most painful ride ever

While perusing google maps, I found a road just West of us that goes out of Voreppe to the Monastere de Chalais. I didn't have a chance to look up the altitude gain before I left, but noticed that there were very few switchbacks: surely that meant that it was not as steep as the dreaded Mont Saint Martin, right? No. It was definitely the hardest climb I have been on here, and "relentless" does not even begin to describe it. We actually had to turn around because I needed to get back to the apartment, but shortly before the turnaround decision, I saw where the road was taking us and despaired. It went into a steep switchback which seemed almost designed to scare off bikers. We had no way of knowing that we were only a half mile or so from the end, but I don't think I could have continued in any case. If you look at the power plot, you can clearly see me struggling and bonking: boooo!


The road does not seem to dip below 11% for more than fifty feet or so.

At around 10pm that night I started eating everything in sight. Next time I will do some serious carbo loading, I think.

edit: I forget to mention that we came across this guy walking his Camel on the way: