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The Parpaillon saga

Le Parpaillon tant convoité - Patrick Baisset CC n° 2219 Chartres (Eure et Loir) - magazine n° 26, 1998

On holiday in Embrun, there's no shortage of tourist routes for cyclists used to the landscapes of the Beauce region.

Today, there are two options: a mountain stage with two B.P.F. (Izoard and Saint-Véran) or the ascent of the Col du Parpaillon. So, which will it be? My decision was made. I'll leave the two B.P.F.'s to one side and take a look at the slopes of the Parpaillon. For me, the Parpaillon is as mythical as Paris-Brest-Paris, the diagonals and the Tour de France cyclo. Every story I've ever read has made me want to conquer it.

And what does the Parpaillon mean to you? An Alpine pass? Really? 2637 m! Oh, but it's so high! And on a mule track! That's why I've never heard of it!

At the end of the last century, the army dug a tunnel in the Parpaillon mountain. This carriageway became the highest in Europe. Always eager to go to the ends of the earth, cyclists began to use it. Despite very poor maintenance, cyclists continued to pass through. In 1930, G. Grillet came up with the idea of a pennant and a register. The Col du Parpaillon then became famous and remained a favourite with cyclists.

To begin with, I take the road up to Les Orres resort. Almost from the start, the small plateau is used. The slope justified it, and my legs weren't yet warm. I climb little by little, the view of Lake Serre-Ponçon improving as I go round the bends. I'm in the shade, but for the moment the sun is masked by the high mountains. The first photos are a must. I soon reach Saint-Sauveur, a mountain village with a remarkable viewpoint. Through pastures, the road remains easy and eventually descends to the village of Les Vabres. Then it's a non-stop climb. The road is fairly wide, with the Crévoux flowing below. The small plateau is necessary, and soon the club jersey is off. The sun was shining brightly and the blue skies suggested it was going to be a fine morning.

The village of Praveyral is made up of a handful of houses whose well-stocked stores of firewood show that they are lived in all year round. As soon as I leave Crévoux, I leave the tarmac behind. The path is particularly steep and made up of large stones; it's not exactly easy to make progress in these conditions. Should I leave my pedal cleats on? One or two situations on the edge of balance made me hesitate to unclip. In the end, I kept my feet stuck in the pedals and pulled myself out of the balancing positions by the strength of my thighs.

Fortunately, after a kilometre, the path becomes a forest road that is much smoother and less steep. Very pleasant indeed. The pace is a bit more normal. A little further on, I even found the tarmac road that passed through La Chalp. Through the forest and flower-bedecked verges, it takes me as far as Pont de Réal, about 1.5 km further up, where a new path begins, full of stones that don't make progress any easier. It's just after 10am, and the temperature is already high.

The Michelin map shows two chevrons. There they are, the buggers! The speedometer oscillates between 4 and 6 km/h! The fact that I'm on my own means I can choose where to put my tyres. The extreme beauty of the site encourages me to climb. Through the larch trees with their green thorns, at the feet of which grow a variety of flowers, the mountain of Parpaillon takes shape with, at the summit, a few white patches of snow, contrasting perfectly with the azure blue sky. And all in silence, or almost! 4 or 5 vehicles passed me on the way up. That's not many, compared with a classic pass at the end of July. But it's a lot in a place where you don't expect it. It's annoying every time, with the dust, the heat from the car engine with the fan running, the exhaust fumes and the risk of stones being thrown, even if the drivers are climbing at more or less the same pace as the cyclist.

The profuse sweat dripping down my forehead means I have to stop and mop it up before it reaches my eyes. The camera is also often out to immortalise these memories; the views are each more beautiful than the last. My eyes don't need two to memorise the extreme beauty of the landscape. My arms and hands eventually get used to the surface, although some hairpins need a bit of attention. The environment changes. Around 2000 metres, the trees disappear to make way for pastures. A classic change in vegetation at this altitude. Dotted with multicoloured flowers and crossed by a few streams, the green mantle is just as remarkable. A few cows graze peacefully.

I pass a cyclist, equipped like me with supposedly fragile 700 wheels. We chatted for a few minutes, giving him a chance to rest his aching hands and wrists. I continued on my way and eventually caught up with a couple of walkers with bulky rucksacks. We exchanged a quick hello and continued at our own slightly different pace.

A little further up, I meet up with my fellow motorists, sitting in the meadows with their coolers full of victuals. A picnic that wasn't too exhausting! The pastures soon gave way to rocks and «mountains» of pebbles. At a hairpin bend, a ford forced me to walk over. Never mind, a few more photos to enhance this stop. All the more so as, try as I might to see the summit of my ascent, I can't make out a thing.

But I got there shortly afterwards. This pass is decidedly different from those I've climbed before. The summit is in fact the entrance to a tunnel several hundred metres long, with a double-leaf metal door, dug into the mountain, full of stones and snow. Because of the altitude, the view of the surrounding mountains is magnificent.

Armed with the torch I'd slipped into my pannier, I entered the tunnel, bike in hand. Drops of water began to fall from the ceiling, and soon I could feel my shoes and especially the wedges sinking into the mud. I prefer to turn back without having seen the other side of the Parpaillon range, which should offer a view of the valley and the mountains of the Franco-Italian border and probably the high mountains of the Mercantour massif. Too bad!

It's midday. For those of you who like figures, my odometer shows 30 km since the start, an average speed of 8.7 km/h and an altitude of 2640 m, while the sign in the tunnel reads 2637 m.

Now all I have to do is start the descent. My water bottles are empty, but that should be fine. I put on my club jersey. Given the low speed, there's no need to slip in a newspaper. The descent is brittle; I'm constantly on the brake handles, and my buttocks aren't resting too hard on the saddle. This is not the time to puncture a tyre or break a spoke, even if you have the means to repair both faults. It gets tiring very quickly. The slightest slackening of the brakes results in a speed that is too risky and leads to a crash. The choice of trajectory is just as important as when climbing.
Usually, I don't really enjoy cycling there and back. This is different. The views are so magnificent that it's not a problem at all.

Arriving in Crévoux, I stop at the only bar/hotel in the village. A Logis de France called «Hôtel du Parpaillon». In response to my question, they tell me about a register where cyclos write down their memories. It's the third «Livre d'Or» (visitors' book) to exist since the famous climb up the Parpaillon was opened by R. Sauvaget on 1 January.^er August 1983. I go through it and write a few sentences. Every year, very few cyclists write down their thoughts. But are there many who climb this pass?

All that's left for me to do is glide down to Saint-André-d'Embrun. It's so funny to be back on tarmac.

It's a dream come true, and I hope I've whetted your appetite for mountain biking and, better still, for climbing the slopes of the Col du Parpaillon.