Winter is over but nobody has told the snow to go away!

The ski season has now ended and at the bottom of the mountains spring has sprung! However the top half of the mountain still thinks it is winter. We are still getting a mixture of snow and rain even here at 1000m .
This is now playing havoc with my training schedule preparing for the summer season on the bike. At the moment the only option I have is to go down on to the Turin plain where the grass is green and the sun is shining. It is still hard to say when the mountains will be clear enough of snow to get out onto the peaks with the bike. At the current rate it could be well into June!

The conditions are already playing havoc with the Giro d'Italia. The stage from Cuneo to Pinerolo has had to be changed due to high avalanche risk on colle del Vars and Agnello. The new stage route has been somewhat tamed down with a loop through the Susa Valley to Sestriere and then a descent via Val Chisone to Pinerolo.
To add insult to injury the Gran Fondo planned for the Sunday before the stage has been cancelled due to "logistical problems". There is no real reason for this other than usual inefficient Italian bureaucracy and inability to do anything properly.

I could never imagine the French messing around with the Etap or the Tour like this at such a late stage.
On a more positive side this season I will be tracing many of my cycle routes with a GPS and uploading them to an excellent site Everytrail and another called www.gpsies.com so you can get an idea of our trips.
There are a couple of routes already on them so why not take a look?