Galibier

After some reshuffling of schedules, my intern from Bozeman/Harvard and I loaded up bikes and were on our way to Bourg and Lautaret to meet Hank, a visiting MTB luminary, his wife and son. I was ready for something big, after testing my knees last week, and the plan was to ride Galibier. Just after loading up, disaster strikes: Hank calls and tells me that he won't be able to join us because of an unmissable med. appointment. Hank is one of the most upbeat and positive guys I know, but I could almost see the disappointment on his face. We were definitely more than a little bummed that he wound't be there with us. The new plan was to meet the MTB dignitary somewhere along the road, but a collection of road works conspired to make that difficult. We parked just outside of la Grave, which is only an hour away -- feel free to hate me -- just after a tunnel. Unfortunately, it was not exactly where I thought it was and we still had to ride through a tunnel, where they had stopped morning traffic in both directions to, no joke, replace all the burnt out lights in the tunnel. The flag guy was really cool and waved us through, so we had a car and diesel free ride through the tunnel. From there, gentle grades, epic views and even some new pavement up to Lautaret. The intern, now with clipless pedals (I had been riding with him sans clipless at low altitude and had had no problem keeping up with him), was in his element and dropped me without much effort. Towards the top, the wind kicked in and I found myself climbing the last section in the drops, just to stay out of the wind.

At Lauteret, we pulled over to coordinate with the others: thank goodness for not too expensive international SMSing. While we were waiting, I had an awesome espresso, talked to some locals about climbing la Meije and saw what looked like a McLaren MP4-12C and a 612 Scaglietti drive by. Except for the road works, I bet those guys were having a good day. The others showed up after a little while, and they unloaded the bikes that Hank had lined up for them, which were pretty damn nice! Nice carbon bikes with excellent wheels and groupsets -- Hank doesn't mess around when his friends are concerned.

After introductions, we figured out timing, since one of them was going to stay at the col, and started up the Galibier. If you've never been to Lautaret, a little background: you can see the road to Galibier switchbacking up the hill at impossible angles in front of you. It always impresses and intimidates me. It's friggin Galibier, after all, even if it's from the easier side. I took a moment to look up and soak it all in, returned my eyes to the road…
and saw everyone hammering: Sweet! The climb was magnificent -- the best conditions ever for me, and this was my fourth time up. Even at low speed, it feels heroic. Regarding the speed, I did my best to keep up with the young'uns (even though they were clearly not going full gas) but I was soon sucking huge lungfuls of air and my HR was through the roof.

From the top, we took pictures, talked for a little while and then had to split up, as I had to get back to work for some previously scheduled experiments.

La Meije:


The Col

We went into town for pizza, ice cream and provisions (OK, cheese) today. To kill time before the pizza place opened, we walked up the steps towards the Bastille


There is a community garden project that we stumbled upon: wheat, strawberries and various other things, growing among the tall grass! Unusual, but very cool

Charmant Som

Today was the big day: test my newly stretched and rehabilitated knee. I'd been having more and more problems until finally a few weeks ago the pain had been so intense (IT band -- I'm sure many of you have experienced it too) that on a ride up to Porte, I couldn't go any further and resorted to pedaling with one leg to get home after abandoning the climb. No problem on the flats, but it proved to be a major pain in the ass on the one small climb I needed to get over to get home. Anyway, I've been working on it and on cleat position ever since, and did a test ride earlier in the week -- the standard lunchtime loop, with 600 or so meters of gain. No problems there, which was awesome, so I decided to try for something bigger. I threw caution into the wind and went for the exact same itinerary at which things had fallen apart for me last time: col de Vence, col de Porte and possibly further. After rolling through Grenoble, things were feeling good: no issues. Then the climb began, and ... no pain!! Speed was respectable, and I was in the zone on the steeper section before col de Vence. Then came the flat section, up the valley via Sappey and to Porte. I stopped there to hydrate and readjust cleats slightly, and then on to Charmant Som. Charmant Som isn't a huge climb -- another 360 or so vert meters, but they are steep, and it comes after the HC climb to Porte, so it always feels pretty tough. The road snakes through trees and under the odd derelict ski lift, and eventually you emerge from the trees and into a beautiful alpine pasture, with sweeping views in all directions of the Chartreuse. Awesome. At the very top, there is cafe/restaurant




which sells fruit tarts, coffee, and the usual good stuff (also available at col de Porte, by the way), but the 10E bill that I usually leave in my saddle bag was nowhere to be found, so it was descending time. Down via Sappey, across the col de Vence, then towards Quaix

and home.

Dauphine Libere

We went to see part of the Prologue of the Dauphine today.  But first, Lebanese food! 





There were many cool bikes in the staging area.  Zoe was impressed with the speed, and Alex was impressed by the escort Gendarme motos

Lunch!

I could have painted that too. Nothing is easier than a Pollock.

A fascinating interview with an art forger
Here

Alex time!

I was trying to indoctrinate him with the ways of Baseball



and sitting on park benches

Charmette

I've been struggling with a bit of knee pain this week -- I was in pain after my standard double col lunchtime loop. I guess it serves me right for ignoring my age and doing that Chartreuse slog last week. Since then, I've been playing with cleat positioning and wanted to test things out today on my local HC climb: Col de la Charmette. I've done it so many times now, it would be routine if it were not so damn difficult every time. It's like a shorter (in length, not elevation gain) Alpe D'Huez with about 14 fewer switchbacks and a tiny bit less gain. It's a good way to build up the stamina you need for the bigger cols, and it's basically in my back yard! I was happy to have much less knee pain on this ride, but man was it hot.. at least for a Bay Area native like me. The first part is fully exposed to the sun, so the second part, under a canopy of leaves next to an unseen but appreciated river feels like an oasis. The change is almost enough to take your mind off the steep and relentless grade. No video for this one. Can't spare the extra weight Pictures below though

A big ride

I'm not much of a long distance rider -- my longer rides end up being 80-90km, and in college I used to dread the longer team rides. But, inspired by the "big birthday ride" concept of my friend Hank, I decided to push things a bit further, and formulated a plan for a big (for me) ride through the Chartreuse. The plan was to go over some of the well known cols like Col de Porte and Granier, then back along the plateau. I spent a little time on Strava and even figured out Hank's uber secret tiny road route near the Cirque de St. Meme. Judging from the other roads I've been, this one would be a worthwhile alternative to the bottom of the valley slog from St. Pierre d'Entremont to Entremont le Vieux. I convinced a coworker to come with me, who has done an impressive list of Brevets, the Marmotte etc and planned on deferring to his pace to avoid bonking a long way from home. On this last point, I was actually a little nervous, so we started off the day climbing the Col de Porte about as slowly as is possible. The flip side was that my legs felt 100% solid at the top. Then it was a descent to St. Hughes, then onto the climb to Cucheron then into the next valley. Feeling good, laughing at the forecasters for being wrong *again*, we started into the Cirque detour. I had mentioned that we should try it to my work friend, and something was lost in the translation, because he told me that he knew the road. However, when I started up the hill, I was surprised to hear him ask if I knew where the road went! I was pretty sure I had it right, but asked a farmer (in French) at the side of the road whether the road did actually go to Entremont le Vieux. He responded (in English): "Best road!", then smiled broadly, pointed up the hill and gave us a big thumbs up. The road is spectacular and at times clings to the side of hillsides with majestic views towards Granier and Cucheron, not to mention across the valley towards Clusaz. During the descent, a huge -- maybe 6 ft wingspan bird of prey took off from a low hanging branch and glided down the road in front of me for a while before peeling off into the canopy. I was pretty excited to catch this on the GoPro camera, but on that super wide angle lens it looks like a sparrow. From Entremont we pedaled slowly up to Granier, which the tour will hit this year, but from a different side, down the descent that I did a few weeks back, and onto the plateau. I had never ridden there before, and I gotta say that the plateau is about as good as it gets. There are plenty of short climbs, followed by descents in between fields, all the while you are surrounded by huge limestone cliffs to your right, and snow capped mountains to the left. It did finally start raining on us here, but it wasn't too bad. Unfortunately, the gopro battery ran out of steam at this point. From the plateau it was down to the valley and then a mercifully downhill/flat ride home, after 126 km, 4+ cols and 10,200 feet of climbing.

La vie, c'est trop banal

poor alex is too small for the Sulkys (and doesn't pedal very well)

oh la la!

Maserati GT. 400+ HP, Ferrari motor. Yours for only 140,000 USD. I have become less interested in fast cars recently; may be a combination of the cycling and the fact that I can't drive recklessly anymore (not that I ever did, Mom!) now that I have kids, but this thing is pretty sweet. Even going 20 mph the engine sounds utterly outrageous.

Yay, Chloe!!

Chloe's big trail race was today. I dragged the kids up a big hill (no parking near the village!) to watch her finish and give her flowers

Alpages

the new Blogger interface

really, really sucks. It used to be that everything the Great Google released was perfect, but I guess those times are over.

Alpe d'Huez

Despite living less than an hour's drive from Alpe d'Huez, I had somehow managed NOT to do the climb before today. I've driven up it quite a few times, and rode up the first four or so switchbacks to watch the Dauphine, but never did the whole thing. One of my season's goals was to get off my a$$ and finally do it. Today was the day. I got to Bourg a little before lunch, parked the car, warmed up on the departmental and then started pedaling. It was a bit warm, but overall a good day to ride. The views of the mountains are spectacular, and of course there is something pretty special about doing such an iconic climb. The first bit is steeper than the rest, and is generally a fairly long climb. I think most people know that there are signs at each turn, counting down from 21 which can be demoralizing. For me though, the demoralizing part was seeing the road switchbacking waaaaay up the side of the mountain ahead of me. After hitting the Vielle Alpe tunnel, I managed to make a wrong turn but ended up at or near the TdF finish eventually.



Also, there was a cool car at the top: a Peugeot 504 coupé

The electron beam is on strike!