain sunset way one second you can see, the next second its dusk, the next its night. With that comes the cold; with cold the exposure, and soon my mind is catastrophising situations that revolve around hunting marmots with inner tube catapults and using a Di2 battery to start a fire.Juan Trujillo AndradesWe eventually make it down, and by the time weve skirted the southern side of the lake and arrived back at the start, Im amazed to find weve been riding for nearly four and a half hours but have covered less than 50km. Testament to just how hard this ride turned out to be, we climbed Mont Malamot all 8.76km, 900m and 10.3% gradient of it at an average speed of 4.2kmh. And the descent was barely any better at 4.9kmh. We probably could have walked it faster, but then again wheres the fun in that? Sometimes cycling is about overcoming more than it is the actual pleasure of riding. Its the triumph in the face of adversity that gives certain miles their meaning.The man in the plastic chair cracks another beer, toasting our success inwardly, no doubt.Juan Trujillo AndradesHow we did itTravelCyclist flew from London to Geneva with Easyjet, where flights in September cost around 100 return plus 45 each way for a bike and more for luggage. Alternatively, a train to Geneva costs around 150e/w if booked in advance, requires two changes and takes approximately seven hours. Once in Geneva, we transferred by car to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne in a little under two hours.AccommodationWe stayed at the Best Western Cur de Maurienne in Saint-Jean-du-Maurienne (bestwestern.co.uk), a 1.5 hour drive from Mont Cenis admittedly, but brand new and not too expensive at 105pn. Saint-Jean-du-Maurienne is a bustling little town perfectly positioned for rideable access to Les Lacets du Montvernier and the Col de La Madeleine, among several other iconic climbs, on both road and gravel.ThanksBig thanks to Cline Guillermin from Savoie Mont Blanc (savoie-mont-blanc.com) for organising this trip, ferrying us around and keeping her merdes to herself when we failed to leave the right bike in the right place, resulting in Cline having to make a four-hour round-trip to sort it.Thanks also to Kim for riding with us (@gravel_kim on Instagram) and Adrian from Cyclomundo for the logistics and bike hire. Cyclomundo is a local tour operator based near Geneva that offers expert guiding and self-guided tours, as well as full packages for events such as the tape du Tour de France and La Marmotte. See cyclomundo.com.The post Rough and tough: Mont Cenis gravel ride appeared first on Cyclist.