Franck and Silvia generously invited the whole family (including the Screaming One). Dinner was a fabulous fondue and amazing handmade chocolate cake. I need to figure out how to get chloe to make those cakes. Perhaps a recipe subtly planted in her wallet, or a web page left open?
For grenoble riders, I found PDF maps of the bike lanes AND a very handy test of bike locks
map1
map2
map3
bike locks
Internet + free international calls -- FINALLY! (almost 10x faster than the normal DSL package in the bay area, too)!
Almost crashed this morning on the bike: lots of wet leaves+slight downgrade = getting sideways on the bike!
When I first started college, I joined the cycling team. I had never road biked before, but had done a lot of mountain biking and didn't think it would be that different. I turned out to be pretty far off the mark on that one. My style of mountain biking was anything but sustained. I would go all out for a few minutes then find a suitable descent and repeat for a few hours. The result was zero endurance, and a pretty serious spanking when I first started the endurance hungry sport of road racing. To be honest, I never was much good at it, and didn't even manage to finish many races because I was constantly getting dropped. I also seemed to crash frequently because of my lack of skill with toe clips. For all the failure and road rash though, I loved the daily team rides through the fall colors of New England, and the speed and teamwork of a mini peleton (when I wasn't crashing into rear wheels).
I started cycling in earnest again this spring after a long lapse, and am loving it: hills, flatland, rollers -- I love it all, even on low output days when it feels like my wheels are flat and melting into the asphalt. Yesterday I took the small road up to le Mont Saint Martin directly out of le Fontanil because I had heard so much about it. The word that I heard the most in association with the climb was 'steep', and it did not disappoint. There are *really* steep sections, and for all of my newfound love of biking, I found myself cursing my lack of power. Even in the cold air, sweat was pouring down my face and stinging my eyes, my heart rate was pegged and my legs were feeling like Jello. "Just how F@#$ing steep IS this?", I thought to myself. After twelve or so switchbacks, I actually asked a couple walking their dog whether it was far to the top. The man cocked his head in a look of pity and seemed to be forming a 'Oui' with his mouth, but then thought better of it, shook his head, said "Non.", and followed it with an "Allez!". Despite the pain, it was a beautiful ride -- full fall colors, chestnuts on the ground and blue water streaked limestone cliffs. The descent was a tad fast for my taste though.
Here are beam shots of my cheapo light (Cree Xlamp CRE R(?) bin, 350 mA micropuck) vs a $50 cateye EL520.
Mine is the second. Exposure parameters are the same: 1 second, f2.8, ISO 80
A trip to the monastery with the fam. Stephanie and Chloe and Alex had to go ahead because Zoe started obsessing over sticks and pebbles.
Attached my SKS fenders, mega tail light and Brooks saddle today. It involved hacksawing the stays, but hopefully they will work. They look pretty sweet though! Installation was aggravating.
We still don't have internet at home except on the iPhone, so it has been difficult to find time during the day to post, but here are the broad strokes: Chloe's mom is here helping (a lot!) with baby wrangling / other stuff. We moved into our new apartment in le Fontanil. There is an absolutely mind blowing market on Sundays with *three* cheese trucks, a rotisserie chicken mobile and various other awesome things. We are 20 feet from a fantastic boulangerie/patisserie. The town itself is lovely.
We still have a lot of things to unbox, but things are getting settled. We made one big trip to Ikea for a sofa, lights and other really exciting things like a hanging pan rack.
Alex is not sleeping very much, but is eating well. He had a bottle for the first time yesterday while Chloe was out talking to someone at the CNRS about applying for a position in their lab next year (it went well). He is still sleeping during the day and having baby poop/feeding parties all night long.
Zoe is adjusting well and is enjoying french food. She has a decent vocabulary of french words now, most of which are food related, and I suspect that it will not be much longer before hers surpasses mine. She goes to a nanny during the week and just had her second birthday. For her birthday, Chloe and I bought her a train set. How did we know she likes trains? It's a sad story involving a train set at a toy store and a full arching-back-pounding-on-the-floor-crying-meltdown at the suggestion that we leave. Unfortunately, while she really seems to like the train set, she uses it in unanticipated ways, such as chucking the train cars and tromping godzilla-like through the train circuits that I set up for her.
oh yeha, and chloe and I climbed some limestone routes near us! Only 6a, but man did it feel great to get outside climbing again.
My commute is now pretty awesome: ~22 or so minutes by bike. It's not so great when it's wet out, but I am in the process of addressing that issue. Here's a video of the commute:
It's pretty shaky, and here's why: the camera mount that I devised is simply a seat post clamp with a 1/4 bolt in it. I have the Mino HD mounted on it, and it shakes a lot. I sped things up 4x in Windows Movie Maker(ughh) after conversion from mp4 to avi in ffmpeg. I know there is probably a better way, but I don't have admin privs on my work computer, and still no internet @home. Related to this: I just discovered that the version of iMovie I have (8) actually has far *fewer* features than iMovie 6 (including the ability to slow down and speed up video clips) -- thanks, Apple!!
anyway, things that need improving for the commute bike: mega bright lamp (in progress), bigger rear facing red lamp (ordered), SKS mudguards (ordered), seat that does not crush my nuts (ordered).
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/fr/fontaine/223125619352322180
There's a very dangerous turn towards the end: hairpin after a steep section
very windy, and it's getting dark early. I'm going to need some kind of bike light, I think. I was worried that a single speed might be too painful for the job, but the gearing is just about perfect. According to the bike computer the whole commute is 8.9 km, which took 20 mins, so ~16.8 mph average. Not bad for a 20 year old steel frame bike with an alligator horn.
No internet yet except on the phone but a quick update: we are moved into our apartment after the most hellish move ever! Still lots of boxes, but the new place is wonderful
I was unpacking things in the office when I looked out the window and saw the bank guys loading up the ATM with money. A closer look reveals that the dude had his gun out!
Zoe and I went to Place aux Herbes to pick up some fruits (pears, figs), veggies (zucchini, shallots, carrots) and a chicken from the Rotimobile. I almost bought some nice Comte, but figured that with the move on tuesday that I wouldn't have time to eat it. There was a flea market on the Quai, which was fun. It was mostly junk though, except for this stuffed Chamois, which is awesome
I also saw some kayakers on the Isere! I don't think I had ever seen any boat on this section except for the po-po.
After stopping back at home to drop off our booty, Zoe and I headed to the Chateau de Vizille. The friggin GPS tried to get me to drive through bus only lanes and various other hijinx, but we eventually made it there. Along the way, I saw a Velodrome! Zoe had just awoken, so she was unfortunately in no mood to walk. She was however in the mood for a gaufre au chocolat.
A few pics from our outing:
Once we got home, Zoe insisted on stroking the baby. She is actually really gentle with Alex and seems to be quite interested in him. As long as she gets enough parent time and Alex doesn't eat her chocolate things, I think she will tolerate him!
I picked CZ and AAZN up from the hospital today and then drove to pick up ZZN in St. Egreve from the nanny. I had been looking forward to seeing how Zoe reacted to her freshly minted brother all day. I loaded her into the car seat and she immediately noticed something was different: another little human was in the back seat with her! Zoe turned to look at Alex for a few seconds, contemplated him with a slightly disinterested expression, and then looked back at me and said "CROISSANT!".
Once we got him home, though, she really seemed to take an interest:
