peuil, the video

Peuil

I did another fun ride with Hank today -- this time to Peuil, where we have gone bouldering many times. I always thought that the road up there might be a nice ride, and it turned out that Hank had done it before. We parked around espace Comboire, took the beautiful new pedestrian/cycle bridge over the Drac to the golf course, and we found ourselves on the climb in a matter of minutes. My legs didn't feel great after two days of riding, but eventually they loosened up. When we got onto the Peuil climb, I was definitely suffering; it's steep, but beautiful at this time of year. Because there are no leaves, you can really see a lot more than you would in the Spring and Summer. In any event, the weather was beautiful and we reached the top in good form. I actually felt kind of sorry when we hit the dead end because I wanted more climbing. From there it was a short descent to a bridging dirt road to another red pumice stained road, and then back to the col de Cossey. There was a strong cross wind along the col, and I was getting thrown around like a leaf. It can really feel exposed out there sometimes on a bike.

Placette, Grande Ratz

I found a nice road up above Layat today which seems to end in a small cluster of houses called the Grand Ratz. On the way back, I took the vieux chemin, which is a blast on a road bike. Way better than facing oncoming traffic on the route nationale.

Climbing

Our cold/crappy weather Sunday ritual is this: take the kids to the gym around noon when most locals are bringing their kids home for lunch. Chloe and I take 20 minute turns playing "Monster" with the kids and belaying Zoe while the other parent boulders alone. When the kids get worn out, we prop sit them down in front of the iPad and boulder together.

A flower box!

Planfay

Rode up to Planfay. On the descent, I encountered this:



which had apparently fallen onto the road after I passed this particular road cut. Happily, it did not fall on me during my descent!


Shortly afterwards, I was at an intersection waiting for a light (yes, occasionally we cyclists wait for lights!) and my foot got jammed behind my wheel. This is known as wheel overlap, and really sucks. The result was that I fell over, much to the amusement of everyone who was nearby. Of course, after I got up and dusted myself off I saw a friend from work just down the road, who had witnessed the whole embarrassing incident.

Later on, I saw this along the road




Not good. It looked like it had happened a while ago, and crew was there getting ready to pull it out of the ditch.

Placette

After the freezing cold, I could not take another day of not riding, so I went up placette. It was -6 at the top, without the wind, and slush + snow everywhere. Dicey.

commute

Even in the cold (and yes, it was VERY cold), my bike commute is pretty incredible. What a privilege.

Par-tay!

no party is complete with out a Les Alpages Cheese plate (brought by Francois, to Lolo and Vero's shindig)

Surf de rando!

Dusted off the split, found the skins (glue was not great, but good enough), and skinned up a few hundred meters of powder above mont saint martin. For those of you unfamiliar with the sport, you put climbing skins on the underside of your skis/board, which allow you to ascend, then peel them off and ski back down.

Because I would like to avoid dying in an avalanche, I was going up very low angle paths -- 15 % at most, and in the trees. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot os snow cover, and I ended up hitting limestone rocks the size of basketballs on the way down. Even so, it was lovely being out there in the snow-enhanced silence of the forest.

Crepe day!

Today, Zoe makes crepes at school, so we are supposed to bring an egg. Hopefully it won't explode on the bike ride.