X
Starting in the idyllic lake side town of Annecy ‘the Pearl of the Alps’ and culminating with the infamous Col de Joux Plane, this 3 day tour is packed full of Tour de France climbs from start to finish. Medieval architecture, stunning mountain lakes, classic climbs and quiet roads all add up to a thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding weekend.
The Medieval town of Annecy sits on the shores of it’s own mountain fringed lake. With its ancient market sprawling amongst narrow cobbled streets, broken by canals and bridges, overhung with flowers and bustling with life, it’s the perfect place to begin our journey.
From here we lead you on an adventure encompassing the very best riding in the area. Including highlights such as the hill top village of Mont Saxonnex, Samoens, one of Frances most picturesque mountain towns and Morzine, once a rural farming community, now a thriving hub for mountain sports and outdoor enthusiasts. Combining old Tour classics like the Col de Joux Plane, the Col de la Colombiere and the Col des Aravis with more recent additions such as the Col de la Ramaz and the Semnoz with its unrelenting gradient and panoramic views. Our local knowledge has allowed us bring you a route that combines many of the areas classic cols with quiet backroads, mountain lakes and stunning scenery. Carefully selected accommodation and food combined with our attentive support service and legendary picnic lunches add up to a weekend of riding you’ll never forget.
| Dates | Prices | Information |
|---|---|---|
| Contact us for availability | £1,195 | Price is based on two people sharing. Single room supplements apply. |
Starting in the idyllic lake side town of Annecy ‘the Pearl of the Alps’ and culminating with the infamous Col de Joux Plane, this 3 day tour is packed full of Tour de France climbs from start to finish. Medieval architecture, stunning mountain lakes, classic climbs and quiet roads all add up to a thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding weekend.
Arrive at Geneva airport and take a short one hour transfer to Annecy, the pearl of the alps.
Depart Morzine with a short transfer to Geneva.
All accommodation has been arranged for the dates highlighted in the tour. If you wish for accommodation before or after the dates, let us know and we can try to help you. We have chosen the hotels for their comfort and location to make your trip as straightforward as possible.
The support vehicle will always make itself available to provide you with your refreshments. If you need a water refill on a climb, we will stop in a convenient place to help you out. We also provide picnic lunches on all of our rides as well as snacks to help you on your way.
We provide all the evening meals along with wine and soft drinks either at the hotel or out at carefully selected restaurants . Our tours aren’t just about great cycling they’re also about great food.
We will pick you up and drop you off at the required airports. If it’s a shared tour we will ask all the clients to arrive at a certain time to enable us to collect everyone and avoid people waiting for too long at airports.
We will give you a welcome bag at the start of each tour. This can be used as your kit bag to keep all the extras in in the support van. It will contain maps and ride profiles, Tailwind energy and recovery products to help you on your way and a Velovation jersey made by Bodhi. This Jersey can be customised to you or your tour just ask us about it when booking.
The support driver isn’t just driving and feeding you the whole time, he will also be taking photos of you the whole time which will be carefully edited and shared with you after the tour is finished so you can keep looking back at the amazing time you had. Have a look through some of our photos on Instagram and follow us.
We understand how much you love your bike and we will do everything we can to help keep them safe. Each hotel we stay at has good quality bike storage and we supply additional chains and padlocks to ensure excellent security.
Every day we will provide each rider with a map and profile of the days route, along with any other relevant and useful information.
As well as having maps, a support rider and support van in close proximity we will also provide you with the routes so you can load them onto you navigation device. If you don’t have a navigation device we can rent you one.
We carry a comprehensive tool kit in the back of the support vehicle along with a number of basic replacement parts. Each member of our team is capable of helping with bike maintenance and basic repairs. We do advise however that you know how to disassemble and assemble your own bike and have the tools to do so. Please bring spare inner tubes and a puncture repair kit.
Riding in the Alps is tough and we create our weekend tours to ensure maximum levels of achievement which comes hand in hand with maximum physical exertion. For this reason we recommend a decent level of fitness and motivation. We will happily create routes for any level of fitness and experience so if you have any concerns please feel free to contact us, together we can come up with the best possible options to suit your needs.
For these weekend tours we suggest that you bring your own bike. While we can advise you on hiring a bike here in France it is generally better that you have your own. You need to be comfortable on your bike for long periods of time.
We expect you to wear a helmet at all times while riding.
Please bring appropriate clothing, the climbs can be hot but the long fast descents can get cold especially if you are damp from the hard climb. Extra layers can be kept in the support vehicle so that you don’t have to carry them but please ensure that you bring good quality kit.
It is also advisable to bring good sun protection.
Matt Evans ‘I have used Mark and his Velovation team on three occasions. Once was on the ‘Big One’ with some friends, the second time was when Velovation organised a corporate event for me and some 40 or so clients out of Morzine and the following year Le Clusaz.
All events were expertly organised with great riding and epic mountains. We have used Velovation since for additional corporate events.
I would recommend and I will be using them again in the future for any cycling trips to the Alps.’