Porte and Placette

I rode Col de Porte via Quaix and Sarcenas (then down via St. Laurent du Pont and Placette) today. The 59km route takes you up and over col de Porte, along the beautiful D520b, and back via the well paved col de Lautaret. (although by that point my legs were starting to wane a bit and I was unable to fully appreciate the new pavement). It climbs 4400 vertical feet/ 1340 meters total and has three sub-climbs: the road up to Quaix, the climb up from the Vence river to Porte, and the final mini climb up Lautaret.

It felt pretty hard: probably harder than the clockwise version. They are not exactly the same ride in reverse (last time I descended port via Sappey and col de Vence rather than Sarcenas), but *almost* the same.

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/fr/fontanil-cornillon/820128310532227898

My average speed was 13.2 mph and I completed the ride 20 minutes faster than the clockwise route, despite lower average power (but 0.6 mph higher average speed -- maybe the wind played a role?).

Sardines!

I bought some beautiful sardines from the local fish monger.

I am not great at grilling fish, and even less good at filleting and/or gutting, so I was expecting a bit of a disaster. It turned out pretty well though, and I even managed to avoid filling the apartment with fish smoke. Zoe *loved* the fish, but even with my meticulous inspection, a few tiny bones made it into her food, which she was not happy about. She also kept asking to eat the eyeballs.

Grenoble with the kids

Sad news

I have become addicted to the blog of the Refuge on the Meije, checking it almost every day with news from the South face of the famous and beautiful peak. Last week they reported the first female ascent of a difficult and newly completed route up the South face. Sadly, it was reported today that one of the climbers died in a climbing accident on the Mont Blanc. My condolences to her family and friends.

placette, coublevie

Did the short ride out past Placette (felt HARD in the heat!!) and back via Coublevie. I didn't want to stay out too long, so I did not take the connection to the bike path, which turned out to be a mistake: way too many cars on the Route de Grenoble. I finally got a closer look at that massive cave that you can see from the autoroute though. It looks guano-ey. There are bolted routes to the left of it though. 22 miles, 226 watts avg up placette/13 kph. I did a few sprints at the end:

5s 867 watts
30s 469
1m 310

Aiguebelette

We drove to the lac Aiguebelette after getting thoroughly screwed over by the GPS for the millionth time. The beach that we visited wasn't exactly inspiring, but Zoe loved it. I took Zoe out on a pedal-boat, and she went into to Zoe-is-the-boss overdrive: insisting that we steer, changing seats every two minutes, and trying to pedal. It was ridiculously cute, but a little exhausting and nerve-wracking.

Both children fell asleep on the car ride home

Bike

they had this understated bike on display at the local bike shop






I was there to have them check my front wheel, and unfortunately my front wheel bearings look like they are shot! Arrrgh

Explosive History

A week or two ago, we were turned away from the rue des Martyrs, which had been entirely shut down by the Gendarmes. That kind of thing is pretty rare, and I just found out today that it was because they had unearthed an unexploded bomb! During my orientation more than eight years ago, I learned that they excavated a staggering amount of unexploded bombs during the construction of the ESRF. They were from various wars, if my memory is correct.

Mt St Martin

33 minutes, soccer fields to the sign, 252 watts avg, 10.4 kph... getting slower!

Chalais

Attempt number two on the dreaded Chalais montée. To review, it is one of the more difficult climbs in the area, with sections approaching 20% grade, and an average of 11% over 6.7 km (736 meters climbing/2400 feet). Round trip from Fontanil is only 15.7 miles.

This time I had enough time, but got rained on pretty hard in the last km. I was surprised by the number of cars, and it turned out that it was because they were doing some kind of Christiany thing that had to do with Assumption. I peered into the chapel, which is really beautiful, and there was a camera crew inside doing a feature. I found out later that that it made it onto the evening news.



The descent was dicey, and I took my time

Not tremendous power output (avg 213 watts over the hour it took me to get up there form Fontanil). I didn't hit the interval button at the bottom, but assuming it took ~10 minutes to get to Voreppe, I did the climb in ~50 mins or so. On the flats on the way back I was doing sprint intervals for fun -- I can make 750 watts for ... 5 seconds. 456 watts for 30s, and 355 for 1 min. Time for some EPO?

Alex!

Mont Saint Martin

from the soccer field to the Mt St Martin sign in 32:30.... thats about as fast as I can go, I think. I lost my concentration for a second on the descent and bounced off a guardrail. Thankfully, I protected the sensitive steel parts on my bike with my leg

A painting

One of my favorite rooms in the Grenoble Museum holds paintings of scenes from the Grenoble area. One in particular seemed to me to be of several latrge boulders right at the entrance of La Berarde, so I took a picture this time. What do you think?

Tu ris, Maye

Another climb on la Maye... this one turned out to be fairly difficult though, and Chloe and I were on it for a long time! The descent and approach are also much longer than the right flank climbs, so our estimates for how long it would take were way off (sorry, Ian and Stephanie!). Even with an alpine start at 5:30 AM, we were not back in time for lunch. I think we spent ~6:15 on the climb itself.

Pitch 1 is a bit of a slap in the face: A delicate traverse over a cave. Pitch 2 is more delicate 6a/+ traversing. Here is CZ on it:





looking down at the fabulous 6b pitch



5+ before the crux?

The crux 6c slab pitch felt ridiculously hard, but I managed it without any aid or resting. It's a mantle, followed by a very tenuous reach to a diagonal dike of sharp inclusions. Afterwards, it is a blur. The final easy pitch is kind of hard to figure out, and goes over a rock strewn ledge. At one point, the rope pulled a toaster sized rock down, and I watched helplessly as it spun past me, bouncing off of the slabs until it exploded in a cloud of dust 1100 feet below us (just kidding mom! It was a Nerf football, not a block of limestone!). There were beautiful wildflowers on all of the ledges, and the occasional Edelweiss, as well!

We eventually made it to the top, which as staggeringly beautiful views of the Meije, Dome des Ecrins, and other peaks


Next came the knee crushing descent back down to La Berarde, and the windy road back to Grenoble.

All in all, a lot of physical activity for one weekend! At least the approaches to the climb aren't *too* long... probably a couple of thousand feet for both of them.

la Maye

Ian and I climbed De Maye en Endroit. We got a little off route, but had a good time, and blitzed it in just over 4 hours. The crux 6b is a very entertaining overhanging pitch. The slabs higher up are also good, but the rock really seems to improve with elevation. As a result, it might be better to stick to the climbs on the left.

Every climbers dream: a soaking wet granite slab!

Looking down the first slab

After the crux 6b pitch

Us climbing! Taken by CZ

A closeup. This is pitch 3

Further up, with la Berarde in the background






We were back by lunchtime, and after crepes, we brought Zoe to the river to throw rocks and build dams. The raspberries along the river were unfortunately not yet ripe. Chloe and I also scoped out the trail head to the more direct path to the cliff. Finally, it was time to gather wild blueberries for Zoe.

We were also rewarded with beautiful light on the mountains

La Berarde

We took a trip to the very small mountain town of La Berarde this afternoon, for two nights at the CAF refuge


(four adults and two babies in a teeny room -- wheee!)

wandering around the town and environs:




Ian rode up from Grenoble and met us there: A serious ride! Dinner was simple but excellent, and perfect fuel for tomorrows excursion.

A trip to St. Antoine l'Abbeye

There is a particularly interesting and well done mini-museum on perfumes and scents. There are even little atomizers built into the displays. Myrrh turns out to be particularly strong, and was all I could smell for about twenty minutes after sniffing it.

A perfume still: