Cime de la Bonette OAB

June 20, 2025

Today was the day to ride the to the highest point reached in the Tour de France, Cime de la Bonette. For some reason I’d thought it was the highest paved road in the Alps, but a little fact-checking on Wikipedia (that reliable source) showed that to be wrong. However, I learned a few things:

Cime de la Bonette has only featured five times in TdF so far: 1962 (Federico Bahamontes), 1964 (Federico Bahamontes), 1993 (Robert Millar), 2008 (John-Lee Augustan), and 2024 (Richard Carapaz). The first two times it was rated as Catégorie 1, but since 1979, when the Hors Catégorie classification was added, it’s been HC.

We got on the road at a reasonable time this morning and started with a gentle climb (into a light headwind) back to Jausiers, where we made the turn onto C1, Route de la Bonette. The climb started almost immediately and I didn’t see Al again until much later. The flies were bad again and he decided to just continue. OAB after all, and many other cyclists on the road.

About those other cyclists: there were the usual riders on light road bikes, with fewer obviously electric than we’ve been seeing, some of which were independent, while some were part of a supported group. We also saw an incredible number of lightly-loaded bikepackers. These made up maybe half of the total number of cyclists. Most of them had big seat bags, sometimes swaying crazily, and a few carried backpacks. Most had orange race numbers on their bikes. But we couldn’t make out what the event was.

Back at the hotel, I found it in a monthly Ubaye Tourisme brochure. It’s the Ride Across France!

Zoom in to see the website address if you might want to do this next year or another race in the series.

Riders with orange tags were racing the 1000 km distance, having started in Clermont-Ferrand on June 16 at 2100h. Today is June 20 and they have until 1900h tomorrow to ride the prescribed route to Mandelieu, near Cannes. No wonder so many of them looked tired!

As for my ride: it was a tough climb and I’m glad I did it with a minimum of baggage. No camera, no extra layers, just my usual two bottles and a small bag of dried fruit and nuts. A few phone pics from the climb:

That’s the road I came up taken from the same viewpoint as the photo above.

And a few from the top:

And one with the sign on the other side of the road.

I think that might be the road the Grandes Alpes Gravel route takes. It was unpaved at the turnoff not far back.

That’s the road to Nice but I’m not going that way. Around the Cime and down!

It was chilly at the top thanks to the wind, which is why Al didn’t wait until I arrived. We connected at about 4 km from the summit and it took me almost an hour from that point! Steep and a higher altitude than I’m used to, on top of some general fatigue from the last 4 weeks.

I stopped to attempt some flower shots but the phone doesn’t shine here.

And I stopped for some road decoration. There was a good one for Pogačar too but I zipped past before I thought to stop.

I saw another marmot! This one stopped and waited while I got my phone out but too far away. Cropping reveals the lack of detail.

Al was waiting for me in Jausiers, where we shared a mediocre pizza for lunch as we weren’t sure we’d make it to Barcelonnette before lunch service stopped. We also wanted to stop at the bike store on the way in to Barcelonnette to pick up more electrolyte and a new front flasher for Al since the strap for his preferred light is about to fail. We got back to our hotel just as the skies opened with a massive downpour, accompanied by thunder and lightning. Good timing!

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Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 1,058 km (657 miles)

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