Costigliole Saluzzo
We got an earlier start for the big day ahead - we were going back to France via the biggest mountain either of us had ever cycled. We stopped for cappuccino at a nice cafe on the main boulevard in town, where office workers stood at the counter to drink their morning espresso. We loaded up with bread, pastries, fruit and cheese form neighbouring shops and cycled out of town towards Busca. It was a quiet flat road through farmland growing an astonishing variety of things - corn, pumpkins, sunflowers, apples, stone fruit, even kiwi.
At Busca we ate our breakfast in the still quiet square - Italian croissants may not be as light and buttery as French ones, but the fact that they stuff them full of nutella goes a long way to rectify this. We looked inside a couple of impressively ornate churches.
We took a few steep hills through the villages of Cerrito and Piasco before heading out along the main (only) road to Colle dell’ Agnello - our challenge for the day. We detoured through villages whenever possible, including an espresso stop in Venasca. The road climbed gently but steadily.
Casteldelfino
The official beginning of the climb to the pass is in Casteldelfino, although by this point we had already ridden around 70km and climbed almost 1000m from Cuneo. We ate our sandwiches in a little courtyard in town, before setting off along the now much steeper road. Pontechianale is the last village of any size, with a large dam, so we stopped off for a final fortifying espresso.
Low dam level in Pontechianale
From then on it was tough. The mountains were beautiful, the views spectacular, and the weather a little cooler at the higher altitude. But this climb was steep. There were plenty of sections at 15%, and the last 10km is all above 10%. We took lots of rests and snack breaks, and we didn’t really have enough water for the trip (enough to be okay, but not enough to drink liberally). I ate what was definitely the tastiest nectarine in the world at some point, it was the size of a grapefruit.
Fortunately the weather was good - mostly sunny, cool but not too windy, and the clouds only rolled in briefly while we were nearly at the top. At a few points we were worried that we weren’t going to make it (so steep!), but we eventually got to the top and the border (2744m). The sun came up and we enjoyed great views over both France and Italy, snapped the requisite border photos but had to keep moving at it was getting late (6pm already). We descended pretty quickly for 20km. I’ve read that the Italian sides of cols are always steeper and tougher than the French, and it was definitely true of this one. We cruised down lovely gentle switchbacks on the French side, able to pick up lots of speed on long sweeping descents without having to brake hard for hairpin turns.
We got to Ville Vieille, and there was a bakery at the junction that was closing immanently - so we quickly grabbed a flute of bread. We rode a few more kilometres downhill to the municipal camping, only to find a notice in French on the gates saying it was closed for some financial reasons. So we rode around 5km back up the hill to the camping in the neighbouring town of Aiguilles, only to find a deserted campground with the reception and bathroom buildings locked up. By now it was close to 8pm and the sun was nearly setting so we camped there anyway - had wet wipe ‘showers’ and ate bread and grapes for tea (thank goodness the bakery was open!). The camping was grassy and peaceful, with only the sound of jumping locusts as we very quickly fell asleep. The Agnello climb had been looming in the back of my mind throughout the trip so far, and I was very relieved that we managed to do it.
