French Alps 2026 Day 3: Chambèry to Grenoble

Unlike the previous two days, we set out this morning with a specific destination in mind: a hotel about 7km south of Grenoble. That removed a good hours’ worth of guesswork from the day. No decision point in the afternoon, no shopping for hotels, just focus on getting the day done. For me, less stress, particularly with the weekend here.

Today’s route was two long climbs (and the associated descents), plus a bunch of funny business in the middle: a short punchy connector climb, and a wild, tiny road across a deserted valley floor that 99% of cyclists fly right past without knowing it exists. And today we got tunnels. Too many to count, but I will anyway, and it’s something like 6 or 7.

We met some folks, found some food, and even got a good look at Grenoble’s bike infrastructure at the end.

Up at 7:00, free coffee at the hotel but no breakfast. I even took 20 minutes to do a bit of my normal easy upper body strength training in the hotel “gym” which had a set of dumbbells, all I needed. After all that, we were climbing by 9:00, right out the gate, same as yesterday. This one was the Col du Granier, which translates to “Granier Pass” in English (you’re welcome). The col is named for Mont Granier, which you can see from the top. It’s a pattern you might have gleaned already, but here it is all official-like.  Anyways, a long, steady climb with great temperatures.

We saw some stuff on the way up. The first tunnel of the day, for one.

Also a wild boar, which Harald blissfully breezed right past without noticing.

Finally, the top, where there’s a restaurant that we ignored, in favor of a nice display celebrating the Granier with relief models over time, along with benches and abundant sunshine.

Also at the top we ran into a touring couple, Dave and Amy Cleveland (not from Cleveland, from Colorado so I should just call them Dave and Amy Colorado, you’d never know!), and chatted for a bit. They’re on rented ebikes with a hotel booked every night, so they charge the bikes at each hotel. It’s amazing how ebikes have changed mountain tourism. Many of the same climbs and areas, but totally different overall route.

Down we went, but not too far. A fast, open descent with great views and not many switchbacks, down to Entremont-le-Vieux, where we took advantage of the public bathrooms and filled our water bottles.

Then we switched sides of the valley and popped up a quick leg-snapper of a climb (okay, probably 30 minutes) that was quite steep in parts. Steep matters on my bike because of the gearing: once the gradient gets above 7% or so I have to ride harder than my normal, working pace, or my cadence drops too low and my knees start to hurt (i.e. I run out of low gears). Riding above my working pace tires me out more, and on a long day those efforts add up and can make the later climbs a lot harder.

The top wasn’t a col so much as an open field. Think “Julie Andrews” in The Sound of Music, but with sheep.

Down we went again. This was a very different descent, in that we stopped in the middle of it to take a detour back across the valley. A quiet road only wide enough for a single car, steep and rolling, and it made me feel like we were lost in the middle of nowhere. This was the tiny road I mentioned up top. We came to a natural eating spot and had a bit of lunch in the warm sun.

I experimented with soaking up the sun directly from the rocks. They weren’t quite as warm as I had imagined. I guess that’s a summer thing.

On down the road, then a U-turn in the town of Saint-Pierre-d’Entremont, just switching sides of the narrow valley. This new direction was a larger road with several interesting tunnels. We mostly descended and came out on the valley floor.

Then the final big effort of the day, which was sort of divided into two parts. Part one was riding up a twisty, turny valley with a bit of traffic. Fascinating rock formations and some narrow tunnels made it interesting, occasionally stressful, and always tiring.

We turned off the main road and headed up the Col de Porte proper. A long, hot climb that wasn’t particularly interesting. We both struggled a bit, and stopped to eat and rest about 3km from the top after over 90 minutes of steady effort. The rest helped a lot; it reset things enough to get us up the last 3km.

Somewhere in there we also ran into Mike and Dave, two guys from England who were in the area mainly for caving (!) and decided to do a bike ride on their last day.

Always good to chat about spelunking. It made those last 3km go much faster!

The final descent was a beaut, all the way down to Grenoble.

When I took this picture I wasn’t sure whether I’d passed Harald (while he was stopped, of course, I could never pass him on a descent while riding). Turns out he was quite a ways below, waiting for me. I got there eventually. We dropped almost right into the middle of Grenoble without any fuss, and then a bit of navigating on some very nice bike infrastructure got us pointed toward the hotel.

We arrived and did the obligatory laundry and showers. Then we each walked to a different grocery store. I chose Carrefour and Harald tried Aldi. He gave the Aldi a thumbs down: the “wrong brother” owns the chain in France, he says. Google it if you care to learn the sordid tale of the German Aldi Brothers.

My haul: green olives, a cucumber salad, a couscous and veggie meatball stew, baguette, some citrus pudding, and an exotic fruit juice blend. I doubt that’s an exhaustive list.

Today we rode 58 miles and climbed 7800ft over 6h20m. I don’t think we can do much more than that comfortably, at this point. But we might just try tomorrow 😂.