This morning I set off on a ride with a Fast Guy from Work (I guess that makes me the Slow Guy from Work) over a bunch of cols. First was Placette: easy grades, nice pavement, good surfaces. It's the standard warmup for many Chartreuse rides from this part of the valley. At the col, it was up to a small hamlet called L'Ayat, then a beautiful descent through gorges to Voiron (where Chartreuse is made, and Bonnat for the chocophiles ). From there, on to Mille Martyrs, a beautiful descent through Miribel, across the plains and then up towards Porte. Before Porte, however, we roll through a gorge that neither of us remembers as being very hard, but this time it is kicking my ass. Lots of extended sections of ten percent -- how could I not remember this?! Next: Porte proper. The last few km of Porte really ground me down. FGfW is long gone, turning the small cogs. My memory was playing evil tricks on me and every bend looked like the penultimate, but in every case (except one!) I was greeted with another long sweeping turn of climbing. Eventually the col appeared, glorius and sun drenched. Then it was descent time again, with a little bit more climbing up to Quaix, and then home. All told it was 102km, 2300m of climbing. Also, I gave up on the climbing challenge. Video below