From Trailguru

La Grave?

Is La Grave really a good base location? It's really isolated, and it must be very expensive. I just spent several days in La Freney d'Oisans, and that was hard to get to and expensive, and La Grave is farther out from Bourg d'Oisans. The best place for a base in this area has to be Bourg d'Oisans. It is the biggest town in the area, easier to get to from, say, Grenoble, and, as far as Alpe d'Huez is concerned, doesn't require an extra climb at the end of the day.

For l'Alpe d'Huez, I'd recommend either Bourg d'Oisans or Freney d'Oisans as a base. With Bourg d'Oisans, it's a perfect up to the top and down trip. Another cool option is to keep going when you get to the top of the Alpe, and go over the Col de Sarenne, then down through Freney d'Oisans, and downhill back into Bourg d'Oisans.

As far as "warming up" before the Alpe, well, from La Grave it's essentially all downhill, except for a little flat portion of N91 right before the start of the climb, so I don't think it works as a warm up very well. Doctormatt 23:04, 19 September 2006 (CDT)

This is a good comment. In isolation, it doesn't make sense to use La Grave -- I wrote this as I did this route plus Galibier this summer from one spot. For Alpe d'Huez, Bourg d'Oisans can't be beat. I will make edits as such... Tpark 14:51, 20 September 2006 (CDT)

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