Zoe's first kite experience

Fontanil Music

the town of le Fontanil has a lot of activities throughout the year, and tonight it was a free concert in the park. I was still hobbled with back pain so I couldn't gom but Chloe and Zoe went together. Apparently it was quite a spectacle, with dancing and live music. Zoe loved it, and was transfixed by the lights, dancing and music.

I could hear a lot if it from our house. Some of the highlights were "Rehab"(Amy Winehouse), followed by Waterloo (Abba) and my personal favorite: a hiphop version of Don't You Forget About Me (Simple Minds): "laaa la la la la, la la la la la la la la la la la la la COMEON COMEON COMEON"

Oh, the pain

Today was stage 5 of the Dauphiné Libéré: a total ball breaker with two very difficult climbs. Chloe actually volunteered (really! ask her!) to take care of kids while I rode from Grenoble to do Alpe D'Huez. It was an ambitious plan for me, as I don't ever really do any kind of long distance rides. The typical Grenoblois sandbagger cyclist will be eager to point out that it is basically flat to Bourg D'Oisans, even if it is 30 something miles ( and they themselves have either never done it or only done it once in their lives) but no matter! I was more worried about the bit at the end, of course. Unfortunately, things went wrong very early in the ride. In the first fifteen minutes, to be precise. In those first fifteen minutes, I realized that a) I had forgotten sunscreen and b) My back felt like someone had been hammer drilling it. I would be a fool to give away a rare and very generous day of babysitting though, just for a little back twinge, right? Well, by the time I go to the meeting point (ESRF), I was already in a lot of pain, and the ride up to Bourg was punctuated by my stopping and having to stretch just to regain the ability to breathe. At times the pain was very intense indeed, but like I said: babysitting! Also, this was my one chance to see a mountain stage of the Dauphiné, and I don't think I'm going to see any Tour mountain stages, so this was IT. Along the way, I discovered the key to being able to ride for more than a mile without getting doubled over in near-tears: keep the watts under 180. That is much easier said than done though, and I ended up getting passed by all manner of old, infirm and overweight rider. It was very frustrating. Eventually, we made it to bourg, where I went looking for a pharmacy for some chemical relief, but it was lunchtime, and pain can wait for lunch. We rode up to the base of the famous climb, and I told Ian to go on without me, while I paused every few hundred feet (very hard to stay under 190 watts on those first switchbacks). By the third switchback, the pain had become unbearable, and more troubling still, when the pain set in, I couldn't really breathe. so I pulled over and began stretching my back and may have made a somewhat hysterical phone call to Chloe. So I eventually made it, even though I'm sure it was not the best thing for my back. On days without pain, all the cars would make me not want to take this route though.

I settled in to a comfortable barrier, and got to talking to a french couple from Grenoble. They were staying with friends in Bourg and mentioned that during races like this, Bourg becomes a small Dutch colony. Seeing as almost every rider doing the climb before the race was Dutch, I believe it! After a long wait (I had budgeted enough time to do the climb and come halfway back down) .

Eventually, the race came by.



Two Cervelo riders had tried to escape



but were soon caught by Contador/Astana/ et al.








I was amazed by how broken up the field was. It looks like the earlier climbs (Glandon in particular) really spread them out. They generally looked like they were suffering.





Sag Wagon!!






Painful to even watch how slow I had to go:



All in all, my Dauphiné experience was wonderful this year... even with the very disappointing day today. The obvious comparison to make is with the Tour, and in my opinion this is a much, much better race to watch. There are relatively few spectators at the DL, no epic traffic jams and the atmosphere is less frenetic. There are still plenty of cols and hard rides to slow the riders down though. Having said that, nothing really beats the pageantry, scale, and pain that the Tour inflicts on the riders: The Dauphine is "only" 6 stages and a prologue. The Tour is a bit longer!

Fontanil

We live right near the fountain at the center of le Fontanil. As a result, I see the strange things people do to the fountain that might otherwise go missed. I've seen kids try to drink from it (much to their parent's chagrin). I've seen all manner of trash that people have thrown into it despite the presence of a trash can three meters away. Yesterday, I noticed an older man filling a plastiuc cup from the spout as we were leaving. I thought it was odd, but it was the usual morning rush to drop off kids. After dropping ZZ off, we passed by the fountain again, and the guy now had a towel over his shoulders, a face full of shaving cream, and was SHAVING and rinsing with water from the fountain!

Dauphiné Libéré

Today I took off early to go check out the end of the first stage of the Critérium de Dauphiné Libéré. My commute bike dropped it's chain multiple times on the ride back home, of course, which put me into a high wattage (for me) frenzy to get to the race site before the race. After getting all my stuff together, Ian and I rode up over col de la placette and down into St. Laurent du Pont.

and power

We arrived in town and were shocked and delighted to find very few people there. We sidled up to the FINISH LINE (amazing!) and watched the riders climb the last climb on the jumbotron-truck

while listening to the announcer

and eventually watched the sprint to the finish by HTC Columbia and Lampre



And then the pack (including Alberto Contador)


Next, we rode to the team car staging area to take in the sights

Lampre's awesome Wiliers+ Campy:


Cofidis:

Well over one hundred thousand dollars of bike on the Sky-mobile


(new Pinarello Dogmas with Dura ace electronic transmissions)
And Francaise des Jeux

Team Radio Shack!

And of course Cervélo

Nore Pinarello Dogmas for Caisse d'Epargne

And team Footon, with Fujis, but more importantly, the coolest team cars (Audi S6s)

Next came the ride back home. We got passed by all manner of team bus and car and all were respectful and gave us plenty of room. All, except for Quiskstep, which gave myself and other cyclists like 0.25 meters of room and almost ran people off the road. Amazingly, both their bus AND team car did this, which were separated by several minutes. Maybe their riders aren't the only ones that are coked up?

We drafted behind the Cervélo team cars on the descent from Placette, which was inexplicably very very cool. Who knows why -- it's not like they gave us a free R3SL!

Bouldering in La Berarde

We went to La Berarde today to take in the scenery, escape the heat and boulder a little bit. Unfortunately, our favorite creperie was still closed for the winter, do we had an ok lunch down the road. The restaurant was soon invaded by very loud dutch guys in eight thousand dollar bikes, however.

Anyway, we all bouldered for a bit and watched the PGHM hover in a concerned fashion next to la tete de la Maye.



It looks like there might have been some trouble up there. I thihnk I saw them winching someone off, but as usual, I forgot the binoculars. After a while, the clouds rolled in and it started raining.

Zoe vs Kangaroo

bbq

at lac Monteynard

Zoe!!

placette

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



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

not sure if the route is 100% correct:

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

petit desert

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

Goulandiere

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

whee!

Charmant Som

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

Ombleze

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

birthday dinner!

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

petit desert

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

tick, tick, TICK

This is a guest blog from Chloe.

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

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

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

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

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

lunchtime ride

work->quaix->clemenciere->work

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



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

Zoe's first haircut at a salon!

Ramen

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

Noodles before cutting

Valençay to fuel the cook

final product