Cycling in the cold

I went for a ride today that I had always wanted to do, but never managed to: the ride to the Chalet at the Charmant Som. After a carbo breakfast, I heat-remolded the soles of my new shoes, and managed to simultaneously burn one of the straps. Happily, replacements can be had! Anyway, things started out smoothly: after a spin along the departmental road, I rode up the Col de Clemenciere by the easiest way possible, which is via St. Martin le Vinoux, then up to the col de Vence, through Sappey and on to Porte. At Porte, I refilled my bottle, and attacked the final couple hundred meters of elevation gain, but boy was it painful. The clouds were by now rolling in and the temperature had dropped dramatically. There were also patches of snow on parts of the road which almost caused an unexpected encounter with the cliff. The problem was that although I could ride in the track of a car, my pedals were brushing snow, so I clipped out with one foot. Unfortunately, it was so steep and slippery that I had a hard time getting moving again. Eventually I made it to the top and was FREEZING cold. The rain had started, and was blowing in sideways and cutting through my short sleeved jersey like it wasn't even there. I decided to try to get down to the valley as quickly as possible, but got a little hypothermic along the way. My brakes also lost most of their effectiveness by the time I got back to Clemenciere. My lats were cramping up, and my hands were shivering enough to make it difficult to maintain the pressure required to keep the brakes clamped on the rims. So, after a few slightly shrill calls to Chloe (AKA the sag wagon), Chloe very kindly came and picked me up. Not the most successful of descents, but at least I did the hard part (riding up!)



(vert gain is way off -- more like 1450 meters or so)