Colle San Carlo

Distance: 35.3 miles. Elevation: 5912 ft.

Colle San Carlo | Colle del Piccolo San Bernardo

Since my last ride from Gignod, I’ve relocated about 20 miles further west to the town of Morgex, at the west end of the Aosta Valley. Today’s ride features Colle San Carlo. I had never heard of this col until I ‘rode’ it on my indoor trainer back in the winter. And now I’m here in the flesh, IRL.

Colle San Carlo, otherwise known as Col d’Arpy, has featured in both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. From Morgex, it is just over 10km in length (6.4 miles) with an average gradient of 10%, so it’s quite a challenge. Today’s route goes over the Colle San Carlo and down to the town of La Thuile, at which point there is an option to either climb to the Col du Petit San Bernard, or just descend all the way back to Pré-Saint-Didier in the Aosta Valley.

I left at 09:45.

View along the Dora Baltea river towards Mont Blanc. You can see the bridge to the Mont Blanc tunnel (currently closed for maintenance).

I made three reports at various points in the ride:

Report coming from Colle San Carlo My phone reported that it was 0°C outside before I left for the ride. I already knew that it wasn’t going to get much above middle teens°C. And that was in the valley, so up at altitude would be even colder, so I’m wearing a long-sleeved base layer with a short-sleeved top, three quarter leggings and woolly socks. And I started the ride with my rain jacket on as well, and I’ve got my snood around my neck and head, and my cap under my helmet. I’ve also got long fingered gloves in my backpack just in case I need them.

So the climb started straight away and just never let up really. There were sections that were slightly easier (ie only 9%), but they were compensated for by other sections which weren’t. It never got easy and I was mostly in first gear.

I saw a sign with a number four on it and wondered if that meant I was four kilometres into the climb, so I was on the look-out for more of those. I didn’t seem to see one for ages but then when I saw one in the distance I thought “I hope that’s either a six or a seven”, and luckily it turned out to be seven. I’m guessing that this climb is about 10km long because I know that it’s just over six miles. (The things that go through your head on a long climb..).

I stopped once for a painkiller because I had a pain in my left lower back and slightly in my left leg but I think even just getting off the bike for a while helped because when I got back on it was fine. The air is cool but I haven’t been cold but I’m sweating under my rain jacket and backpack. Luckily there is zero wind – I mean I’m standing here at the col and the tops of the conifers around me are not even moving, although the clouds up above are. It is dead quiet here. No sounds of birds or anything.

I’d left early to try and get the best of the weather because they said it may rain later and also be sunnier in the morning. There have been periods with lots of cloud cover and also some where the clouds really break up and the sun shines for a while. A couple of km from the top I took my rain jacket off because I thought I was just going to get too wet but I was already soaking wet underneath it and the rain jacket itself was, so I don’t really know how I’m gonna dry out for the descent – I’m probably going to freeze. I’ve hung my rain jacket on a fence, hoping it might dry slightly while I’m standing here doing the report.

This road isn’t as wild as I was expecting – in fact it’s quite well looked after and there’s lots of picnic areas and things like that. I can just feel a slight breeze now and it’s blowing in the direction that would have been helping me slightly up the climb. There was a car maybe every four minutes or so which was more than I’d expected but obviously not busy. So now I’m dreading this descent down to La Thuile because I’m soaking wet. I think it’s gonna be quite cold – the air temperature is very cold. In fact I’ve just looked at my Wahoo and it says 6°C.

So I’ll have to put my rain jacket on even though it’s wet.

So it was a tough climb but again not not too drastic really. I’m just going to have one half of my sandwich and then do the descent to La Thuile.

This report coming from near Col du Petit Saint-Bernard I’m standing next to a building that’s offering shelter from the wind. Since the last report there was a really steep descent twisting round hairpins at first and then with longer stretches down towards La Thuile.

There were glimpses of the Mont Blanc massif and its glaciers

Sections of that road were really horrible because there were cracks across the road – that is very rare but it was a complete pain because they spanned the whole width of the road, so there was no way to avoid them, despite the complete absence of traffic.

I had put my rain jacket, arm warmers and gloves on for the descent. By the time I got to La Thuile I was still feeling OK so I decided to carry on up to Col du Petit Saint-Bernard. I took my rain jacket off to prevent being too sweaty on the climb.

I did the whole climb to Col du Petit Saint-Bernard in one go. It was quite a nice climb really. Not that much traffic – just a car every now and again. It was eight miles at 6% average gradient, and took 1hr 15mins.

The sun has been out quite a bit and I’ve dried out to some extent. But the weather looking back looks grey. And now the wind has picked up and will be a northerly headwind in my face for the descent.

So I’ll have the rest of my sandwich and leave straight away.

Oh yeah, I’ve heard some marmots…

Report from end of ride So I put all my warm gear back on including snood over my head, and set off from my sheltered spot into the headwind. I stopped several times by the lake for cow and lake shots.

I video’d most of the descent again. That’s useful for grabbing stills from the video later, and saves having to stop. As I expected, it’s an excellent descent because of the reasonable gradient, and good road surface. There wasn’t much traffic. The headwind was nowhere near as bad as that on the Grand San Bernard ride and it seemed to ease later on. There are views over La Thuile as the road zig-zags its way down to there.

Through La Thuile I was on unfamiliar roads as my route followed the Ruitor river down to Pré-Saint-Didier and the Aosta Valley. The road went through several tunnels and I was lucky enough to get through them all without any other vehicles passing me.

At some point I became aware that the road is on the edge of a massive gorge, to my right. I caught sight of it through the trees, but there were no further views of it

It seemed a shame that something as dramatic as that was hidden from view. When I got back I researched it and it is accessible to walkers, including a curved walkway that extends right out over it. More info below.

Once back down in the valley at Pré-Saint-Didier, my route took a quieter road on the opposite side of the river to the main road. It was a very quiet alternative to get me right back to Morgex. The whole descent from Col du Petit Saint-Bernard took around 50 minutes, condensed in the video to 2 minutes.

Once again I got back feeling good, as is pretty-well guaranteed to happen when you spend almost an hour descending from over 2,000m at an average speed of 20mph. So Colle San Carlo is another (up and over) col ticked off my list, and the climb to Colle del Piccolo San Bernardo means I’ve climbed that col from both sides now (♫ .. and still somehow .. etc ♫).