Zoe!!

placette

Franck took me on a beautiful ride via col de la Placette yesterdaym down through Voiron and back along La digue. My improvised camera mount finally broke, so I didn't get much video, but here is what I did get:



I've also realized that iMovie is the easiest way to deal with editing gopro footage, so from now on I probably will editm rather than time compress rides in order to get clips under the youtube 10 minute ceiling. We rode by the co-headquarters of Rossignol skis, as well as a ski lift manufacturer which had a few test setups installed (funny to see ski lifts on the flatlands!).

not sure if the route is 100% correct:

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/fr/voreppe/859127522223140549

petit desert

Petit Desert for lunchtime cragging. It was one of those days when my feet slipped off of every hold, but still... beautiful weather, decent limestone AT LUNCH!

Goulandiere

Today we had the rare treat of an official work holiday AND daycare. We took full advantage and went to Goulandiere, near la Balme de Rencurel. It was a little mobbed, but we managed to climb some nice routes all a vue:
Premiere Flutiste
Magasin de procelaine
Hetre ou ne pas Hetre
Pazapas
Des Chenes Toi
Hallumigene comique

whee!

Charmant Som

We hiked around Charmant Som with Vero and Thomas. Chloe and I thought that Zoe would enjoy all of daffodils since her favorite color is JAUNE. Unfortunately, she was unimpressed by the fields full of beautiful wildflowers. When asked whether she liked the flowers, she would get a disapproving look on her face, and tell us the flowers were pas bonnes, and sales (dirty) and that we shouldn't eat them.

Ombleze

with the kids and Ian. It worked so-so. I got a little spanked on "Le moine fou", but I blame the sun in my eyes (yeah right!). Next was "Banana Split" which is possibly my favorite route at ombleze. I also hopped on L train blues in the Tutévu sector, but blew the onsight at the last bolt. This sector has a lot of very technical and balancy climbing. We had dinner at moulin de la pipe, and then back to Grenoble. It only took us 1:20 via the D68/chabeuil/autoroute route.

birthday dinner!

Don't worry, there is water, not beer in the bottle!

petit desert

climbing for lunch! I did an old favorite (Chevre Babylone), which is now missing a few holds, but still excellent.

tick, tick, TICK

This is a guest blog from Chloe.

We have been taking advantage of the nice weather (and our American friend Ian) to get some climbing in during the weekends. This means schlepping the kids over rocky trails, through rivers, up occasionally treacherous paths to our climbing spots. We have started bringing a tent with us to create a little house for Zoe in an effort to entertain her. Nothing seems to compare though to the unfettered joy of throwing rocks into water, which Zoe will happily do for hours on end. After a weekend climbing in Ombleze (made possible by Ian's mom who volunteered to watch the implings while the three of us went climbing), I noticed a strange black dot on my leg. Another mole perhaps? No, a TICK! After yelling for Max to get it off (tweezers are recommended after a quick internet search), we preserved the little guy in an empty babyfood jar with a little isopropanol.

The next weekend we explored a new climbing site, once again bringing the two little ones and a tent. That Monday, as we were getting Zoe ready, I noticed her shirt was on backwards. Since I want to avoid the disapproval of Zoe's nanny, I took her shirt off to correct this when I noticed a black dot on Zoe's otherwise blemish free back. Yes, upon closer inspection it was a tick. Calling for Max once again (the designated de-tickifier), I held Zoe down while he removed her tick. We showed Zoe the unwelcome little hitchhiker and she immediately ran to tell her Nanna and Jicha the news. While she may not have mastered complete sentences, she's very good at using keywords.

"Tick, tick, tick. Spider, spider (hands up by her face, fingers wagging). Back, hurty, daddy."

We translated for Nanna and Jicha who were appropriately impressed by the tick saga.

Zoe's tick is currently preserved next to mine in a creme brulee jar until we remember to bring home some glass vials from lab for better long-term storage. And so ends the Saga of the Tick.

lunchtime ride

work->quaix->clemenciere->work

we did the very painful Chemin de la Croix de Chorre for the last part. I don't know if mapmyride is correct, but it says there are a few sections of 20% grade.



I felt ok today, but tired from getting up to feed Alex at 4 AM and then not really sleeping well afterwards. It was a beautiful day for a ride, even if we had the usual story of a typical ultra competitive grenoblois seeing us go by and then trying his utmost (fruitlessly) to chase us down. Honestly, I like climbing culture way more than cycling culture.

Zoe's first haircut at a salon!

Ramen

A friend of mine bought me the much anticipated Momofuku cookbook, which is pretty fantastic. I miss good ramen and sushi sometimes, and have not been bold enough to try the offerings here in Grenoble. It was therefore very sciting to see not just a recipe for ramen broth and condiments, but for ramen noodles themselves! I have not yet been able to find all of the raw materials for the full recipes, but my initial attempt at a bare bones ramen (making my own broth and noodles) turned out very well. My plan is to slowly accumulate the reagents and eventually go for the full bore I-can't-believe-we're-not-in-Japan version. I did version two this weekend, spending around seven hours making the broth on Saturday, and then assembling the ramen on Sunday. In between, I made Onsen tamago (slow poached eggs), ramen noodles, roasted bones for stock, simmered stock bones, simmered chicken parts, simmered kombu and simmered carrots and onions. I did a lot of simmering. The end result was tasty though, and well worth the effort.
Kombu:

Noodles before cutting

Valençay to fuel the cook

final product

first bike trailer commute

We decided that today would be the day that we dropped off and picked up the kids from day care with our brand new bike trailer (which survived the burglary of our cellar!). It took a little while to get everything loaded up and ready to go, but we eventually got underway and dropped ZZ off first, since her nanny is closer. Unfortunately, Zoe LOVES the trailer and did not want to get out when we arrived, so it took a little coaxing. Eventually, Chloe managed it, and after installing Zoe with her Babu (fuzzy blanket which goes wherever she does) on the Nanny's couch, we set off for St Egreve. Alex's nanny is situated in an area with the worst parking I have ever seen, so the bike trailer is fantastic. You just ride onto one of the car inaccessible areas, go right up to the door, and remove the baby. An even more welcome development was the fact that the nanny has a garage, which we just wheel the trailer into, so I don't have to pull it to work and back. It's not all that far, but still. From nanny #2, it was smooth pedaling to work


After work, Ian and I rode the Clemenciere->Quaix->Proveysieux ride. It was the first time things felt good in a long while, and was probably one of my better power output days



From proveysieux, it was back to St. Egreve to pick up Alex. Ian helped to watch the bike while I got Alex and hooked up the trailer, and then it was back to le Fontanil to get Zoe. Once I had loaded up child #2, I gave Chloe a call and we did a little family ride to the wheat fields on the other side of the departmental road. Halfway through, we heard the dreaded "Zoe CACA!" from the trailer, and quickly discussed the impending problem with Chloe. We pulled off the road, let her find a place to get started, but there was thankfully no action. Meanwhile, we were frantically hunting down leaves with which to wipe her. While foraging, she did manage to pee ON her pants, which we had to remove before putting her back into the trailer. After a spirited ride back home to get her to the toilet, we were confronted with the problem of removing a naked child from the trailer without making the neighbors thing that we were lunatics. "American custom! kids ALWAYS naked in bike trailer; not in France?".

museum

excellent Italian drawing show at the musee de grenoble, as well as the usual things

dog in a trailer

home->quaix->proveysieux

did the short quaix loop and tested the helmet cam.

Renault Espace, Final thoughts

Overall, I was impressed with the Espace. First of all, it It gets pretty amazing mileage: After all of the weekends exploits, including driving to and from Orpierre with heavy loads, we used up about a half tank of diesel. It handles *much* better than you would expect a vehicle of its size, without the body roll and lurching of its 'merican counterparts. This could have something to do with the miracles of modern technology favored by europeans such as independent rear suspension. Visibility is generally excellent, which really helps when you are trying to park the damn thing. Another thing that helps is the backup radar. The flexible seating system is frankly awesome: Every seat in the car can be moved forward and aft independently, and many can be removed entirely. All passenger seats have ISOFIX connections too. The Nav system works exceptionally well, and the UI is not as braindead as most. Power did not seem at all bad, and I was able to pass without flogging the motor too badly. Finally, ride comfort (bumpiness, road noise, etc) were excellent. My only real complaints are that the interior fit and finish are spartan, and that it is an ugly, ugly, ugly car. But on balance, I was very pleasantly surprised.

video re-encoding for youtube

Now that I have a helmet cam, I am trying to figure out the best and easiest way to transcode video to get it to be below 2 Gb, and 10 minutes long (The youtube limits). I also have been looking for a way to flip the video upside down, since the GoPro firmware to do this in-camera is not yet available. Here is what I have come up with to flip and speed up video:

mencoder -vf filmdint=io=2:1 -speed 2 -oac pcm -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=wmv2:mbd=2:cmp=3:subcmp=3:precmp=0:vqcomp=0.6:turbo:trell -vf mirror,flip -o GOPR0016.WMV2 GOPR0016.MP4

And here is what I have been using to just speed up video

mencoder -vf filmdint=io=2:1 -speed 2 -oac pcm -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=wmv2:mbd=2:cmp=3:subcmp=3:precmp=0:vqcomp=0.6:turbo:trell -o GOPR0020_sped.MP4 GOPR0020.MP4


interesting things: using just "flip" will put you into the mirror image universe, which is very confusing, but somewhat amusing. You need the mirror command to get you back on the right side of the road and correct chirality.

also, youtube cannot process h263p encoded video.

update: I just edit in iMovie now

Orpierre, day 4, Franck's

I got up early for another burn on "Comme un Oiseau sans Ailes" with new route details (including the fact that it has gotten 1 grade harder because of a broken hold at the crux), but unfortunately was still too weak to send: I ran out of gas right at the crux. Ian snapped a few pictures of us warming up from the rooftop patio of the gite:

Don't worry, I was unharmed by MegaPigeon!:

After failing, I went back to the gite to help out with kids while chloe and Ian went to chateau for a little more climbing.

It had been drizzling rain for most of the last three days, but around lunchtime it began really pouring. We packed everything up, and crammed it Tetris-style into the Espace and then drove back in the rain to Grenoble. I was surprised to see a lot of motorcyclists out; it looked pretty miserable for them. Even driving in that kind of rain was not very fun. After dropping Ian and the Espace off at the train station, we settled down for a little rest and unpacking.

We had a lovely dinner at Franck's. He introduced us to an excellent sparkling wine with a startling color from Cerdon, and an incredible Bordeaux with dinner. Dessert was a fabulous strawberry cake, with special mini version with raspberries for Zoé and Arthur. At one point I stole a strawberry from her, which earned me a very stern look and a "you MECHANT" (naughty). Alex subsequently began melting down in earnest, and we had to leave.

orpierre, day 3

As usual, Alex did not sleep well. Unfortunately, I had the night shift. He only got up once, however, so I was in luck. Since it was 5:30 AM, and there is not much point in trying to get a half hour of sleep, I took a few pictures of the village



After breakfast, we went to the Puy crag, which is beautiful. I had configured my new Cilogear pack, which I will review at some later date, but suffice it to say that I am very impressed thus far. I was expecting the kind of blocky limestone you find at other southern Vercors climbing areas, but the bottom of le puy tuned out to be surprisingly crimpy and technical. Here is Ian on "Le Meilleur du Pire"

and here I am, helmet camming it up


I worked the moves on the first route, but found it to be pretty difficult.

Meanwhile, the parents had taken the children to the cafe

and my mom taught Zoe how to take pictures with her camera. Here is Zoe's second ever photo:

We bought some ground beef at the local market (I politely declined the meat that had been sitting in the grinder since the morning!) and grilled up roquefort burgers for lunch. Yes, the gite even has a gas grill and patio! Next, we decided to visit Sisteron. Chloe and I must have passed it a few dozen times on our way to various crags, but never found time to stop. The Renault Espace's Nav system brought us right to the citadel, and then we all walked up to the top. We were all impressed by the fact that Kenji made it to the top, and quite quickly!









Here is the tower where the King of Poland was imprisoned


Next came a visit to an overpriced salon de thé (are they all?). We stopped at the impressive looking blades of rock across the river from the fort to check out some of the routes and then headed back to Orpierre for another excellent dinner : salad, lasagna with a bechamel sauce and more homemade cookies. Oh yes, and much more wine.

Orpierre, part 2

After picking up Ian at Aspres-sur-Buesch and picking up more goat milk for Alex (He is allergic to cow milk) at the excellent Bio Epicerie in Serres, we hit the rock. I rallied the Espace up the dirt road to Quiquillon and we were soon at the foot of the cliff.

I took the opportunity to try out the helmet cam on my new helmet

on Cauchemars de Roudoudou, before receiving a beating on a few of the new climbs on the orange rock, but c'est la vie.

Here is Chloe, enjoying her belay

After taking over baby care while the parents walked around, I showed my mom around to some of the interesting parts of the town, like this ancient fountain (with a giant iron stopper!)

Dinner was excellent again: one of the best onion tartes I have ever had, followed by chichken in a cream sauce and rice. Apple crumble for dessert.

Orpierre

We picked up the rental car last night (Our family is now too large for the civic!) -- A Renault Espace with seven seats. This afternoon, after taking care of some work things, we loaded up the "BIG CAR" (as Zoe calls it) with mostly baby things, and a few of our own. Next came the drive south to Orpierre, and the location of the Gite, which is *fantastic*. It is in a building in the center of the medieval town, next to vaulted stone arches and century old fountains. There are quite a few rooms, a big well lit dining room, and about twelve beds. The owner is very friendly, and after we had shuttled in all of our gear, we used the Jedi mind trick on Kenji and Gail to take care of kids while we ran up the hill to the Chateau crag to get in a few routes. We warmed up on C Sake Bon and then moved on to Les Ailes du Desir. There were a lot of wet holds on this one, and I actually had water dripping off of my hands several times, but I got the on sight. Yay for non-negative progress, I guess. It was a real fight, though.

Dinner was delicious: everything was organic, and included a delicious salad, a frittata and a salmon tarte.

There were also home made cookies and fromage blanc for dessert. Also: giant loaves of bread:



We had loaded up on wine from HEIDSIECK ET RASCLE in Place aux Herbes, and finished a bottle, but I can't seem to remember which one! We had an excellent Pelardon as well.

A trip to Vienne

We drove (in a maddening and round about way on Departmental roads thanks to the stupid GPS) to Vienne today. We had an excellent lunch at Les Cloitres, and then walked around for a while, checking out the church and Temple of Augustus-Livia (and a few stores too)

he he

115k euros might buy you cutting edge technology, but perhaps not reliability!