Posted by: Kyle

Six days a week in the summer there is a farmers' market in a different town in the Oisans region. Saturday the market comes to Bourg d'Oisans, and is actually set up along the street right below our hotel window. There was an amazing selection of produce, cheese, bread, meat, olives, honey, and all sorts of things.

After walking around the market and having some breakfast we went for a ride up a road that climbs up to the small village of Villard Notre Dame from Bourg d'Oisans. It's tough to describe just how amazing this road is. It's very steep, very narrow, and in spots is carved right into the side of the mountain.

There were also several tunnels to ride through. A few had a slight curve to them, so you couldn't see one end from the other, and one of these was long enough that we had to ride a short way in complete darkness.

There were great views of Bourg d'Oisans and the valley below, as well as Alpe d'Huez, across the valley.

After a long climb, we reached the small village of Villard Notre Dame.

Beyond Villard Notre Dame, the map showed that the road turned to "field or forest track", which eventually connected to another small village, Villard Reymond, high above the next valley to the west. We continued on to see if we could make it all the way there on our road bikes. The first portion of road was great, mostly paved and just a little gravelly.

The road eventually turned to dirt and got a little rough and rocky, but was mostly all rideable. Though here Bec had to walk a particularly steep and loose section.

We eventually made it to Villard Reymond, where we had some omelettes for lunch, before beginning the long descent down into the next valley.

Before heading back to Bourg d'Oisans, we climbed up to Col d'Ornon, which was on the bike course from the race a few days ago.