money crushing machine

col de Romeyer

2012-01-15T20:26:00.000+01:00

I went for a long ride through the Vercors today. I underestimated the amount of climbing it would be so it took a bit longer than planned, but it was pretty spectacular. Things started out well with a tailwind along the bike path to St. Gervais. I hooked up with some members of a local club on the path, which cut down on the boredom of the bike path for a bit. St Gervais was still in the shade when I got there, but that's where the climb starts so there was plenty of opportunity to warm up. It is beautiful scenery almost the entire way up to the col, past waterfalls and huge cliff faces. The last time I had been through here was ten years ago, when Chloe and I first moved to France (and before we moved back to the states) and our friend lolo took us on a drive through the Vercors: Pont-en-Royans, Presles, Romeyer -- I remember being overwhelmed by the beauty of alpine meadows and three hundred and sixty degree limestone faces. It felt pretty much the same to me this time. If you're ever in the Grenoble area, a trip through the gorges is a must. Anyway, everything was great up until the tunnel, which was a bit terrifying: a half km of pure darkness. I have a small headlight on my bike for just these occasions, and it was barely able to cast enough light to see. The tunnel is also extremely narrow, which adds to the fun and spookiness. All I know is that I cranked through that thing as fast as I could. As I finally emerged from the tunnel, a breeze swept by the mouth of the tunnel, carrying flakes of rime fluttering through the air and into an intense beam of sunlight.

After stopping to refill my bottle at the col, it was back through more gorges, Lans-en-vercors, Engins and back into the valley.

90km, 1400 meters of climbing

Mont Saint-Martin death match, part II!

2012-01-11T20:31:00.000+01:00

Today, I did the runner vs bike thing up the mont saint martin but with my friend Martin, and this time, NO DAMN handicaps. This was especially true because I know he is a super strong runner. As luck would have it though, he had a hacking cough, so I caught him on the sixth or seventh switchback. Anyway, another beautiful sunny and clear day!

strange things you find on the bike path, part V.

2012-01-09T22:27:00.002+01:00

Gentlemen, start your saws and chippers!

Col de Cossey

2012-01-09T22:15:00.002+01:00

at lunch. It's not a high or difficult col, but easily doable from work in ~1 hour and is a nice change from the usual Proveysieux loops. Yes, we live in a cycling mecca

If you don't want a four year old and two year old operating your cherry picker

2012-01-08T22:24:00.004+01:00

Don't park them on the sidewalk

Montaud

2012-01-07T22:22:00.001+01:00

coooold on the way down

Zoe

2012-01-05T22:23:00.001+01:00

after I showed her tonights dinner (tortilla): "Yaaay, you're a good cooker-daddy!"

RACE!

2012-01-03T22:19:00.011+01:00

Today I had the smart idea for Chloe and I to race up to mont saint-martin. It is steep (10% avg), which usually favors runners, but we decided to handicap her since after all I'm on a friggin bike! We looked up our best times, started chloe off 10 minutes before me, and then… chloe beat her best time by three minutes. I, on the other hand posted my third best time. So I got taken to school, but it was pretty fun anyway, even if I never saw her on the way up. I like the concept though -- we'll have to get more runner/cyclist friends/coworkers involved next time. View from the top:

view from my commute this morning

2012-01-03T22:17:00.000+01:00

Cycling goals this year

2012-01-02T21:48:00.001+01:00

Last year I think I rode ~5000km and 82,000 vert meters. I rode through a lot of really beautiful places, even if I didn't do very many of the "prestige" cols (except Galibier, and that was from the easier side). I had a few modest goals this year on the local cols: placette in under 20, mont saint-martin in under 30, Narbonne in under 20. These were all just barely met. This year: Proveysieux in under 20, which will require a lot of work, Montaud in under 30 (ditto) and try to improve my endurance and do more than 100k vert meters. Those are the nerdy, numbers goals. The more important goals are to do more beautiful rides, and finally ride up Ventoux and the Alpe D'huez. I'd also like to do the Finestre.

Climbing wise, the usual: do more beautiful climbs on immaculate rock. I have some long standing goals like Rackham le Rouget and Hirondelle des Fauborgs, and the big "M", but nothing pressing.

here's hoping you meet your sporting goals this year as well!

New years day ride

2012-01-01T22:04:00.001+01:00

to Proveysieux, then along the digue to Voiron and back

NYE

2011-12-31T21:43:00.000+01:00

We had new years eve at our new expat friends' place in St. Pancrasse. It was a wonderful meal, and it turns out that one of their friends works at the same institute as us. We managed not to talk to much shop, however. Chloe made her Valrhona chocolate caramel walnut tart, which was a big hit. The kids were running around acting a little crazy, but were pretty well behaved, all things considered. At the end of the evening we all blew into chemical breathalyzers which took some figuring out even dead sober and went home. Hank and I talked a lot about cycling of course, and I was suitably lambasted for not having ridden up the alpe d'huez yet.

anyway, Happy New Years!

Sledding?

2011-12-30T21:59:00.002+01:00

We tried to go sledding with un-napped kids, which did not work out well. It ended up being Cloe and I dragging them up slushy snow, punctuating the constant wail of both kids with our gasps for air. I put Zoe on her skis from the Trocathlon, but she did not seem to understand what to do with them: If I wasn't holding onto her she would obviously immediately fall into the snow, but if I WAS holding her, or actually touching any part of her body, she would interpret this as the cue to go completely limp, and would slump into the snow. It was like one of those mutant goats that faints when you clap.

Here is alex in a rare moment in between screams. Although not red with anger, you see that he is not impressed.

Planfay+mont saint-martin

2011-12-28T22:07:00.006+01:00

here's a video of my standard ride up to le Gua + my newly discovered extension into Planay, and then the mont saint martin. There was a bit more ice today, but generally manageable except for one steep section under the trees where I lost traction. Otherwise, another beautiful day. I saw quite a few people gearing up for ski touring at the turnarounds.

Planfay

2011-12-26T21:57:00.001+01:00

Did my usual lower motivation/cold ride but found a cool new road that I had somehow missed. Cold, but beautiful weather!

I was trying to decide where to turn around, and the decision was made for me:

Merry Xmas!

2011-12-25T21:17:00.001+01:00

after tearing through waaay too many presents for the kids (thank you Grandparents I mean Santa!) we went to the Aussies for lunch, which was a lot of fun.

Drive home

2011-12-24T21:01:00.000+01:00

After settling up, we hit the road for Pisa. Neither of us had been, and since it is basically on the way back we decided to go. Unfortunately, a torrential rain started after about fifteen minutes of driving, and the thought of carrying the kids around under those conditions made us rethink the Pisa connection. Instead, we continued North for home. Along the way, we passed the port that serves up huge blocks of Carrara marble to go into the bathrooms and kitchens of the 1% and the peninsula beyond which is the Cinqueterre. We had hoped to visit the Cinqueterre or one of the nearby towns like Tellaro during this trip, but they were recently devastated by strong rains an mudslides.
The Autostrada Azzura is pretty fabulous, and takes you through some dramatic landscape, even if it does require a bit more attention than your usual autoroute! I'd really like to spend some more time in this area at some point. I noticed that Range Rover Sport HSEs with heavily tinted windows seem to be the car of choice for this part of the world… no idea why.

From the A12, we continued on past Torino and encountered savage head and crosswinds. Not so fun, but the wind was kicking spindrift off the peaks which was beautiful

Last day in Florence

2011-12-23T20:39:00.002+01:00

Today we started out with a visit to the San Marco museum, which was quite interesting. I fixated on the schematic for the beautiful chairs they have throughout the museum:

I guess I'll have to try to make one of these some day, when I have a workshop again.

On the way to the museum there is a very cool little bike shop called Cicli Sergio Bianchi. If you look carefully, you will see a lot of bikes in Florence with his head badge. I couldn't help wandering in and checking out some of the bikes. One of my favorites was this lugged city bike, complete with sewn leather grips and a sprung Brooks saddle. Pretty stylish.

Next it was off to another item on the culinary tick list: Trattoria Mario next to the central market. This is another unostentatious place with wonderful food:

What can I say, other than that it was delicious, simple and wonderful. I guess I need to either learn how to cook like this or find a new metier and move to Florence!

After lunch we wandered over a bridge to the other side of the Arno for another fruitless and feeble hearted attempt at shopping. Then it was gelato time near the Bridge of Overpriced Jewels, and on to the Uffizi. There was no line at the Uffizi and we walked right up to the hallowed halls that I last visited when I was five years old. I remember my feet hurting a lot and feeling very resentful that the parents were dragging me through yet another european museum. It feels satisfying to inflict the same torture upon my progeny now. I'm sure we didn't spend as much time as Kenji though. Halfway through, we took a little break in the rooftop café, where Alex ran around the chairs amidst coos of "Ciao Bello!" despite the fact that he was eating candy that he would periodically drop off the floor. The rest of us ate biscotti and drank espressos or mint water

Finally, we went on a mission to find something nice for Chloe. After a few stores it became obvious that the same purses were getting sold from every store, so I went off in search of an artisanale leather store (Pelletteria Artigiana, 3 Via Guelfa) I had seen on the first day. Here, we finally found Chloe a beautiful, well made and non-ubiquitously available purse. We had a few problems with our stupid bank cards, as usual, but managed to get enough cash out to get a simple last dinner in Florence of pizza and a bottle of Chianti!

Day 2, Florence

2011-12-22T19:09:00.127+01:00

The hotel had advertised an included breakfast. Again, having seen some pretty meager hotel breakfasts, I was not expecting much. In any case they could have offered us cereal and I would still have been happy considering the marble and hardwood extravaganza upstairs! However, it turned out to be an excellent and full spread: fresh bread, yogurt, fancy butter, pots of jam, espresso, cappuccino, charcuterie, cheese, etc etc. They even offered to cook eggs if we wanted them. There was also a high chair waiting for Alex. Awesome.

First stop after the tourist office was the Galleria dell'Accademia. we started off in an extended exhibit of Bartolini sculptures, which I was not so into. The next section was the hall leading up to the David however. The David is magnificent: even as a "normal" sized statue it would be beautiful, but the scale of the sculpture is overwhelming and one of those things that I think is difficult to convey. I walked around it many times, and came back to it later to look at it some more. Also worth mentioning: no lines at all! No line for tickets, no line to get in, no one in front of the statue. On one of my many circlings of the statue I noticed a box stuck to the pedestal called a "SmartBrick", which turns out to be a sophisticated strain logger. The David has cracks in the left ankle and tree which have been known for some time, and the installation of the monitoring system is supposed to help the museum and researchers determine what happens during an earthquake or other shocks. It's pretty high tech stuff, and the same types of strain sensors have been used on high performance sailboat masts. It was also kind of cool to see that a U.S. based nonprofit had paid for part of this system(http://www.friendsofflorence.org/). Zoe was not as impressed by the statue of David. When I asked her whether she liked it, she responded "yeah, but it's too big!".

Afterwards, it was down the street

For lunch at da Nerbone. I discovered at the sandwhich place what "lampretto" is, and decided against it. I know that will expose me as a small palatted fool and is hopelessly unfashionable in today's "Let's eat every part of the animal including the disgusting bits so that we can be cool and get back to our roots", but I dislike tripe and anything else that needs to be sauced heavily and cooked for a long time to make you forget what it is. We went with the boiled beef sandwich which was tasty, but a little too fatty for my taste. I also learned something about line etiquette in Italy, which is that there is even less than in France! You just have to get in front of everyone and aim elbows and your back at people to prevent them from flanking you. Even then people will try to order over your head! Crazy, but entertaining. From lunch, we walked to the Duomo

and after a fortifying cafe and tiramisu at a cafe

walked up Giotto's Campanile.

Zoe walked up all 414 steps to the top.

From there, we tried to do a little shopping but were unsuccessful in finding anything we wanted but it was lovely just walking around. Florence is a really beautiful city

Next it was back to the hotel to get the kids to nap.

After a while it was finally time for dinner. I had been looking forward to this restaurant for a week. Chloe had managed to make reservations earlier in the week, after I had called them at least five times. The restaurant had exceptional ratings on trip advisor, which has so far not been wrong. The walk from the hotel was a bit long, but as usual it is hard to complain when you are passing beautiful churches and building every block, as well as interesting little shops

We eventually arrived at the restaurant (Vini e Vecchi Sapori), and we actually passed by it because it is so small. I had read that it was small, but it is REALLY small. As in, about the size of Zoe and Alex's bedroom. The main guy, Thomas showed us to our table and I knew immediately I was going to love the place. There was just a great homey atmosphere, and the tiny dairy case stuffed with excellent looking charcuterie also helped. We started out with the charcuterie and mozzarella di bufala plate which was excellent

and then moved on to the meatballs for the kids

which they devoured with extreme prejudice

I had the papardelle in a duck ragu which was possibly one of the most simple but perfect pasta dishes I have ever had

and chloe had a pasta in a sauce of saffron and zucchini flowers which was unique and delicious

Alex discovered my pasta about halfway through and began stealing it. The bits of duck did not however meet with his approval and he began yelling "CACA" and pointing at the duck meat. We would then try to quiet him down and remove the duck, he would then eat it, steal another piece, yell "CACA" and on and on. Here's Alex polishing the last of it off

Dessert was equally amazing: Raspberry Tiramisu, flaky biscotti with some kind of armagnac and a light (!) cheesecake.

The tiramisu was so good, and the kids stole enough of it that we had to order a second bowl. To me, this is the epitome of good Italian cuisine: nothing overly dressed up, no infusions, no foams, no need for the word "artisanale", as it is implicit. It is: perfectly balanced textures and individual flavors in a simple presentation. I could probably eat at this restaurant every day for the rest of my life and never need anything else. Afterwards, we found a taxi and went back to the hotel. Florence seems even more beautiful at night as you careen through cobbled piazzas and past colonnaded buildings lit up with the occasional string of xmas lights.

Day One, Florentine Adventure

2011-12-21T18:45:00.012+01:00

We began our day the usual way: Alex getting woken up by the Tabac alarm system which woke everyone else up. A word of explanation: after the most recent break in at the Tabac, the resourceful Tabacconist screwed his side door shut and started entering through the main door. This trips the alarm every morning, and despite our asking for them to do something about it, they have cheerfully responded that there is nothing to be done, accompanied with the ubiquitous French Shrug. I'm not sure what his game is, other than being a dick, but I have a feeling that he is trying to get us to complain to the rental company so that the rental company will have to repair his door rather than him. I guess we will have to oblige him at some point if we want Alex to get full night's sleep. Anyway, we packed up the car and were out of the door by 9:30. There was a little snow and ice on the road from the previous two days of snowfall, but we now had snow tires on the car and it felt solid. In any case, the autoroutes were all well plowed. We drove through the Maurienne and past all the classic cols beckoning to me to be cycled, through the Frejus tunnel, around various ring roads and the maddeningly poorly organized toll plazas and finally into Florence. All told, with a motorway stop for food it took seven hours.

I had found a great looking place on Tripadvisor (The Villa Antea), which we had booked last week, and we were eager to see if it lived up to the photos and ratings. After getting a bit lost in the maze of one way streets around the Villa, we finally arrived. The courtyard and lobby were gorgeous, but I still was not sold, having been to several hotels with opulent lobbies but rooms out of Noir movies (mostly in Paris). When we were shown to our room however, I was extremely pleasantly surprised. I'll let the photos do the talking:

After de-luggaging, we walked around a bit, visited a nice coin store and then had pizza at an excellent local restaurant. I had the pizzaiolo special, which included had an assortment of flavors, including potato-onion, sauscisse, margarita and a something else. It was all excellent. Chloe got a vegetarian pizza: laaaame. After pizza, it was back to the hotel and collapsing in exhaustion.

Mont-Saint-Martin

2011-12-08T23:22:00.000+01:00

I ticked off another of my season goals today: ride up Mont-Saint-Martin from the Rue Bach/Rafour intersection to the town limit sign in under 30 minutes... it was only a little under than but I am happy. Once at the top, I rode the little loop once, and then further up the fire trail for a while. It is very steep and with a lot of leaves but lovely. I descended to the town and took a few pictures, and as I was taking the last one an old woman walked up to me to see what I was doing, and we started talking about how "magnifique" it all looked at this time of day. She told me that there was snow in the trees in town yesterday, and told me to be careful descending, as apparently several cyclists have run into cars this year. I never descend very quickly on Mont-Saint-Martin because it's so damn steep, but I took it especially slowly today.

Spectacle!

2011-12-07T22:28:00.030+01:00

Today was a work sponsored "spectacle" in Gieres. I really like this custom, and it is apparently done at many companies in France. I thought ours was pretty good until I heard about the one at a nearby Biotech which sounds even cooler: kids get a catalog of toys from which to choose, and they go to significant effort to make some kind of giant Xmas fair. Ours was a magic show, with the added bonus of Santa Claus! We all got onto buses at work and then took the inexplicably long ride to Gieres via the hateful Rocade Sud (a ring road where you always seem to be driving for hours to go a very short distance. It's like the Bermuda Triangle of Grenoble). Anyway, like last year, they kept the doors closed (WHY?!) while the kids and parents became irate, but eventually let us in. Next came the magic show, which involved things bursting into flames, ribbons out of the mouth, etc etc. With each trick I could see the audience full of engineers and scientists carefully dissecting the sleights of hands in their mind. There was lots of eyes squinting, cocked heads, and then slight knowing smiles. At various points, kids were called up to become assistants, but this backfired comically. The first volunteer was very nearly in tears by the end of her assistantship, and the second figured out the trick involving nested magic wands, and began intently trying to disassemble the trick wand. In each case, the magician reacted smoothly and was a real pro. The show ended with balloon animals, at which point the kids swarmed him. Despite a few cries for help, most of us parents left him to die. There weren't very many balloon animals to be had, and Zoe is pretty shy about things like that, so I was happy to see that the magician gave her a little balloon duck. Last but not least, it was time for Santa Claus, who was handing out bags of chocolates and books. Excellent!

Then it was back to the work cafeteria for snacks, which ran out very quickly.

Museum!

2011-12-04T22:23:00.016+01:00

We drove into town for some museum action today. My fears that we would go a day without having to remove some kind of bodily fluid from an unexpected surface were quickly allayed once we arrived in the museum parking garage. It turned out that Zoe had stepped in some caca right outside the Tabac (there are usually heaps of it piled around there, which the Tabac people studiously ignore). Said caca had been liberally stomped into the back of the driver's seat, the floor, a stuffed animal, a book and an umbrella. Nice. Anyway, there was a new exhibit in the museum which was a bit underwhelming, as well as some nice new paintings in the otherwise non-changing permanent collection. Zoe's favorite is apparently a Chagal on the wall nearest to the Isère now!

Retraite aux flambeaux

2011-12-03T22:17:00.007+01:00

We went the Retraite aux Flambeau, and I finally looked up the origin of the event. The page that I read suggested that it is to commemorate the taking of the Bastille... in July! I have to admit that I am a bit confused. Whatever the origin, it is very fun for the kids and we met up with the Aussies to walk through the streets, swing lanterns and light-sticks around, and watch the performers. It started raining a bit, at which point we retreated to the apartment.

commute

2011-12-01T17:09:00.001+01:00

into Grenoble

2011-11-27T23:01:00.002+01:00

for some cafe time with the kids

Montaud

2011-11-27T21:29:00.000+01:00

Another shortish ride up Montaud and "Le Coing" today. I had a brief no-kid window and hemmed and hawed about which side of the valley to go to. Our town was still shrouded in fog, but I could see what looked like some blue skies over the Vercors. By the time I finally made a decision about which road to take, however, I was past my usual turn off so I tried a new route. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bike path that was not yet completed (but will be awesome when complete!) and I ended up scurrying down a muddy berm, across a creek, back up the other side, and eventually onto the bike path again. It was a little questionable in road cleats. Back on the path, it was still very foggy and visibility was ~100 feet and cold again, but I had a secret weapon this time: plastic bags over my socks

high f'in tech, I know. I hit the climb up to montaud from the St. Quentin side at the red line, which is a bit sad seeing as I was almost dead last on Strava, and soon emerged from the fog into a beautiful sunny day. People that live up there (and on velotel's plateau) must be enjoying a little schadenfreude on days like this. Anyway, I was happy to be out of the freezing cold, and savored the sun once I got to the church in Montaud.

From there, it was the mini-climb up to Le Coing, and then back down to the valley.

I'm not a big fan of the descent down to Veuray, and today was even worse than usual: a lot of frost on the road, usually right before a hard turn. After almost ending up in a ditch, I slowed waaay down and took my time.

The happy surprise was that the fog had burned off by the time I got back to the valley.

cold ride

2011-11-26T19:01:00.000+01:00

went for a short ride up past quaix and near the col de Vence. It was very cold, but felt good to get out after a week with no riding. There was a bone chilling fog in the valley, and I could barely feel my toes by the end of the ride

A ride through the Drome

2011-11-20T16:26:00.001+01:00

I went for a ride with Hank over the col des Limouches and Tourniol today. Another unseasonably warm "winter" day, and I was reasonably well insulated for the ride. Chloe and I have driven these roads quite a few times on the way to Ombleze, so it was nice to finally be on them outside of the car. There's a pretty spectacular cliff near the top of Tourniol, but it looked totally unequipped. My favorite townalong the way was "Barbieres", which sits at a notch in an impressive rock formation.

Wine, riding

2011-11-19T16:32:00.024+01:00

I went for a short ride over Montaud with a friend from work this afternoon: slightly cold, but fun riding. At the beginning of the climb we saw a cat in the road, and as we approached, it became clear that the cat was not planning on taking evasive actions against the oncoming bikes. Despite seeing us coming from fifty meters away, it somehow ended up between our bikes. The unfortunate result was that the cat freaked out, chose the worst possible moment to bolt sideways, and got slightly run over my my friend. Not good. Earlier in the season, someone at work ended up with a broken collarbone after a similar kamikaze cat experience... So I usually stay well clear of them, or any other animal. After the collision, the cat fled and did not seem to be limping or leaving a trail of blood. My friend just barely held it together and managed not to hit the deck. Happily, no further excitement was had on the ride. We did see some more cats, which we stared down with great suspicion.

Later on, we went to the Salon du Vin in Noyarey with the same friend and the families, and had a great time tasting wine, foie-gras (I know, we are terrible people), Corsican saucisson, and of course the chocolate table

Since we had recently stocked up on some 2009 Bourgognes thanks to Franck, we went for wines that would be ready sooner… as in right now! Somehow that ended up being mostly Cotes du Rhones proper and Villages.

Later on, dinner at lolo and vero's. A full and excellent day!

Cherry Rocher

2011-11-13T22:12:00.000+01:00

We went to the Cherry Rocher liqueur museum with the Aussies today. The museum is in La Cote-Saint-Andre, just forty minutes away, and it is certainly worth the trip. I've mentioned in the blog that I'm interested in different kinds of fruit alcohols (usually more distillates rather than macerations)m and the museum has a wonderful collection of stills, fruit presses and all sorts of other interesting machinery. They also have a tasting room, and an impressive selection of many kinds of alcohols.

From the museum, we all went to the "Paradis du Chocolat" chez Jouvenal which was also fun. They make a nut filled chocolate which are quite addictive, but with a bizarre name "Damnation".

From there it was on to the chateau and home

Col du Mont Noir

2011-11-12T21:39:00.009+01:00

Went for a beautiful ride to the col du Mont Noir today. Beautiful weather… in NOVEMBER! The road goes through some spectacular scenery, most notably a road cut into the side of a cliff. Later on, after the small town of Malleval, the road opens up to a huge cirque, then up to the col. Halfway down the descent, I noticed that my friend was no longer behind me, and I had the thought that one of the usual jerk drivers had run him off the road, so I emptied what was left of my power into cranking back up the hill. Thankfully it was only a blown tube. Whew! The descent was a little wet in places, so I could easily see a mistimed brake application sending you into a ditch, or worse. Actually, the ditch scenario would probably be the best case.

st pancrasse

2011-11-05T21:54:00.020+01:00

Hank, a new American friend whom I met a few weeks ago, invited us to his house in St. Pancrasse, at the foot of the Chartreuse. He had told me a little about his house, so I was excited to see it and meet his wife. It turns out that they have a beautiful house with stunning views of the Belledonne. He has done most of the work himself, and it is pretty much a dream house. There is even a wine cellar with a hand made counter weighted trap door! Even the stairs leading down into the cellar are well made. Their backyard has a huge garden, and one can see pastures in the foreground which apparently will never be developed. Also interesting: they have a mass heater, which provides heat for the house (as well as water heating) for several days after doing just a three hour firewood burn. Very cool. The company and lunch were also great; they had friends over from his wife's company and conversation was a mix of french and english.

Virieu

2011-11-01T21:54:00.000+01:00

We drove to the Chateau de Virieu today, which is only forty minutes away. It was unfortunately closed, but we walked around and took in the sights. Another beautiful fairy tale castle: ho hum!

The main door to the castle is impressive

But no match for the marauding children

Actually, I don't really understand why they went to such effort to produce a door like that. I would expect a battering ram to be metal, or have a metal head, so the spikes would not be much use there. Except for discouraging people from pummeling the door with their fists or throwing a shoulder into it, I just don't get it. Maybe they would run up behind attackers, shove them and impale them on the spikes?

6 jours de Grenoble

2011-10-31T21:08:00.001+01:00

A friend at work had free tickets to "6 Jours de Grenoble" that he wasn't using, so I went to see it on the penultimate day with Simon. The 6 jours is a famous six day track event, and while I had heard a lot about it, had never managed to go. In the past, some famous riders like Merckx, Moser, Fignon, Lemond and Hinault have participated and it is pretty well known. I think it is part of high profile riders' "bread and butter" in the off season rather than actual competing, but I'm not sure. In any case, I had never seen a track event of any kind in real life, so I was very excited. We left St Egreve around 8 pm and after a lot of circling the area around the Palais des Sports, eventually found a space. We entered through the Eastern side, and walked up through the stairways. The Palais is a marvel of ... Concrete. Concrete slabs everywhere. I didn't see a single piece of wood. Anyway, we were quite high up in the stadium but could still see down into the huge wooden velodrome without a problem. There were quite a few different disciplines on display: Keirin, Pro serie de sprints, sprint SAMSE, Pro chasse, etc etc. I found most of it totally bewildering, but it was easy enough to see when strategy or the bell called for some effort, as the riders would hunker down and start pouring on the watts. Very cool. In the center of the ring, there was a stage and a huge buffet. I think those seats are more expensive, but they look like a fantastic place to be. Some tables put you as aclose as two meters from the riders. Simon and I were wondering how you get in and out of the center of a ring (for a pee, for example, since there did not appear to be any outhouses in the ring), and it looks like there is some kind of tunnel. As far as the stage goes, the racing is interspersed with performances! When we arrived, it was Cirque Dominic Lacasse, who did astoundingly smooth and impressive gymnastic moves. He looked like a climber, but with (much) larger muscles. Subsequently, there was Cirque Liazeed, which involved more gymnastic displays, "Mr. Wow" who did some very fancy Diabolo work, and finally the Paris Folies: Showgirls! They did a dance routine, and then in a blink of an eye their tops had disappeared. Could this be the best sports event ever? The dancers had impressive musculature on their backs too and actually also looked like climbers.

On the way back to the car, I saw some costumed kids see us coming, confer amongst themselves and then scatter and hide. This made me a little nervous, but we discovered soon enough what they were up to, and it was nothing devious. Basically one guy who was dressed as a women came running at us screaming for help while pursued by a devil, a zombie bride and something else. I'm not sure what we were supposed to do, but Simon and I very un-gamely started laughing and I took a picture. I feel a bit sad that I didn't think up some amusing way to play along, but I was tired.

Halloween

2011-10-31T19:36:00.004+01:00

We carved scary pumpkins (ok one pumpkin and a mystery gourd that we got from the local CSA). We only got a few trick or treaters, however. In France, trick or treaters say "bonbons!" instead of "trick or treat".

a walk

2011-10-30T21:41:00.001+01:00

we went to see the Deer and go for a walk around Mont Saint Martin today. It is ten minutes from where we live and a beautiful area. Right now the leaves are turning and it is just stunning.

Zoe was very concerned about all the felled trees, and asked us if the Once-ler had cut them down.

Zoe bday party

2011-10-29T19:35:00.001+02:00

with dancing, some friends and cupcakes (and wine, port and Calvados for the parents). I can't believe how fast it's all passing! I took a bunch of pictures but something strange happened to them. Something strange as in they don't seem to be on my camera. Arrgh.

Cycling in France redux

2011-10-27T09:09:00.000+02:00

Installment 99 of "Cycling in France is awesome". The past few weeks has been a little frustrating for me cycling wise; I've been a little swamped in work, and I have been fighting off two nasty colds. In between coughing fits, I managed a few nice rides but mostly I've been longingly watching the good weather disappear. Yesterday Chloe and I biked to one of our favorite lunchtime places: a restaurant on Berriat that a work colleague had introduced us to. Among other things, they have excellent tarte tatin and griotte cake (served warm of course). Anyway, we locked our bikes to a pole across the street, and after savoring our desserts and cafes, walked across the street to unlock the bikes. Now I should mention that some parts of Berriat are a little rough looking -- not on the same scale as the Olympic Village or East Oakland, but a place that I am always a little bit wary. A man was bringing plastic chairs out in front of the bar next to our bikes. I saw him looking at us and the bikes and was thinking to myself that he was probably going to give us some grief for blocking his sidewalk. As we got closer, I saw that he looked like a boxer, and had some not so old looking cuts on his face, so I was starting to get a bit worried. As we got the keys out to unlock the bikes, he started pointing to the bikes and talking to me. However, he immediately started smiling and pointed to the classic stainless bike bell I have on my bars, and told me that he had one too, and that he loved his! He then nodded approvingly at my Brooks saddle (A classic leather bike saddle ) and said that he had a Brooks as well, and indeed had had both for the last forty years! I replied that I loved mine too, and he offered a handshake, a smile and a pleasant comment about my accent. That's the thing about bikes in France: they are really esteemed here, as is actually using them. I was immediately reminded of a few other experiences in the last few weeks. On col de la Menee, a couple that had spread out a picnic on the side of the road and set up lawn chairs yelled "COURAGE" to us as we passed. On St. Nizier, a hiker walking down from the Tour sans Venin looked at me huffing and puffing, and said "Bravo", even though I was going pitifully slow. Except for the crazy driving, I can't think of a better place to be someone who enjoys cycling.

2011-10-25T21:41:00.002+02:00

Vercors

2011-10-21T22:53:00.000+02:00

I had to bring the car in for servicing in Echirolles this morning, and decided (as I did last year) to ride up St. Nizier while the car was being worked on. It was quite cold though, and a foggy cloud layer had settled into the valley and the plateau. As a result, I broke out all of the cold weather gear I own: windstopper N2S windshirt, thick Giordana jersey, new Ekoi bib tights, thick polypro socks, windstopper beanie, and my much loved Goretex paclite shell. I felt a little like a pack mule. Along the way to the climb I passed the always cool "fancy car service place", which had a GT3RS, a Gallardo and a 360 Modena out front.

I wonder what routine maintenance costs on one of those. I know, that's the wrong question. Anyway, after snapping a few pics, I rode over the beautiful new pedestrian/bike bridge that traverses the Drac, got a little lost in the maze of houses around Sessins, and eventually found the base of the climb. It is easy to find when you get close, because our car insurance place is right there, and it is located in the amusingly named "Zone Industrielle des Fleurs" (Industrial Zone of the Flowers). Anyway, under my many layers and tons of gear I did not feel very sprightly riding up the hill and indeed was downright slow. It took me ~1:02 to do the climb, which I'm sure I can better if I get a good day, the planets are aligned and I feel a little less sick. You know, the usual excuses. Anyway, the big problem was that even maxing myself out on the climb, it was so cold that I lost feeling in my feet by the top, and I considered turning around. I could see the clouds burning off though so I decided to press on. I continued through Lans, and the beautiful small towns that line the Route de Villard. At the top of one of the hills, I saw what looked like a herd of cattle in the road ahead. As I got closer, I saw that it was indeed a herd of cattle, being moved down the road by three people. Unfortunately, things started going poorly when one adventurous cow broke through an electric fence and started loping into an adjacent field. This induced some yelling by the closest Shepherd, but it was too late, and there was soon a peloton of cows escaping down the hill. They did not have a dog, unfortunately, so two of them ran down the hill and corralled them back, but not before the electric fence was completely trampled into the mud. Eventually the cows exited the road, and I continued onwards through Villard-de-lans and Les Jarrands. By now the skies were blue, and the sun was out. Around one of the curves I saw a Loomis truck pulled over on the side of the road, with a guard outside the truck on a cell phone, with the door open! I would think that even with an empty truck, you would not want to invite attack by doing something like that, but that's just me. In fact, the only time I have ever seen stopped armored cars is when they are loading or unloading. I'm sure it is a good policy to make as few stops as possible. Anyway, onwards to Meaudre, through les Gorges des Meaudret, which are lined with a stunning display of reds, oranges and yellows. From there, it was on to Autrans, over a little hill and them the Col de la Croix Perrin, the last major effort of the day (and not a big deal at only 200 m of elevation gain). Then came the descent into Lans, where I realised that I did not have house keys with me, so instead of the Gorges du Furon, I descended via St. Nizier. Before that however, I finally found a water fountain, after pulling up to several that had been turned off along the way. One bottle is not really enough for 50 km and 1500 m of elevation gain! The descent was beautiful, and not too fast. I arrived back at the dealership at the 89 km mark, but the car was not ready and the battery was disconnected for service. The problem was that my change of clothes was in the trunk of the car, and the trunk is not easy to open without power. I eventually was able to change out of my clammy cycling stuff and went off in search of food. Unfortunately, that part of town is unexpectedly seedy. There was a crowd of teenagers in the supermarket parking lot drinking beers, and a random guy was approaching strangers and trying to sell something. I decided to live with the chance that I might be missing the deal of a lifetime and continued to the Tabac. As I was queued for the register a drunk guy wandered in (it was 2:30 PM) and asked the Tabac lady about the different kinds of cigars they sold. I quickly left and went to the supermarket, where the only thing resembling a sandwich was a chicken-pickle mayo sandwich. I wandered through the supermarket to find something else to eat and noticed an unusually large number of middle aged guys in leather jackets and heavily gelled hair. Time to go. After paying and avoiding eye contact with the by now boisterous and probably drunk teenagers in front of the store, I found a park across from the Honda Dealer. Exhausted and famished, I sat down on a park bench in the sun and started inhaling the chicken pickle sandwiches which were, to be fair, not as bad as they looked. A group of women ambled into the park at this point, and were screaming to each other about couscous, which struck me as a strange thing to be yelling about. They had a toddler with them which they would take turns playing ball with. At one point one of the women shuffled off to a stand of trees WITHOUT much cover, I might add, and squatted down for a pee. I took this as a cue to again find a new place to wait, but the only place left was the dealership. Happily, the car was ready! I think they must have uploaded new engine management because the acceleration feels a lot quicker.

Video of the ride here:

Beautiful ride

2011-10-16T22:30:00.000+02:00

Over the col de la Croix haute, col de Grimone, gorges des gats and col de Menee... fantastic!

Mushrooms?

2011-10-15T19:56:00.003+02:00

We drove up near col de la Charmette to look for mushrooms today.

the Boss

2011-10-15T19:29:00.003+02:00

Me: I'm the boss!
Zoe (walking away from me, looking back at me over her shoulder while rolling her eyes): I'm the boss aussi.

2011-10-05T19:55:00.000+02:00

shopping, ride

2011-09-29T06:55:00.001+02:00

We did a bunch of shopping: Mr Mopps, TJs, the bike shop (for cheap gels), Tokyo Fish Market, Acme bread. After resting and trying to get Zoe to take a nap for a while, I went to the best bike shop in the east bay (Montano Velo) where they let me demo the revelatory Moots Compact. I did a quick spin up Tunnel, and I very much enjoyed the bike and wheels (Mavic R-sys). Some day. Also, despite not feeling 100%, I managed to improve on my somewhat embarrassing time up Tunnel. Tomorrow is the big flight!

stanford

2011-09-28T06:44:00.001+02:00

I had lunch with my old boss in South San, and gossiped about our respective institutions and cycling (he is also a cycling guy). From there, I drove to Stanford to check out the newest and brightest source of X-rays around. It is very, very impressive

An older instrument:

And then into the usual mess of Bay Area traffic. wheee.

Dinner at Ajanta and then beers and port with Terry and Ben. It was really great to see and talk to them both and actually hang out at a bar (which does not happen very often anymore).

Mortar, Studio

2011-09-26T07:33:00.011+02:00

Zoe ate bagels this morning, which she LOVED. She kept requesting more "créme" (cream cheese) and was equally excited about the lox.

Ian came by shortly afterwards, and we went up to Indian Rock and Mortar to throw ourselves at various problems. I felt pretty good and actually did a few sections of Nat's that had always felt really hard to me. Next came lunch at Vik's Chaat, which has moved down the street into a much swankier space. Since we were nearby, we dropped into Wrench Science to ogle all the fancy frames before meeting up with the parents and Zoe at my Dad's studio. Zoe was working on some new oil paintings (!) when we arrived. Earlier, she had gone with my mom to the little farm, and then eaten lunch with the parents at an East Oakland favorite

Lawrence Hall O' Science!

2011-09-25T06:58:00.000+02:00

My friend Steve and I went to the Lawrence hall of science with kids in tow, after driving up to the steam trains and getting rained on (and discovering that they open at 11:00, not 10:00!). The Hall was awesome as usual, with lots of hands on things for the kids. The only hiccup occurred when Steve and I excitedly brought the kids to one of the dinosaur rooms, and discovered that small children are inexplicably terrified of giant animatronic dinosaurs that roar, snap their jaws and lash their tails. Weird! Zoe and Kiran were both terrified of the dinosaurs, of course, and did not want to get any closer. They clearly have a more developed sense of self preservation than the adults, who were pointing and saying "coool!". Anyway, there were many other fun things to do, and we all had lunch at Top Dog. Excellent.

Next came the studio, where Zoe had her first foray into oil painting! She looked like a hazmat worker with all the gear we put on her, but the result was impressive.

From the studio, we went to the Berkeley Bowl, home to the LEAST positionally aware people on the face of the planet. Seriously, when there is just enough room for one person to get through an aisle, it makes sense to occasionally look behind you to see if you are backing people up for twenty feet. On the plus side, they had ripe cherimoya!

Finally, it was Kirala time. Living in France, you don't find yourself pining for food very often, because the food is excellent (duh!). However, there are some things that I have not been able to find. Chief among these are sushi. Kirala is one of my favorite sushi places outside of Tsukiji, so I am probably a little spoiled. Therefore, a stop at Kirala is always required when I am back in Berkeley. This time was special, because it was the first time that Zoe was big enough to come to the sushi bar with us. We ordered her standard kid fare: Kappa and Tekka, which she happily ate (the sushi chef recommended Ikura next time), but she surprised us all when she pointed at the Saba, and indicated that it was hers! Saba is not what is considered a "beginner" sushi: it is a bit fishy and has a thick skin on it. From there, she went through all the adult sushis, which impressed the sushi chef so much, that he made two very special Zoe sized sushi! I actually was watching him when he made them, and was thinking to myself that they looked really, really small. I did notice that he seemed to be putting more effort into this sushi than the rest, even stepping back and surveying the symmetry of the tiny maguro in a sea of Hinoki.

Death Ride

2011-09-24T06:24:00.020+02:00

Ian and I did the Berkeley Death ride: a few of the steeper ways up to the Grizzly peak/Skyline ridgeline linked together. It's not as bad as some of the death ride variations i have seen, and not close to the nifty 1050, but still hard. Marin Ave. is just ridiculous, and was a pretty poor way to start the day. After that, we picked off the other climbs: South Park, Centennial, Toyonal without too much suffering. We weren't breaking any records, but we weren't going slow either. Unfortunately, the BPD had closed off the road down to Tunnel after Toyonal, so we took Centennial down, and then rode up Claremont. At the Claremont 4 way... more cops! And these cops were total jerks. I watched in awe as one of them walked up to one unfortunate person's car and yell at the driver. Most of us just got the standard patronizing BPD treatment. So we couldn't finish the death ride, but we did most of it. We did the Euclid climb to make up for it. I found out later that the road had been closed because a cyclist was killed by a car on the road a few hour earlier. It goes without saying that the media blamed the cyclist. One report actually wrote that the cyclist "rammed" the car. No word on whether there were any recent bullet rammings in Oakland on that day.

Kenji's show, Frog Park

2011-09-23T16:56:00.001+02:00

Some time ago, someone told me about a great children's park under the 24 freeway. I remembered vaguely where it was supposed to be, so I thought it would be fun to take Zoe there. It is in a slightly unlikely place, right next to the raised 24 freeway, and next to a vast "chiodrome" as the french call them! Despite this, it is an kid's oasis complete with a water course, well kept lawn and play structures. The centerpiece is a magnificent wood play structure, with slides, swings, giant plastic spider webs and all manner of secret kid passageways. Zoe learned how to slide down a pole, which at this point involves her swinging over to the pole, death gripping it, and then hand-over-handing down the pole while giggling maniacally. Another wonderful place that we managed to miss while we were living here, I guess.

After that, we rested before the day's main event: Kenji's show at the Triton museum in Santa Clara. We left early to avoid traffic (yes, I am back to thinking about traffic and how to avoid it again) and got into the carpool lane for most of the dismal trip down 880 to the South Bay. As we approached San Jose, I found myself looking around at signs of small tech companies, thinking that somewhere in that warren of office parks, some nerd was probably coming up with the Next Big Thing. Should it surprise me that the tech revolution was spawned in such uninspiring surroundings? I'm undecided. Anyway, after some excitement getting to the general area of the museum, we ended up at a REALLY good ramen joint called Orenchi ramen. We arrived before it was open, and since we were in a hurry, got back in the car to find somewhere else to go. Just as we loaded up, a raft of Kenji's people arrived, like some kind of Japanese adhān. They were coming in from every direction and on foot and in cars. We decided that it would be better to stay, and see what the fuss was about. By the time they opened, there was a huge line going well out the door. And this is at five thirty! The ramen was great: it tasted like there was miso in the base, and the noodles were firm and delicious. We also ordered some smaller things like grilled octopus balls (tako yaki) and fried chicken, which were also excellent. It was a fortuitous find, and I'll definitely be going back if I am in the area again. From there, it was off to the museum. The show looks amazing; one of the best that I can remember, and I have seen a lot of Kenji's shows! As usual I was running around trying to remember peoples names and corral Zoe. Zoe had a great time, and it was nice seeing a lot of Kenji's old friends. I'm proud of him and mom for putting together such a great show.

Academy of Sciences

2011-09-22T18:59:00.023+02:00

We headed into SF to visit the Cal Academy today. It really is a fantastic museum, and Zoe loved it.

She even got to touch sea stars, which was very exciting. She was, however not a fan of the automatically flushing toilets, which scared her and were soon deemed "mechante".

From there, I picked up a borrowed bike, which has aero bars. My knees hit them when i get out of the saddle, but moving them even a little is strictly verboten. Not terribly useful. At least this one is better than the mountain bike and actually has bottle cages!

Finally, Chez Panisse! The duck confit and the caramel truffle ice cream were fantastic. Kenji's fig tart was also excellent.

Finally, climbing at the gym and seeing some climbing friends. The seeing of friends part was fun, but not the falling off moderates part. Gotta get back in shape somehow! I hope it does not involve abstaining on things like duck confit, because that's just not going to happen.

Zoo!

2011-09-21T18:59:00.000+02:00

We went to the Oakland Zoo today with Zoe. It was the first time I had been there since I was a kid. Even when we lived in Montclair, which is about five minutes from the Zoo, we somehow managed to not bring Zoe. It turns out to be pretty good, albeit a little strange to see elephants, tigers and giraffes in the Oakland hills. The giraffes were a particularly big hit because they were "huggling"

We also took the train ride, which was nice, but very, very short.

The Sky Ride looks like a better bet, but it is only switched on during the weekends.
For dinner, we headed to the Wednesday night off the grid street food event. As it happens, I was hoping to try the much loved Five Ten Burger, and they are a regular attendee. Zoe and I very much enjoyed our burgers, even if most of hers ended up on the ground. The fried chicken and cupcakes (especially the beurre sallee) were also very good.

I went for a quick ride on my dad's old mountain bike, and it felt vaguely like cycling through cement. I wish transporting bikes was not such a huge hassle.

Flight

2011-09-20T15:47:00.001+02:00

Today was the big day: the day of Zoe and my flight to the states. My dad is having a show at the Triton museum in San Jose, so we thought it would fun to visit. It is pretty soon after Zoe's school year started to be taking time off, but we cleared it with her teacher before going. Anyway, we had been building up the plane flight for a while, and Zoe was very excited about it. Unfortunately, most connections via Lyon seem to involve painfully early flights out of LYS, and we ended up having to take the 5AM satobus to Lyon. I had not slept very well because after almost an hour on the phone with KLM and Air France, I still did not have a boarding pass for the Amsterdam-SFO leg of the flight (but Zoe did). I was picturing having to find our way back from Amsterdam on trains. As far as the early hour is concerned, although having children has shifted my concept of what I consider "early", I am definitely not an early morning person, and am barely functional at that hour. I guess I will never be an alpinist. The bus pulled into the furthest possible point in the terminal from the departure gate, but we made it to the plane in time, and took off as the sun was rising. I saw a terrified cat skittering across the path of the plane as the engines spun up and we took off. It was at this point that Zoe opened the first of many mini-presents, and watched the first of several movies on the iPad. After landing in Amsterdam and running to the gate, which was again almost twenty minutes away, we cleared security and found our seats. The plane was delayed in taking off because of "trouble starting" one of the engines. Whenever I hear things like that from the captain, I have an awful sense of foreboding. I imagine newspapers reporting that passengers were informed of engine troubles shortly before their doomed flight, but I suppose that's a little paranoid. Anyway, seven Zoe presents, four *disgusting* meals and three movies later, we stumbled off the plane. We were greeted with the usual highly oiled paradigm of efficiency that is US customs, and almost two hours after getting off the plane, we walked out of the arrivals door. Kenji and Gail were waiting for us, and Zoe excitedly gave them hugs and kisses. We stopped at Picante on the way home, for the requisite fish tacos. Kenji got a chili relleno, which was also fabulous. The watermelon and jamaica agua frescas were great, and very atypically not over sweetened.

2011-09-11T10:31:00.000+02:00

Italy!

2011-08-28T21:19:00.083+02:00

After a hot week, Chloe and I had a brief flash of inspiration and decided to drive to Italy for the day (I won't get tired of writing THAT anytime soon!). The plan was to use the Osterie d'Italia to find a good restaurant along the road to Turin, and then visit the Sacre di San Michele. The Osterie is like a Guide Michelin, but specializes in slow, regional food. In a way, it is like an entire guide devoted to Bib Gourmand restaurants. I found a restaurant called "Etable" in Bardonecchia, and made a reservation for lunch the night before, just to be sure we could get in. Knowing that we would be loading up on calories, chloe went for a run in the morning, and I went for a ride up Mt. San Martin. We left late in the morning, passing through the Maurienne valley and its legendary cols on both sides. After many tunnels, not the least of which was the fabulously long and expensive (45 euros round trip -- 65 dollars! Do you still think those bridge tolls are excessive?) Frejus tunnel. The first town outside the tunnel is Bardonecchia, and we arrived in plenty of time for lunch. The town was unremarkable, but reminded us a bit of Monetier. We went to a local patisserie, where they made absolutely wonderful fruit tarts

We bought several, and not only were the crusts perfect, but the fruit preserves that they used were excellent. Most of the time, fruit tarts are too sweet and lack any kind of texture that would remind you that what you were eating was once a fruit. The preserves that they used, however (probably home made) were just sweet enough, and retained some of the textures of the sour cherries and blackberries.

After wandering around for a while, it was time for lunch, which was fabulous. For appetizers, I ordered the thinly sliced veal and chloe ordered a vegetable flan ( sformati di verdure con formaggio fuso). Both were excellent, but chloe's was exceptional. They brought out perfectly al dente ravioli bolognese for the kids shortly afterwards, which were summarily devoured

I should also mention that this was a very kid friendly restaurant, which can be a bit hard to find around where we live. When they were taking our orders, they offered to take the kids orders first, and bring them to the kitchen immediately, so the kids could get started. Later on, they brought out a big box of toys for the kids, and would coo appropriately and say "Belissima!" or "Belissimo!".
Anyway, back to the food. I ordered a wild boar stew with polenta Concia, which were very good, but not my favorite.

Chloe ordered the pesto, which was excellent, but stolen by Alex

Finally, it was time for dessert. Chloe and I both ordered one of the specialities: "torta di nocciole e cioccolato tiepido con panna liquida e cacao". Desserts are rarely bad in my experience (except at the work cafeteria). This dessert, however, was transcendent, and very likely the best chocolate cake I have ever tasted at any restaurant (including Auberge de l'Eridan). It was a perfect balance between the hazelnuts and chocolate, and somehow magically light at the same time. I don't know how they achieved it, but it was sheer cooking magic.

The coffee was also great, as were the little cookies that came with it

After thanking our hosts and paying the bill (eighty something for everything, including wine), we loaded up the grommets and headed for the Sacre di San Michele. The road winds past two laked and some huge country estates before you find yourself in a mayhem of tiny road, crazy driving hell. Eventually, if you are lucky, you find a parking space though. From there, it is a short walk under the trees to the Abbey.

After a look around, we packed the by now very tired kids back into the car to complete our six hours (!) of driving.

The Bed

2011-08-20T21:22:00.007+02:00

While Stephanie was here, Chloe and Stephanie found a store in the Caserne de Bonne shopping area that had a fabulous kid's bed. It was a bit like a treehouse, with unevenly cuts planks and was raised about three feet above the ground. The designer is a French guy who works in Lyon, and the bed is build by a high end Belgian company. The problem is that they have priced the bed a bit ridiculously: ~3000 us dollars *unassembled* and without a mattress. As an aside, if you ever go furniture shopping in France, be prepared for extreme sticker shock. People must be buying new furniture here, based on the number of furniture shops that seem to stay in business. However, if you look at average salaries, and then see that an entry level couch is in the thousand euro range at most of these stores, things just don't seem to add up. I guess it's just about expectations. Anyway, I loved the design of the treehouse bed so much that I decided that it might be worth building our own, and I could get Zoe involved in the building process too, just like my dad used to do with me. When I was growing up, we built all kinds of things, including a cabin in the mountains, a treehouse, a renovated bedroom, a giant shed and many other projects. It is a very satisfying, if time consuming and exhausting process to go through the planning and execution of DIY building projects, so I'd like Zoe and Alex to have the skills that were taught to me (and maybe some new tricks as well!). I started drawings in Google Sketchup, as I had done with the climbing wall and hot tub, but quickly gave up. With all the non 90 degree angles, it was too much of a test of my non existent CAD skills. Instead, I sketched it out by hand, went to the Leroy Merlin website, and wrote up a parts list. Leroy Merlin is like the Home Despot, but with marginally more knowledgable staff. Additionally, despite a maddeningly illogical organization of their stock, things are a bit easier to find at Leroy Merlin. Despite the overall expertise level being higher, the willingness to be of assistance is visibly lower. The pine boards are of excellent quality and are milled to high precision. The tools, however, are comically overpriced.
In designing the bed, one important point was to make it disassemblable -- something that I had not done before. I settled upon using carriage bolts and Rastex fittings (like IKEA uses). Doorways can be quite narrow in these old houses, so I wanted to make sure that when we move, the bed won't need to be sawed into pieces. I did all the building in the attic, which now has a thick layer of sawdust on the floor. My back is also a mess from being hunched over to avoid getting smacked in the head by beams and dowels. After around eight days of hard work (roughly 3 full days of work, and then after work hours) and three or four more delightful trips to Leroy Merlin, I finished! Then came the disassembly of the old bed, the disassembly of the new bed, the carrying of the new bed pieces downstairs (everything fit through the door -- woooo!) and the reassembly of the bed downstairs. Here are some pictures of the building process and the result
Zoe, showing me how it's done:

Back face of the bed (interior)

Back face of the bed (exterior)

Joint detail

Right wall exterior

Right wall interior

Front face interior

Front face exterior

Left wall exterior

left wall side

Back, left and right connected by Rastex, and carriage bolts

All four walls on

Floorboards carriage boilted on and roof slats attached with furniture screws (removable)

Interior

SURPRISE (I moved it downstairs and had it waiting for Zoe when she got home)!!

Testing it out

The unfinished stairs. Zoe and I went on a short hike with a sawzall to find some branches to make the rungs out of. I then spent a lot of time sanding them down.

I am quite proud of how well the disassembly and assembly worked. With two people it should only take around 20 minutes for each.

Annot Part 3

2011-08-15T21:04:00.000+02:00

Lolo and i did a morning boulder session before packing up and heading back to Grenoble. After getting spit off of it a half a dozen times, I finally made it up the B7 on the isolated boulder nearest the epingle. yes!

Annot part 2

2011-08-14T21:00:00.000+02:00

We went to a brand new sector today with lots of nice climbs

Zoe meanwhile made a platform for her stuffed mouse. She seems to periodically pick a new animal, and the mouse is the flavor of the month. She gets very upset when she (frequently) loses track of the souris! After a picnic, we went back to Place Vendome, where everyone climbed pretty well, and I fell off several waaaaaay scary highballs. I just couldn't summon the nerve to top them out for some reason. Then it was back to the farm for beers, petanque and dinner

Annot

2011-08-13T19:55:00.027+02:00

We drove down to Annot today, on one of the worst travel days of the year in France (long weekend, and changeover for vacation rentals). We left early-ish, but still got stuck in quite a few mini traffic jams along the way. The first was caused by a car that had driven off the road, and the second was a car vs. motorcycle accident right before the Col de la Croix Haute. Then there was a traffic jam at every little town between Grenoble and Sisteron. Some wag had put up home made signs over the town signs in La Faurie and Aspres-sur-Buech, renaming them temporarily to St. Tropez and Aspres-sur-mer. There was a third town that had been renamed to Frejus, too. Eventually we made it to Annot and after dropping our things off, went to boulder at Requiem for Bloc for a while. There are some excellent problems there, and I'll definitely be going back. The highlight for me was a slopey mantle called "plus de cul". I hadn't been bouldering outside with friends for a while, and had forgotten how fun it can be. It also helps to be in the south of France, with warm summer breezes blowing over you while you relax in a chestnut forest.

After a few hours on the blocs, we headed back to the farm for apertifs (Cerdon, of course!), dinner and Petanque. Somehow I had never played it before, and Chloe, Zoe and I had a blast. Zoe is a little small still to be able to hurl the metal balls very far, but she did well.

lambos

2011-08-07T08:19:00.001+02:00

I saw what looked like a celebrity lookalike of one of the ZZ Top guys coming off the autoroute driving a yellow Lamborghini Diablo. He was wearing a headband and looked like he had just driven off the set of an early nineties music video. The weird part is that it was in Voiron (I was on a bike ride), which is suburb of Grenoble, and a very unlikely place to see a supercar.

Jamón

2011-08-03T20:51:00.000+02:00

A few years ago, a Spanish friend introduced us to Jamon Iberico. Without waxing too poetic about it, it is simply the best ham I have ever tasted. Even the lowest of the three grades is far better than anything I have tasted! So when I had the opportunity to buy a jamón ibérico with a decorative stand and stainless ham knife, I did not hesitate. I thought it would be excellent for our stay in the chalet, but it unfortunately did not arrive in time, so now we must torture ourselves with endless Jamon.

Zoe and Alex seem to love it, and cram the thinly sliced Jamón into their mouths as fast as I can slice it (which admittedly is not all that fast).

Tour des Sens!

2011-08-03T20:36:00.012+02:00

another fabulous meal at Tour des Sens! Thank you Stephanie!

What more could you ask for besides perfect weather and delicious (not to mention creative!) food on a terrace overlooking the Chartreuse?

In town!

2011-07-31T20:33:00.006+02:00

with the kids and Robyn

Feu Sacré

2011-07-29T20:50:00.038+02:00

Today the weather and babysitting windows opened (THANK YOU CHRISTA (et al!)) and Chloe and I finally got to try a route on the Tour Termier -- Feu Sacré, 280m, 6a,6a+,6a+,6b+,6a,6b,A0,6b,6b+,5+. We were treated to a cloudless sky when we started, a relatively painless approach, and most improtantly, no one else blocking our way on the route for once!! Things started a little inauspiciously, as the first two pitches were soaking wet. As the route got more vertical, it was almost all dry, with magically adherent rock. The only remaining pitch was the "crux" pitch, which I had planned to do free, but too many key holds were (literally) dripping wet, so I aided through it. About midway up, a low cloud bumped into the formation, chilling us and dropping visibility. There was another team on Terminee, and we would periodically look at the clouds and then back at each other and then shake our heads in disbelief. The cloud eventually cleared, but then a second grey cloud parked right above us! It was like a cartoon storm cloud: no clouds and sunshine for as far as the eye could see, *except* the tour termier. We almost got our down jacket out at this point. Otherwise, it was a fabulous climb on perfect rock.

The view from the top (3070 meters/~10000 feet) is magical, too.

There were some patches of snow,

and a family of Bouquetins looking for food.

The approach shoes are great: lightweight, sturdy, fit like a glove and survived the scree surfing. ❤ La Sportiva. The rubber is not great when wet, however.

The hike back took AGES. At every hill we would see that the trail continued off into the horizon. New weather was moving in, so we had some beautiful views of Lautaret and Termier

And then the fog moved in

Thanks again to the babysitters!!

Rocher Baron

2011-07-28T10:33:00.000+02:00

We all (except Tom and Christa, who were on a hiking trip) went to Rocher Baron today. After a bumpy road up to the parking area, we discovered that a few other people had had the same idea. In fact, it was overrun with gumbies. Gumbies pushing us off small belay ledges. Gumbies with ropes running in all directions. Gumbies trying to do multipitch climbs above everyone else. It was a total clusterfark, and very stressful. I was sure that something huge was going to get kicked down on us by someone or one of them was going to get themselves injured. At least a few people got to try climbing, though!

We decamped to the non-gumby sector and I did the 7a to the left that Francois had recommended, which was excellent. Chloe did it on TR with one hang. The real fun was setting up a rope swing for Zoe though!

On the way back to the chalet, we stopped at Alpimat, where I bought some approach shoes (running shoes have not been cutting it). I wanted to check out the Gandalfs after reading the fabulous SuperTaco review, but found that they were a bit too heavy for what I want to do. Instead, I bought a pair of Sportiva Fringes. We shall see how they hold up! Some members of the Spanish climbing team were in the store at the time, and I saw the Slovenian team car a block away (for the Climbing comp).

Montgenèvre, rain

2011-07-27T10:26:00.000+02:00

Got in a morning ride before the rain set in. The climb to Montgenèvre is not long or steep, but do-able in a short time. I added on a little flat riding on the road to Nevache, where car drivers seem to think they are on the autoroute. The first drops of rain were just falling when I got back to the car, and huge storm clouds were descending upon Briançon. The rest of the day was spent by the fireplace.

Galibier

2011-07-26T17:03:00.005+02:00

Rode Galibier from after the tunnel on Lautaret. It was very cold, but felt ok. The lack of riding has really been hurting my power! Afterwards, Zoe and I went to get crepes and ice cream in town, and then to the bouncy thing and ball pool

Zoe was very happy in the ball pool by herself, but fled as soon as a pack of feral kids jumped in.

pic de laigle

2011-07-25T21:07:00.036+02:00

Chloe and I drove over Galibier to try a new climb on the Pic de L'aigle. We parked by plan Lachat (next time we will drive up to the barrier, I think) and then walked up to the peak. The peak itself is visible from the road down from Galibier, but not Plan Lachat, and it is very impressive when you round the corner of a hill and see it looming there in front of you! It took one hour and twenty minutes to get to the base of the climb.

The hike goes through the French Military camp of Les Rochilles, used by the 93ème régiment d'artillerie de montagne. The last part of the path goes up a scree slope, and behind one large boulder, I found a stack of NATO 5.56 casings, and a bullet:

The first pitch of the climb turned out to be very hard, and we decided to bail since it was also very cold (snow on the ground!). About halfway through our return hike, the weather turned very bad and started raining... so it is a good thing we backed off. The climb looks beautiful though, and I would really like to go back to try it on a warmer day. It's been a tough vacation , weather wise. It still amazes me how quickly the weather can turn bad in this part of the Alps. Just look at how clear it looks in the approach photo, and then imagine the sky completely blocked out in grey, with peaks shrouded in clouds (all in the space of less than thirty minutes).

We saw a lot of mountain bikers on the trail. Someday I'll have to come back with a bike! I was thinking that a bike approach to this climb would be ideal, since it could cut down your approach time and descent significantly.

Later, Zoe and I got stuck in a traffic jam going into Briancon (45 minutes to get there from monetier!) trying to get to the toy store. On the way back, while sitting in traffic, I saw this mural

Which looks like the cover for ZOMBIE BIKERS. Either that or Anquetil and Poulidor were suffering from some terrible skin problems.

MTB Lauzet loop

2011-07-24T21:07:00.024+02:00

I started mountain biking in high school on a Specialized "streetstomper" that was a little ill adapted for technical singletrack. My favorite trails were in Tilden, while it was raining so that there would be fewer people to dodge. Anyway, in college I started road biking, and except for on and off phases since then, I haven't really done much offroad. Periodically, I'll get motivated to get muddy again, and there is no better motivation than the spectacular alpine trails around Monetier. Actually, on Beaux Quartiers, I saw people riding by on the "Chemin du Roy", so I thought I would try to get Tom to ride that loop with me. It turned out to be one of the most beautiful trails I have ever ridden, and made me wonder what I've been doing sucking diesel fumes and endangering myself on the roads with jackhole car drivers. Anyway, it was gorgeous! The descent was a little dicey and I crashed twice. The second time I went over the bars and slid down a small hill. The impact ripped the HD cam off the bars (and was unfortunately NOT filming at the time.. booo!). Other than a few abrasions and bruises, I'm fine though.

Market day!

2011-07-23T20:31:00.006+02:00

Also, we made pizzas on the grill, which was fantastic. Zoe made her own pizza, from kneading the dough, to rolling it out, to choosing condiments

Beaux Quartiers

2011-07-22T21:34:00.004+02:00

Today, thanks to generous babysitting by the entire chalet crew, Chloe and I were able to do a fabulous climb on the Aiguillette de Lauzet. The "Petite" Aiguillette is an impressive formation that overlooks the road to Lautaret, and Beaux Quartiers is supposed to be one of the best routes up it. At 300 meters and a whole lot of pitches, it is a fairly serious climb. I was so cold for the first 5.10d pitch that I could barely feel my fingers! After pitch two, we got stuck behind some other climbers, who we had to wait for for the majority of the climb. They eventually bailed after the steep 6a+ chimney, but we continued on with the last three pitches and topped it out.

On the walkoff, we saw a troupe of baby chamois bounding up and down rock faces.

as well as the "daddy", who seemed unimpressed by us.

We were unsure of whether he would charge us to protect the young'uns, so we gingerly walked by him.

When we were about two thirds of the way down from the walkoff, we noticed the other party on the climb, who had managed to arrive in some gully and were just now walking back to the base of the climb to get their stuff. It looked like maybe they had gotten lost in the rappels (which is another reason to not rap off, given the choice of a walkoff!).

Anyway, it was an excellent climb, and thanks again to the babysitters!!!

Tour de Friggen France

2011-07-21T22:14:00.006+02:00

Today was the big day: The "Queen" stage of the tour de france which passed through three mythical cols, for a whole lot of altitude gain. With a profile like today's, it was fairly certain that some kind of attack would happen, but I don't think anyone imagined how exciting a stage it would really be. I was thinking about recent tours, and it was definitely the most exciting stage I have watched for a long time. Perhaps more importantly, the tour was going right through the town that we are staying in!

For the past few days I had been trying to drum up excitement in my generally non cycling obsessed co-chaletards, with limited success. However, when you see Andy Schleck attack with 60 km of hard riding left to go, and in particular relatively exposed and headwindy terrain... I think most everyone was excited! Unfortunately, the day did not get off to a great start, when
Christine, Terry and Robyn went to the wool mill in Chantmerle in the morning and were unable to return because of the road closures. Instead, they had to walk back to the chalet, much to their chagrin. They managed to make it back well in advance of the tour, though.

Everyone went out an hour early or so to see all the hotdog cars go by, and get free stuff.

The race spectators were worse than grad students at the prospect of free stuff: one enormous imbecile walked right in front of Jon and me and began swinging his hands in two arcs trying to get packets of Nesquick thrown at him. A middle aged woman next to me was throwing elbows and muttering about free laundry detergent. When the first detergent mobile passed her by, she was visibly distraught, but perked up when she saw a second detergent mobile. I don't think she really need a free one-dose detergent packet, based on the fact that she lives in a GIANT chalet next to the chalet that we were renting. Eventually, I got fed up and braved the wrath of the young gendarme who was blowing his whistle and yelling at people for walking in the street (what would he have done on Galibier, I wonder?) and crossed the street. There were much fewer things being thrown onto the left side of the road, but less of a feeding frenzy, which was fine by me. All I really wanted was the coveted Carrefour polka dotted caps for the kids, and to get pictures of the chalet posse.

We went back to the Chalet to watch the tour live on TV, and were amazed to see the Andy-attack. I thought that there was no way he would maintain his gap on the ramp up to Galibier, since it isn't that steep, and there is ton of wind, but they had sent one of their teammates up in advance of the attack, and actually increased the gap. Here they are, several (4?) minutes ahead of the peloton

And then the peloton, which probably should have started reeling them in earlier!

Worth mentioning: Team Sky has the nicest team cars:

After the peloton whizzed by, we (okay, I) rushed back to the chalet to watch the run up to Galibier. When Schleck hit the base of Galibier with the same lead, even the French commentators assumed that Voeckler would not be in Yellow at the end of the day. Amazingly, he hung onto Evans' wheel for all of Galibier (dropping Contador) and made the gap small enough to retain the yellow jersey! During one of the most memorable sections of one of the most memorable stages in recent Tour history, I heard a "Daaaaaaady-o" coming from the bathroom, which was the song of the three-year-old-butt-that-needs-wiping. So while Voekler was killing himself trying to keep the jersey, I was frantically searching for diaper wipes and cleaning butt. Epic stuff.

After all the tour hullabaloo was over, we dropped Terry off back at her stranded car in Chantemerle. I guess her epic was just getting started, and it ended up taking quite a long time to get to Geneva that night. Along the way, I noticed that the HTC-Highroad team (one of three US teams in the tour) truck was in a lot across the street, so I crept up on it and took these photos.

Amazing things that I missed:
1)That is mark cavendish's bike!! (bib 171)
2)I think that is Tony Martin (one of the world's best time trialists) talking to the mechanic!
3)There is a rubber chicken hanging in the team truck

also, the mechanic was slamming the crankset into the frame with a hammer, having declared the previous crankset "caput". It wasn't even a sprint stage, and Cav still managed to nuke his crank.

Rocher Baron, Tour de France, Casset

2011-07-20T16:21:00.029+02:00

Chloe and I were supposed to climb the Aiguillette du Lauzet today, but when we arrived at Pont de l'alpe, it was snowing a little bit! Not wanting to freeze to death, we opted instead for sunny single pitch climbing at a crag called Rocher Baron (just south of Briancon). When we arrived, I noticed that some barriers were being set up, and there were cycling fans everywhere. It turned out that a small French cycling race called the Tour de France was about to come through! I had no idea that the stage came so close to Briancon, but we managed to inadvertently stumble upon the hill preceding the Montgenevre climb! This is the third time I have managed such a feat (the first two were for the paris stages of the 1991 and 2003 TdFs). We did some nice climbs (Titeuf, Eau Secours, Pas de bile, J'en reve encore, Je n'ai qu'une seule vie, Derniere danse) on excellent rock before heading back down the road to watch the tour. A small escape had formed, and we got to see Voeckler in yellow, with Europcar doing work at the front of the peloton.

THOR!

We got down just in time for the riders, so we missed the usual "pre-game show" of cars shaped like pigs etc. I did notice that instead of the just the usual gendarmes, there were also italian police (in BMWs, not Fiats!) because the stage ended in Italy. The road was supposed to be closed until 4 PM, but they opened it at 2:30, so we went back to the chalet for a walk to le Casset with the crew

snow on izoard

2011-07-19T15:31:00.000+02:00

Jon, Sue and I drove to Izoard today with the kids. I had been hearing about the beautiful landscape of the casse desert for a couple of years, and assumed that the best way to get there was from the Guillestre side of the famous col (Since I had not seen any of it when I rode Izoard from the North side), so we drove south of Briancon to approach the col from the South. It was raining very hard, but we stopped briefly to look at the Mont Dauphin Fort, built in 1693 by the famous French military engineer Vauban. It was quite impressive, but not worth dragging the kids out in the rain for! From there, after a few wrong turns, we were on the road to Izoard. There was supposed to be a cycling race today, but hopefully it was cancelled. We continued up, and I noticed a whiteness on the tops of the mountains that looked suspiciously like snow. In a matter of minutes, the temperature had dropped to zero, and we found ourselves in a snow storm in the middle of July. It was not light snow either, but huge swirling flakes. We saw quite a few foolhardy cyclists descending and climbing the col. I have a feeling that they were even colder than Ian and I were last year. We stopped a few times for pictures, and the Casse Désért is absolutely beautiful in the snow.

After a few slighlty scary switchbacks we reached the col.

My plan had been to stop at the Auberge Napoleon for lunch, but the snow was sticking, and I decided that it was not worth getting stuck up at the col, so we descended and headed back to the chalet. Zoe got sick from all the windy roads, and vomited on her shirt and Alex's stuffed animal. Poor ZZ!

Du miel et des abeilles

2011-07-18T15:44:00.020+02:00

Chloe and I got on a very short "grande voie" today. We got stuck behind some very, very slow people. Otherwise, it was beautiful and the rock was good!

The walkoff was easy, and we were soon back at the car. After driving back to the Chalet, we all went to Briançon together for ice cream, fort touring, and browsing the whistling marmot stuffed animals.

Monetier

2011-07-17T16:04:00.005+02:00

Cycling, Jim

2011-07-10T21:44:00.017+02:00

I went for a morning ride up Charmette today (only a few seconds faster -- I dont know how I am going to find enough power or lose enough weight to get to my goal of 1 hour even). It felt pretty hard, which I guess is expected for a hors categorie climb, but I need to work on my endurance on climbs over 600 meters.

Anyway, I usually turn around and go home at the col, but I decided to be a little adventurous and try out the forestry road that descends to St. Laurent du Pont today. I had heard different things about the state of it, so I just took it slow and was careful. The road was in very good shape; the only problems were the unlit tunnels. The first two were short enough that I could see what I was riding over, but the last one (tunnel des agneaux) was very long and *very* dark. I made it through without crashing, happily. The views from the road are spectacular,

and you pass a convent along the way

It's a wonderful ride, with no chance of cars! You just have to be careful and take it slow on the descent, unless you are on a mountain bike, in which case it would be no problem at all. I'll probably bring a mini bike light for the Tunnel of Death next time.

Later on, an old colleague from south san came by (he is in Europe for four weeks), and we went into town for vietnamese food and a trip to the top of the Bastille. It was great to catch up and gossip about biotech days and people and show him our new stomping grounds.

pool with the kids

2011-07-09T21:38:00.016+02:00

First stop was Decathlon, since there is a rule (I am not making this up!) that you must wear speedo style swimming trunks at public pools in France. I tried on various pairs, which varied widely in their levels of hideousness, and eventually landed on a pair that did not induce any muffin topping. From there, it was off to the public pool in St. Egreve, where we played with the kids in the water for a while

and then had lunch. The kids went for the the organic free-range sausages. All natural!

I was still recovering from a crazy virus that gives you headaches and pains in your sides (chloe also had it), so I was pretty exchausted by the end of the day. At least I have a banana hammock now!

bike trailer

2011-07-02T21:12:00.001+02:00

Rode 25k with the children in tow in the croozer. Not very long into my planned itinerary, I heard the dreaded "Home" over the sound of the wind, so we had to go back. Also, a water bottle exploded, soaking the menagerie of stuffed animals in the child trailer, as well as babu and my phone. arggh

current year to date stats
weight lost: 9 pounds/4 kg
miles ridden: 1806 km/ 1122 miles
vertical distance climbed: ~25000m / 82000 feet
crashes: 1

woo!

2011-07-01T22:59:00.002+02:00

personal record up Narbonne (~20 minutes from pinsello to the last steep spot)

Schoooooools out for summer

2011-07-01T21:39:00.000+02:00

It was the last day of school today, and I noticed a sign indicating that the kids would be going to the park near our house for a treasure hunt and activities today. Not being able to resist watching Zoe running around with her classmates, I asked the teacher if I could join. It turned out that they were looking for help from parents, and I was soon recruited into the gymnastics section. The complete pool of ~60 kids were broken up into groups of ten or so, and several activities were set up. The only ones I could see from my side of the field were a sack race, a relay race, and gymnastics. The gymnastics involved somersaults, cartwheels, hanging from the bar with their knees ('Cochon pendu'), rolling all the way around the bar, and the coup de grace: walking along the bar. Walking along the bar was the clear favorite (for the kids), but also the most strenuous (for the parents). It basically involved hoisting the not-so-light kids onto the bar, walking along with them, and them hoisting them up into the air and then down to the ground. My back and shoulder were in a fair bit of pain by the end, but it was still great to see Zoe in her école environment. Of course, after escorting the better part of the ecole maternelle along the bar without incident, I managed to lose hold of Zoe and she fell onto the bar. This engendered much crying, but the teacher saved me and Zoe calmed down. I'm not sure how she did it! Zoe then got a very special teacher assisted beam walk:

Other pictures:

A school performance

2011-06-28T21:09:00.000+02:00

Today was the day of the rescheduled school performance. It being Zoe's first, Chloe and I were VERY excited. We arrived at the school to find Zoe getting prepared for her grande entrance. All week we had been trying to determine what her actual role would be, but our queries were dismissed with a role of the eyes and a "je ne sais PAS!". It was another hot day, and it seemed like an eternity before the little kids were due to perform. There was also almost no seating, and it was a struggle to get even a peek at her. In the lead up to the little kid performance, alex was getting pretty antsy, so Chloe and I had to take turns taking care of him. Some time during this kid shuttling, one of the kids (probably Zoe) filled our water bottle with dirt. Chloe unfortunately did not notice, and took a deep pull of mud water: refreshing! Zoe's class perfomance consisted of holding up cards that I could not see (because of the difficult viewing conditions), but which chloe tels me had the names of painters, writers etc, and then picking up instruments and doing some dancing. It was very, very cute. At one point, the kids put their instruments in a little circle before a dance routine, and then returned to pick them up. Zoe's instrument was a mini guitar, and a little troublemaking boy (who had earlier been hitting another boy in the head with his card) tried to steal Zoe's guitar! Zoe, however has been training her iron grip because of toy competition with Alex, and the guitar was soon firmly in her hand. I think the boy might have started crying at this point, but I didn't have much sympathy. Here is Zoe, with a stalwart look on her face, guitar in hand, flushed with the sweet taste of victory.

And a few more of the performance

Cerdon

2011-06-25T20:53:00.001+02:00

Franck had introduced us to a sparkling wine with a light, dry taste a while ago, so we decided that it was about time to go visit the town in which it is produced: Cerdon. After a five minute internet reconnaissance, we decided upon Lingot-Martin as the vintner of choice. We had also cleverly timed the car ride so that the kids could get some sleep.

In addition to the wine, they also have a sparkling non alcoholic cider which while delicious, did not meet with Zoe's approval ("TOO FIZZY!")

Alex seemed okay with it, however

Chloe needed something with a little more kick, however

We ended up buying quite a few bottles, which we will avail ourselves of in Monetier in a few weeks time!
Next, we went to the town of Cerdon and wandered around for a while

And then walked to the copper forge, which was unfortunately closed. Alex did take the opportunity to dunk his sunglasses in the copper fountain, though.

And then we checked out this cool still

Before meeting up with the Aussie clan for drinks at the cafe under an awning (it was quite hot). After a while it was time to retreat to the safety of an air conditioned car. I could see cliffs down the valley, so I couldn't resist driving out to see if they were equipped, but alas they were not. It was an uneventful drive back, with the exception of seeing a pretty fabulous looking car dealership called GT spirit, which we will have to stop at next time!

Papa's day!

2011-06-19T22:01:00.036+02:00

Today I awoke to Zoe bringing me a present wrapped in blue construction paper that she had made at school. It was a book about planting things (candies, musical notes, words, kisses, crayons) and the kinds of trees that grew out of them. When you plant a candy wrapper, a bonbon tree apparently grows out of it! It was beautiful, and quite honestly one of the best gifts I have ever received. She had apparently also been rehearsing it in school, so despite not really being able to read, she was able to recount most of it to me (stopping every once in a while to tell me that the book was "verrry special!". I think most of us have had moments like this described to us by friends and family, but it turns out to be one of those intensely personal experiences that defies description. Suffice it to say that I was overcome with emotions and ended up getting a little teary.

Later on, I went for a mega ride into the chartreuse: 80km and 1900 vert meters of elevation gain. I was pretty tired by the end.

Town

2011-06-18T22:00:00.003+02:00

Peuil bouldering

2011-06-11T21:56:00.001+02:00

We headed out to Peuil for some bouldering today

After trying out a few boulder problems, I wandered off with Alex, to practice walking for a while: he walked quite far and expressed his strong displeasure at having to turn around.

When we got back, however, I was greeted with the aftermath of a rather bad fall off the top of a boulder, with concomitant blood and scrapes. Luckily, nothing was broken.

Here is Zoe, a few seconds before sweeping her hand through a stinging nettle

even more ice cream

2011-06-05T21:54:00.000+02:00

(best flavor=caramel, beurre salé)

Mille martyrs

2011-06-04T22:36:00.000+02:00

Rode to Mille Martyrs today and checked out some of the route for the Criterium de Dauphiné. There were road closure signs, and the sprint signs had already been installed. It felt pretty good, and I had my fastest time up Placette. The last climb up to Layat was kind of brutal though.

Haircut!

2011-06-04T21:53:00.001+02:00

dinner

2011-06-04T20:38:00.002+02:00

Franck, Silvia and Artur came over for dinner tonight, the highlight of which was Franck's excellent Raspberry cake. I was thinking about grilling, but the weather was not cooperating.

In town

2011-06-02T21:50:00.003+02:00

for ice cream, etc

Storm

2011-05-27T13:22:00.002+02:00

It was storming, so I rally car drove up the road to Mont St. Martin, got the grear out and stood in the rain under an umbrella

Back to Grenoble

2011-05-25T22:00:00.044+02:00

Today we made the onerous four hour drive back to Grenoble. Just kidding! I know how lucky we are to be within a four hour drive of Lago Maggiore. We checked out, took the by now familiar ferry back to Stresa, loaded up the car and then went off in search of coffee. Mom wandered off to look at the stores, and we were soon laden with amaretti, wooden pinnochio dolls and a fancy cane for dad. I checked out some engravings of Isola Pescatore, but the prices were a little to high. At this point our plan had been to use the famous Osterie & Locande d'Italia: A Guide to Traditional Places to Eat and Stay in Italy to find a restaurant at which to have lunch, but I gently suggested that we skip it since we had already eaten countless megacalories. As soon as I mentioned it, mom looked visibly relieved and we agreed to stop somewhere with simpler fare. I tried to find something about street food, since I had heard mention of local specialities, but the only thing I could find in the area was something called "farinata". The best I could do was find a place on the outskirts of Torino with "Farinata" in the title, so we plugged it into the GPS and set out. Unfortunately, the GPS brought us to a narrow cobbled road

which required some very delicate maneuvering and a turnaround flanked by gaping pits.

After a while, we found a way out of Stresa without the GPS, and not on dirt roads or hiking paths. From there it was autoroute time again, until Torino. It was a bit of a maze in Torino, but we made it to the Farinata place without major hijinks. The neighborhood looked dodgy, so I left mom and Zoe in the car while I ran out to get a few portions of the much anticipated food. One problem was that I had no idea what farinata actually looked like, so I could not point to it, using the standard tourist pantomime (followed by 2 fingers held up to specify quantity). Instead, I just said "Farinata?" hopefully, and the server nodded and pointed to a few triangular grey pieces of food next to the pizza. I bought three and brought them back to the car in a pizza box. We broke it open as soon as I was back at the car, and I tasted a corner of one. Unfortunately, it tasted like deep fried cardboard, but without the delicious cardboard flavor. Worse still, the grease managed to adhere to your tongue, so I was tasting the greasiness for the next fifteen minutes. Also, it might have been a coincidence, but a few minutes after eating a chunk of farinata, I got a headache. My theory is that it was loaded with MSG. Anyway, Zoe was quickly relieved of her slice of the deep fried vileness, and we set out in search of better food.

We were hoping to stop at the Sacra de San Michele, since we had missed it on the way there, but by the time we arrived in San Ambrogio and managed to find a place to eat, we were all too tired to face the thirty minute drive up to the Sacra. Lunch was a few very basic sandwiches, and fresh squeezed orange juice, which Zoe got to watch the making of. From San Ambrogio, I was confronted with the usual dilemma of whether to trust the signs or the GPS, and choose poorly: the signs for Frejus take you on a half hour drive right next to the autoroute on small roads. Once on the autoroute, we went into the series of tunnels that eventually take you back into France, and along the autoroute that taunts you with signs for famous cols (Galibier, Croix de Fer, Glandon). After getting through grenoble traffic, we finally made it home.

Lago Maggiore Day 2

2011-05-24T21:27:00.005+02:00

Today we went to the Villa Pallavicino. After taking the ferry into Stresa, we had lunch in the central pedestrian only area

And then bought tickets to the villa. Getting there involves a small train (also very exciting for Zoe) that barely manages to fit through the tiny streets of Stresa, and climbs into a spectacular set of grounds which now house an impressive variety of flora and fauna.

The highlights for Zoe were definitely the Zebra, followed by the Wallabies or possibly the very animated Toucan. It was a hot day, and after a trip to the gift shop to buy Zoe a t-shirt with baby Zebras, it was time to go back to the island. We had left Babu there, and Zoe was by now overheated, tired and in no mood for sightseeing. We stopped by the car to drop off a few things, and then hopped back on the ferry:

And then went back to the hotel room to relax. I walked every foot of the island looking for wifi while Zoe was "napping" with mom, and found one network with which I could catch up on emails. I'm sure I looked like a junkie sitting there on a stone bench with my iPad!

Unfortunately, Ristorante Italia was closed, so we had to look for a new place to eat. The best option looked like it was the hotel Verbana, and it turned out to be a fantastic choice. The setting is of course magnificent: views of the lake, mountains and Isola Bella from a perfectly manicured terrace.

The waiters were also very nice to Zoe, stacking two chairs for a clever and improvised kid seat, and bringing her a special amuse bouche and some Parmesan.

The meal was fantastic again, of course. I am addicted to the local hams, so I ordered that again, and my mom ordered a scallop puff pastry

followed by lobster fettucine

mom ordered shrimp pasta

And then there was dessert:

Mom's was a zabaglione semifreddo which was the clear winner, and was soon dispatched by Zoe.

We were treated to more stunning views of Isola Bella on our way back to the apartment

Lagio Maggiore, Day 1

2011-05-23T11:06:00.112+02:00

Today mom, Zoe and I set out for Italy. I had originally planned on going to the Italian Riviera: the cinqueterre perhaps, or camogli, but was having too much trouble finding a place to stay. Instead, I found a fantastic looking place in northern Italy, familiar to many, but so far unvisited by any members of the clan: Lago Maggiore. I also looked a little into staying near the nearby and much more famous lake Como, but was immediately swept off my feet when I found an apartment for rent on the isola Pescatore. I was so excited, in fact that I immediately called my mom in the states and emailed her a picture. Soon after, I booked the apartment (apartment Da Giusi, which I found here). Beyond booking the apartment, I hadn't really spent too much time planning the trip, and we got off to a rocky start, driving past the restaurant at which we had hoped to eat lunch, and not arriving early enough at the Sacra di San Michele monastery in enough time to visit it. Instead, it was autoroute food for us, which turned out to be excellent and fresh! never underestimate Italian food, even in the most humble surroundings, I guess. From outside of Turin, it was a relatively short and uneventful drive up to Stresa. Although the posted speed limit is 130kph for most of the drive, it seems that that number is only a basic rule of thumb. However, since I was getting frequent speed camera warnings from the GPS, I kept it at 130. I was amazed to watch a moped pass me at this speed - he was probably doing 150 kph, which I did not even know was possible on a moped!

The apartment owner told us to park in Stresa, and catch a ferry from there to the island. For some reason, I had pictured Stresa as a sort of run down lakeside town -- a poor mans Como, if you like. Neither my mom nor I were prepared for the swankiness of Stresa. Upon entering the town, we were amazed to see gigantic beautiful villas lining twisting mountain roads. We eventually arrived at the riverfront, where we drove past stately hotels with sprawling grounds, just on the edge of the lake. There was also a beautiful and never ending lakeside park, with shade trees and an abundance of benches and fountains. After circling a little bit trying to figure out where to park, we eventually made it to the ferry terminal, where we got onto a ferry bound for Isola Pescatore. The boat was a source of much excitement for Zoe, of course!

We passed Isola Bella on the way, with it's impressive terraced gardens and palace, and after asking a few people eventually found our way to the apartment. The entire apartment looks like it has been recently refinished, with granite stairs and a cheerful coat of yellow paint on the exterior. It is hidden in the central shaded street which runs the length of the island. After settling in, getting a gelato or two

and taking a few photos

Zoe got some water time, and then it was time for dinner. The apartment proprietress recommended a restaurant at the end of the island called "Ristorante Italia"

As we were sitting down, a boatload (literally!) of musicians and instruments pulled up to the shore for a private catered dinner in the large dining room. We were out on a small gravel terrace, shaded by trellised jasmine vines. It had been a hot day, so the temperature was perfect, with a gentle breeze blowing in from the lake. There was also a beautiful view of the lake, and a young host (the son of our waitress), who immediately brought pens and paper out for Zoe to draw with.

The meal was wonderful: My mom chose the seafood salad, and I ordered a plate of Piemontese charcuterie

And we both ordered the Grigliata Mista -- which I always order, no matter where we go in Italy! It did not disappoint:

And finally, there was dessert:

Which was soon claimed to be "mine and only mine" by Zoe:

I should also mention that around 7:00 PM, the island totally clears out. It coincides with the last public ferries to the shore, and transforms Isola Pescatore into a quiet island village, mostly devoid of tourists like us. The waitress' son showed Zoe around the shore near the restaurant after dinner, calling for her attention by saying "Nina!" and then pointing to various things (sticks, flotsam that had washed up on the shore).

A few more photos:

Antiques, playground

2011-05-22T10:52:00.033+02:00

After a quick lunch, everyone went to the centre ville to check out the antique fair. It used to be called Jambon Brocante, but is now called "Brocante & Saveurs", and is not quite as extensive as I remember, but still pretty nice. Mom was looking for an antique cane for Kenji, but was unsuccessful. I picked up an early 1920's set of aerial photographs of the area (Moucherotte, Grande Sure etc) which had been taken by the French military. You can even see the tip of a biplane wing on one of the shots. The kids got balloons, so they were content.

Next was second lunch at Pain&Cie

and then off to the playground

Which was miraculously not overrun with feral kids for once. Here is simon after drinking a six back of beers:

just kidding, parents!
Finally, it was time for ice cream at the Green Arch

The caramel is unbelievably good. Unfortunately, the Australians were unable to sample it because of the well known and often experienced bane of parental existence: a Poo Emergency (aka Poo Explosion).

into grenoble

2011-05-21T10:49:00.008+02:00

We went into Grenoble for lunch at Paul, and to vieux campeur for CZ to buy some new trail running shoes.

Later, there was dancing

and cake!

and a story

Martigny with mom

2011-05-19T21:00:00.000+02:00

Today my mom and I hit the road for the Fondation Pierre Gianadda. We drove through the beautiful valleys under le Mont Blanc,

past Chamonix, over the Col de la Forclaz (looks pretty nice for cycling, except for all the cars), and then down into Martigny. The museum was recommended by Franck, and my mom and I loved it (Thank you, Franck!!!). The collection is impressive, and the exhibition space is quite unique. There is also an excellent sculpture garden with golden waterfowl of some kind

and an underground automobile museum. The automobile museum was the only thing we were really allowed to take pictures of, so that's all I have, except for this picture of the central space

behold the cars:

From there, it was back to Grenoble. We stopped at a charming cafe at the col des Montets for drinks

And then decided to go through Albertville this time, and it took a looong time. We did stop to buy saucisson and Beaufort, which made the detour worth it.

cowboys in the wild west (of le Fontanil)

2011-05-18T20:23:00.001+02:00

While I was cooking dinner tonight, I happened to look out the window and saw a Cowboy in front of the Boulangerie. After people started wheeling cameras, sound booms and lighting into the street, it became obvious that something exciting was happening. I rushed downstairs with my camera to capture the action, and watched the crew at work. They were having a lot of problems, stemming from the fact that they were filming on the main street, but they eventually got their shots. Examples of events that caused cuts to the filming were:

A delightful young man with a bottle full of hair gel and aviator sunglasses, who, incensed at having had to wait for three minutes, peeled out along the main street, almost running over the camera operator and the horse.

A woman, attracted by the excitement who was IN THE SHOT during filming (as in, in between the camera and the cowboy), who somehow escaped everyones attention until the poor cowboy had trotted the horse all the way from the bridge down past La Lutinière.

A shrill "DAAAADDY-O" emanating from a certain 1st floor apartment (The boom operator assured the cameraman that he could not hear it).