Fireflies Tour 2013: Stage 6 - Le Sauze Excursion

Rather a change of format today. Plenty of time for a shower in the morning, a fairly relaxed breakfast (not in Lycra) and an 09:10 start. Then an ascent of the Col de la Bonnette from Jausiers, a few km back up the road.

La Bonnette is the highest mountain pass in Europe, at 2,802 m. The climb is 24 km long, on a good road, and the ascent is around 1,600. There is an awe-inspiring gorge near the bottom and then long, sweeping ramps and hairpins through increasingly deep snowfields with the occasional marmot, though they're hard to spot.

There was a rather better group approach to riding today, so plenty of company. There was some unhappiness at dinner yesterday over the continuing lack of 'why I'm riding' introductions and the general standard of riding etiquette. It's clear to me that most of the Fireflies this year don't belong to cycling clubs, so they haven't had that discipline drummed into them by prickly, traditionalist older members (like me).

Anyway, the majority stopped for coffee about half way up, but I was feeling strong and didn't want to waste it, so made it to the top in the first half of the field.

The keener members were heading down the other side for lunch before the reverse return journey. More sensible ones like me just came straight back down for beer and bread and six types of cheese in the hot sun – having once again struggled up the 10-11 per cent 'Col d'Hotel', which is an absolute killer.

I'm worried again about the bike's headset, which is now tending to stick in the straight-ahead position. Going to talk to the support crew and maybe get a bit of physio myself...