EPIC THAT PIONEERING SPIRIT - Savoie Mont Blanc · Lyon (lyonhotel-leroyal.com), France’s second biggest city, it was the only hotel in town. The Royal is still, at least, one of

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THAT PIONEERING

SPIRITFour years after the CSMA was launched

in 1923, 15 members set off on an epic journey from London to the top

of France’s iconic Galibier pass. As we celebrate the launch of Boundless, and

that spirit of adventure that is still fundamental to the Club, we

follow in their footsteps...

Words Duncan SteerPhotography Pete Goding

EPICDRIVES

Location: FRANCE

Distance: 300 KILOMETRES

Date: MAY 2016

THE JOURNEY

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Sno fixed date for re-opening. We kept an eye on the daily weather reports. They seemed hopeful.

AGAINST THE ODDSWhen the 1927 expedition stopped at Hotel Le Royal in Lyon (lyonhotel-leroyal.com), France’s second biggest city, it was the only hotel in town. The Royal is still, at least, one of the best. Inside, the hushed intimacy of an elegant town house, faultless service and tapestry-covered walls create an instant oasis of calm.

The food here was described by our Twenties tourists as ‘especially good’. We had rooms overlooking Bellecour Square, the centrepiece of the city, in the fashionable area between the Rhône and the Saône rivers. It did not feel like we were on an expedition against the odds.

But the drive out from the city took us into a different France as we opened up the DS 3’s roof along the 1927 adventurers’ route east of Lyon to the wooded Col du Chat. Seeing the view of Lac du Bourget – France’s largest lake – through the trees far below us, it felt as if we were crossing a border. Away to the south and east, the Alps’ snow-capped peaks provided a daunting backdrop.

Like the 1927 routiers, we were to stay in Aix-les-Bains, the spa town on the eastern shore of Lac du Bourget. In the spirit of stepping into the unknown that so fired that group, I decided to experience one of the more complex treatments on offer at the National Thermal Baths, a giant modern building that feels a bit like a hospital and a bit like a leisure centre. I was to have a hammam mud bath.

In an ante room, Oriane was waiting with a giant churn of mud, looking like a school-dinner lady presiding over the chocolate custard. I yelped as she began slapping it on. It was properly hot; 48 degrees hot, I later learned. She rolled me up in sheets of foil and plastic, like an Egyptian mummy, and left me lying there for 20 minutes to reflect on matters. Afterwards, I was sprayed from all sides by 15 tiny jets of sulphuric water. She said it was good for me.

But the giant health spa is just one side of Aix’s recuperative properties. The 1927 tourists paid a visit to the >

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Clockwise, from top left The original Civil Service Motoring Association route card*; the 1927 team at the Galibier pass; lunch in Aix-les-Bains; the view to the Alps across the Lac du Bourget; Lyon’s Hotel Le Royal; E-bikes take the strain out of climbing *View the 16-page route card at boundless.co.uk/epicgalibier

ix miles from the summit of the sky-scraping Col du Galibier pass,

high in the French Alps, we rolled to a halt and switched off the engine. We had reached the end of the road. The barrier was closed and we could drive no higher.

Though the snowploughs had been clearing the road to the summit of the pass for the past week, the drifts on the upper slopes were still 10 feet deep. There was a danger of avalanche.

Later, they told us, the snow would be cleared with dynamite. The road might be opened tomorrow. For now, the only way up was to walk with snowshoes under the direction of our local guide, Thierry Le Bigot, a man with 25 years knowledge of the Galibier in his bones.

We’d planned to re-create the final kilometres of the epic drive from London to the top of the 8600ft Galibier pass, a journey undertaken by 15 gung-ho members of the Civil Service Motoring Association in 1927. The pioneering Club had been set up just four years earlier to enable members to come together and make the most of the new-fangled world of cars and motorbikes.

But they were also united by a love of exploration and adventure, characteristics that were fundamental to the founding spirit of the Club. That 1927 drive through France would be just the first of a series of epic adventures around Europe. It took seven days in July to cross the Channel and drive down to the Alps. Meeting more or less as strangers on the quay at Folkestone, the party saw the trip as ‘a great adventure into the unknown and a subject of no little trepidation’, according to an insider’s report published in the Civil Service Sports Journal.

And it was tough: in the final miles, especially, the group battled to overcome breakdowns and punctures on the rocky dirt roads into the Alps. But the trip was marked, too, by fine dining hosted by local mayors, midnight trips into Paris, swimming in rivers, scrumping from roadside apple trees, mini golf and a packed programme of excursions. For a cost of about £17 – around six times the average weekly wage at the time – everyone agreed it was the finest holiday they had ever had.

Almost 90 years later, we had brilliant road engineering, digital guidance and motoring technology on our side in the shape of the new DS 3 Cabrio which, unlike many of the 1920s vehicles, not only has a (soft) roof, but also Sat Nav and a general crunchy sportiness. Against us: we were making the trip on the cusp of summer, when the Galibier was still covered in snow. While the ski station of Valloire (valloire.net), half-way down the mountain, buzzes through the winter, the road to the pass is closed for up to seven months and has

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Clockwise from above Travelling from Valloire to St Michel de Maurienne; the infamous road-closed barrier; ex-snowboard champ Brice le Guennec runs France’s highest brewery, Brasserie Galibier; delicious desserts are a local speciality

casino and took a boat trip on the lake across to the impressive Hautecombe Abbey. I took a more speculative trip in a 12-foot catamaran, with a local instructor called Hugo. His English was non-existent; my nautical French rusty and, as the pre-storm winds got up, I was certain that I would be taking a dunking at best. The wind and water in my face, I was continually on the verge of sliding off the boat and into the lake but, in the event, I absolutely loved it.

‘Again?’ shouted Hugo above the noise of the wind, and there was only one answer.

From Aix-les-Bains, the 1927 party approached the Galibier pass from the south. In the morning, I called ahead to the tourist office in Bourg d’Oisans to make sure we could do the same. It wasn’t good news. The Galibier summit itself was still closed. Worse, we would not even be able to get onto the road towards the pass because a local tunnel had collapsed.

Rumours of the Galibier’s imminent opening had been spreading on social media, although no local official had agreed a firm date. I asked the lady on the phone in Bourg d’Oisans whether the pass might be open tomorrow. She didn’t know. ‘Is there anyone I can call who would know?’ I asked. There was a pause while she considered the question.‘God?’ came the reply finally.

REACHING THE SUMMITWe had a Plan B. This was to approach the Galibier from the north, which entailed a major detour. Eventually, we reached the village of St Michel de Maurienne, but we were still 21 miles from the Galibier summit and had first to zig-zag around a succession of smaller peaks, including the Col du Télégraphe. We stopped at the ski resort of Valloire, the last town before the final 12-mile haul to the pass.

When the 1927 tourists raced through Valloire on their way back down the Galibier, it was a tiny farming hamlet: the first ski runs and hotels only came in the 1930s. It’s no metropolis now, but it does have nine hotels. Like many ski resorts, Valloire is nearly as popular in summer as in winter. In particular, it’s a magnet for cyclists. The Galibier was first >

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BOUNDLESS ONLINE NOW

See our video from the summit of the Galibier

Read and hear more about the 1927 CSMA Continental Run adventure

More great photography from our Epic Drive

Sean McGreevy’s verdict on the DS 3 Cabrio & DS5

visit boundless.co.uk/epicgalibier

For Epic Drives in Italy, Germany,

Switzerland and more

visit boundless.co.uk/epicdrive

The original 1927 route from Lyon to the Col du Galibier

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F RO M T H E B E G I N N I N G S TO B O U N D L E S S

Francisco microbrewery bar, Brice makes Galibier pale ale, wheat beer and Alpine ale, and is working on others, cheerfully beginning his tastings as early as eight in the morning. The brewery is tiny, but it’s hard to imagine a better host and more charismatic evangelist for craft brewing and the mountain lifestyle than Brice.

The next day, we drove out of Valloire, following Thierry, our guide, back up to the closed barrier. We parked up and Thierry outlined our route to the top of the mountain, still hidden from view behind

layers of other smaller peaks and climbs. ‘We never speak in terms of horizontal kilometres,’ he said.

‘I usually count on going up 300 metres in an hour – so, today, two and a half hours up and two and a half hours down.’

We had been prepared for temperatures of minus 10 or worse, snow, sleet and high winds. But the sky was a rich, beautiful blue, the air was still and the temperature a balmy 14 degrees. We were roasting.

Quite early into the walk, we started to find breathing harder, though we soon adjusted. We made progress initially on the road, with 10ft banks of snow on either side. Then, after pulling on snowshoes, we walked across country to cut across the hairpins of the road. It shortened our climb to the top, even though progress was slower and more awkward.

Walking with tennis rackets on your feet takes some getting used to – even with ski poles to help our balance, the steep >

1931 The Morris Minor – the first £100 car – goes on sale (average annual earnings are £160)

1923 The CSMA is launched to bring together people with a passion for motoring and adventure

1935 Compulsory driving tests are introduced in the UK

1938 After a 20-year union campaign, the new Pay Act gives British workers the right to a week’s paid holiday

1950 The first mass package tour using chartered flights is launched, costing an average month’s wages.

1953 The first drive-on car-ferry terminals are opened at Dover and Calais

1979 British spending on overseas holidays exceeds spending on domestic holidays for first time

1988 The digging of the Channel Tunnel begins – it opens in 1994

1997 EU deregulation of airlines brings a new era of budget flights led by easyJet and Ryanair

2016 CSMA Club relaunches as Boundless

FOOD & DRINKESCARGOTSProduced at a farm local to Valloire and baked in pastry with creamy cheese and/or garlic and herb sauces. Not everyone relishes the prospect but: (1) they are actually delicious and (2) would possibly be equally delicious if they were just pastry, sauce and no snail.

TOMME DE SAVOIEThe Lyon to Galibier route is big on dairy farming: the semi-soft cheese Tomme is akin to Brie, with a taste that varies from village to village.

SUEDOISLocal firewater/digestif, 30 per cent proof, made with rhubarb: local lore suggests it has medicinal properties.

RACLETTETable-top mini-brazier, which melts hunks of cheese for potato- and charcuterie-dipping. Proper stick-to-your-bones mountain fare.

MICRO- BREWERIESAlongside Valloire’s Brasserie Galibier, there are 23 other small breweries in Savoie Mont Blanc.

incorporated into the Tour de France in 1911 and has been one of the most regularly used climbs ever since – often it’s the highest point on the whole Tour.

We were told that the barrier to the summit was still closed, the weather too volatile to consider walking up today. Instead, while we waited, we explored the foothills on an E-bike tour with Cyril Valantin, a local guide. We went off-road up into the mountains in search of a lake that only exists for two weeks a year – for the brief period when the snow has just begun to melt.

The E-bike allows less serious cyclists (like me) the chance to ride on the Galibier, its battery giving what feels like an extra 10 or 20 per cent of oomph to my pedalling, bringing the relentless climb into the realms of the possible. The track took us past a sprinkling of stone houses in the middle of nowhere, apparently abandoned: when the snow melts, they will be reopened as bars and shops. But winter was still in charge here – when we reached it, the lake was still dry. The mercury hovered around zero and there was sleet in the air.

As the temperature dropped, we descended back to cosy Valloire, and Brasserie Galibier (biere-galibier.com), France’s highest brewery, started five years ago by former snowboard champion Brice Le Guennec. Inspired by a trip to a San

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Clockwise from far left The 2016 team prepare for their ascent; strapping on snowshoes; guide Thierry samples a local cheese and makes walking on tennis rackets look easy; the mountain awaits...

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NAME GAMEThe first Citroën DS appeared in 1955. The name DS comes from the French word déesse,

which means goddess.

ELECTRIFYING IDEAThe brand has been showing off its ideas for the future by unveiling the all-electric GT

concept, DS E-TENSE.

PREMIUM CHOICEThe Citroën DS name was

revived in 2009 and, in 2014, DS Automobiles was launched

as a stand-alone brand.

DS 3 CABRIO PERFORMANCE THP 210

ROOFOperating the DS 3 Cabrio’s fabric roof was child’s play; it slipped smoothly into place in just 16 seconds at the touch of a button. It can be operated when you’re on the move (very useful in ever-changing Alpine weather), and you can vary its position. You don’t get as much of a full-on drop-top experience as you do with some of the competition, however.

STYLINGThe cute design has made the DS 3 a popular choice since its launch in 2010, and the revamped model can only build on that success. The Performance version we tested really looked the part, with twin chrome tailpipes and black, diamond-cut alloys. Punters like to put their own stamp on a car in this sector, and the DS 3 has more than three million option combinations available.

PERFORMANCEIt’s a real pocket rocket and will speed you from 0 – 62mph in just 6.5 seconds. The DS 3 gobbled up the motorway miles, too, but the real fun came as we headed towards the Col du Galibier. We unleashed the car’s 208bhp as we threaded our way up through the tight corners of the mountain roads, its deep exhaust note burbling away satisfyingly behind us as we climbed ever higher.

INTERIORThis sporty model has a classy cabin with snug bucket seats and distinctive detailing. It houses five people, although taller adults will find it a touch cosy in the back. The boot isn’t a bad size, but its narrow opening made it difficult for us to use the space. Never ones to travel light, we had to rely upon the load-lugging skills of our accompanying DS 5.

SpecPrice: £22,795Engine: 1598cc

4-cylinder petrol turboPower: 208bhpTorque: 221lb ft

Transmission: Six-speed manual

Performance: 0 – 62mph in 6.5 sec,

143mphCombined mpg: 52.3

CO2: 125g/kmBoot space

(max litres): 245Website:

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slopes looked precarious. But our confidence and speed increased with Thierry’s advice. In all, we were ascending for nearly three hours. When we stopped, there was an immense silence, broken only – when the wind changed – by the distant growl of snowploughs at the mountain top. It was so hot, I was putting fistfuls of snow down my shirt to keep cool.

Eventually, we reached the Galibier tunnel. Since the 1927 party came here, a new road over the top – 260ft higher – has been built. Today, that altitude was the domain of the avalanche experts, but we had reached as far as the CSMA pioneers.

The 1927 crew made a fire and had lunch and, of course, a cup of tea here. ‘Did not the eyes sparkle and the tongues wag,’ said the official report from 1927. We ate local cheese and charcuterie and took a team photo, as they did, and prepared to descend, sliding part of the way down on our backs through the soft, snowy slopes, tobogganing without toboggans.

With easyJet and Sat Nav on our side, our epic journey was not quite the leap in the dark it had been in 1927. But, for a moment, up at the top, three figures against a huge wall of snow, with only snowploughs and our avalanche alarms for company, we had seen through the eyes of the old pioneers.

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From top The long walk begins but, eventually, our 2016 pioneers enjoy the satisfaction of reaching the same height as the 1927 party

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More infosavoie-mont-blanc.co.uk (for activities in Aix-les-Bains)valloire.net (for cycling and walking guides on the Galibier)atout-france.fr (for holiday ideas across France)lyonhotel-leroyal.comThanks to cotswoldmotoringmuseum.co.uk for info on the 1927 trip.

Motoring Picture Library, G

etty