into Grenoble

for some cafe time with the kids

Montaud

Another shortish ride up Montaud and "Le Coing" today. I had a brief no-kid window and hemmed and hawed about which side of the valley to go to. Our town was still shrouded in fog, but I could see what looked like some blue skies over the Vercors. By the time I finally made a decision about which road to take, however, I was past my usual turn off so I tried a new route. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bike path that was not yet completed (but will be awesome when complete!) and I ended up scurrying down a muddy berm, across a creek, back up the other side, and eventually onto the bike path again. It was a little questionable in road cleats. Back on the path, it was still very foggy and visibility was ~100 feet and cold again, but I had a secret weapon this time: plastic bags over my socks

high f'in tech, I know. I hit the climb up to montaud from the St. Quentin side at the red line, which is a bit sad seeing as I was almost dead last on Strava, and soon emerged from the fog into a beautiful sunny day. People that live up there (and on velotel's plateau) must be enjoying a little schadenfreude on days like this. Anyway, I was happy to be out of the freezing cold, and savored the sun once I got to the church in Montaud.


From there, it was the mini-climb up to Le Coing, and then back down to the valley.

I'm not a big fan of the descent down to Veuray, and today was even worse than usual: a lot of frost on the road, usually right before a hard turn. After almost ending up in a ditch, I slowed waaay down and took my time.

The happy surprise was that the fog had burned off by the time I got back to the valley.