Galibier

Martin and I left around 7:00 AM to beat the heat and were in the Maurienne by half past eight or so. The plan was to do Telegraphe and Galbier -- my first time on Telegraphe and first time on Galibier from this side.

The first sign of trouble was that my stomach was cramping up as soon as I got out of the car. Luckily there was a nearby bathroom, so the the crisis was averted (or postponed at least). Next problem, I get on the bike... and the legs feel like .. wood? Not a wonderful feeling at the start of a climb like this! I was still optimistic that they would loosen up and start feeling better. Little did I know that those legs would be with me for the whole ride! Telegraphe was going ok though, for a while. It was my first time on it, and it felt and looked like a lot of other climbs I've been on. Things changed when we hit the gravel; they were resurfacing the road and had left a thick layer of gravel on the road. It felt like I was treading water. Later on we ran into an unfortunate dutchman who had gotten gravel into the chain and derailleur and it had somehow sheared the entire derailleur off! I wasn't thinking about this possibility at all at the time, but was simple trying to get through it while saving some gas for the excitement ahead. Eight hundred and fifty meters of gain later, we were at the col. This would normally be a decent amount of climbing in itself. There was gravel on the short descent to Valloire, and then the big climb started. Right outside of Valloire, a busload of Belgians in red "BELGIAN POWER" jersies were unloading bikes, so it looked like we would have company. Unfortunately, there was a lot of wind blowing down the valley towards us, and I was soon climbing in the drops. I was already hurting at this point, and when we got to plan Lachat, I slipped into full survival mode: just concentrate on the part of the road I can see in front of me, don't look at the switchbacks high up the mountain. Mercifully, for the first part you can't see very far ahead of you. Once I broke out onto the plateau however, I found myself trying to remember where the col was on the ridge line, since I sure as hell couldn't see where it was. Was it to the left of the power lines? To the right? No matter, press on. Even in pain, it's a glorious climb: sweeping views into empty valleys, snowbanks going by, descending cyclists with huge grins on their faces -- magic. I rode past the tunnel turnoff and up to the infamous final ramps. It felt like I was going about half as fast as the previous time on Galibier from the other side, and I was. I remember looking down from the col a few weeks ago and seeing people walking their bikes up this section, standing on the side of the road, and sitting on rocks: a wasteland of broken cyclists. Along the penultimate sharp right hand turn, a moto caravan was coming up behind me and one of them tipped over at low speed. The front wheel came within a foot of mine. I yelled, looked back to see that they were ok, and left them to their biddies. Like I said: survival mode. Every ounce of energy was focused on the col which was almost in sight. The last section seems almost flat, but long. I'm turning the cranks, but it doesn't seem to be getting closer! Eventually, I roll into the lot, feeling worse than I can remember ever having felt on a climb. It really was a long way to have gone with bad legs, and I was happy to have the climbing behind me. From there, blissful descending, which while requiring 100% focus to not go off a cliff, did not require any more contribution from my wooden legs. A huge troupe of sheep stopped traffic for a while after Plan Lachat, and I managed to keep up with some motos for a while. After Valloire, a small climb back to Telegraphe, which was agony (and in the gravel) and then the descent to the Maurienne, which was also pretty slow in the gravel. At least the top part was clean. A tough day.

Chamonix, day two

The first order of business was a quick ride. The apartment is not far from the Joux Plane which meant that there was no way I was leaving my bike in Grenoble. Sunday morning I got up as early as I could, which was tough considering Friday night and yesterday's packed day, went into rally driving mode to get to Samoens, got the bike ready and sped off within a few minutes of getting to the town center (which is really pretty). Some kind of MTB event was happening and there were a lot of fit people in armor and fancy looking bikes cruising around town. No time for ogling this morning though! I followed the signs to the col and soon found myself on some pretty steep terrain, but with amazing views of the Mont Blanc. The climb is quite tough -- I think it merits it's reputation, and particularly because the slope is so variable and generally hard. Towards the top, you get a few spectacular hairpins with views, and it eventually opens up to a gentle slope to the col. Overall, I think it's a fantastic climb which I highly recommend. I was pretty bummed not to be able to do a longer ride and at least descend to Morzine, but I guess I gotta leave something for another day. Instead, I sped back down the hill and rallied back to Passy. I told Hank about how pressed I was and funnily enough he had the same experience when he rode it -- family/friend obligations made for a quick out and back as well.

video:


Next it was family time! After some quick internet research we decided to take the Gondolas up the south slope of the valley to Brévent. This turned out to be a rather expensive trip, but then again, it's Chamonix after all! The kids of course loved both Gondola rides to the top, and nearly gave us heart attacks with all of their running around. At one point Alex managed to almost open a gate which led to ... a fairly healthy drop.. into a bed of pillows, for any grandparents that might be reading this!













From there, it was back to the Chalet to pack stuff up, clean, and start the drive back home. At the Crolles payage, I amazingly saw another McLaren!! This one was metallic orange. We also saw a convoy of porsches on the road between Albertville and Megeve. I counted at least 25, of all makes and years... mostly in a row. Crazy.

Chamonix, day one

Yesterday I asked Franck about Nevache: a small town near Briancon that Chloe and I were thinking about driving to this weekend. In the course of the conversation, he very generously offered for us to stay at his place just down the valley from Chamonix, which I gratefully accepted. So after getting the key and instructions last night, we drove to Chamoix today. Unfortunately, last night there was a friendly fire pee accident: Alex, who is almost potty trained, got into our bed, and woke us up around 4 AM with a stream of Alex pee. It turns out that getting peed upon is not a very pleasant way to wake up, and none of us got very much sleep after everything and everyone was clean. So anyway, we slept in a little later than we had planned this morning, and left a little bit later than we planned since we had to wait for the washing machine to finish. As usual, the jerk Tabac owner woke us up with his alarm at 6:00 AM though, like every morning since last October.

Once underway, we headed to Chamonix via Albertville, and stopped at the Beaufort cooperative to load up on cheese, honey and other staples. They had a laser guided hydraulic cheese cutter there, which I was very impressed by.




From Albertville, we drove up through Megeve (I always think of the opening scene in "Charade" when I see the Megeve sign), down through St. Gervais and to the apartment. The apartment was in a huge Chalet, and the kids were overjoyed at all the books and toys around. It took a lot of corralling to prevent them from fully disassembling the place. We quickly got them out of there, to minimize damage, and went to the Parc Animalier de Merlet, which was fantastic. It's an enclosed space on the flanks of the valley with herds of Chamois, mountain goats, deer and other animals. Even better: it has spectacular views of the massif de Mont Blanc. The kids really had a great time and I was not making very much forward progress because I was taking so many pictures, marveling at the mountains and glaciers, trying to identify famous climbs and peering through the binoculars to find well known refuges, like the Refuge des Cosmiques.














From there, we descended to Chamonix for dinner, and went to the Annapurna Indian Restaurant: not recommended at all. Walking to the car, I saw another McLaren MP4-12C -- there must be a sale at the McLaren dealership ("Everything must GO!")or something. I don't get it though -- I went from never having seen a McLaren in my life to seeing two different cars in a week? The other explanation is that the Genevois are starting to go on holiday

Dinner out!

Father's day!

Chamrousse

finally rode Chamrousse: nice, but not in the same league as Galibier!

Zoe's school performance

Galibier

After some reshuffling of schedules, my intern from Bozeman/Harvard and I loaded up bikes and were on our way to Bourg and Lautaret to meet Hank, a visiting MTB luminary, his wife and son. I was ready for something big, after testing my knees last week, and the plan was to ride Galibier. Just after loading up, disaster strikes: Hank calls and tells me that he won't be able to join us because of an unmissable med. appointment. Hank is one of the most upbeat and positive guys I know, but I could almost see the disappointment on his face. We were definitely more than a little bummed that he wound't be there with us. The new plan was to meet the MTB dignitary somewhere along the road, but a collection of road works conspired to make that difficult. We parked just outside of la Grave, which is only an hour away -- feel free to hate me -- just after a tunnel. Unfortunately, it was not exactly where I thought it was and we still had to ride through a tunnel, where they had stopped morning traffic in both directions to, no joke, replace all the burnt out lights in the tunnel. The flag guy was really cool and waved us through, so we had a car and diesel free ride through the tunnel. From there, gentle grades, epic views and even some new pavement up to Lautaret. The intern, now with clipless pedals (I had been riding with him sans clipless at low altitude and had had no problem keeping up with him), was in his element and dropped me without much effort. Towards the top, the wind kicked in and I found myself climbing the last section in the drops, just to stay out of the wind.

At Lauteret, we pulled over to coordinate with the others: thank goodness for not too expensive international SMSing. While we were waiting, I had an awesome espresso, talked to some locals about climbing la Meije and saw what looked like a McLaren MP4-12C and a 612 Scaglietti drive by. Except for the road works, I bet those guys were having a good day. The others showed up after a little while, and they unloaded the bikes that Hank had lined up for them, which were pretty damn nice! Nice carbon bikes with excellent wheels and groupsets -- Hank doesn't mess around when his friends are concerned.

After introductions, we figured out timing, since one of them was going to stay at the col, and started up the Galibier. If you've never been to Lautaret, a little background: you can see the road to Galibier switchbacking up the hill at impossible angles in front of you. It always impresses and intimidates me. It's friggin Galibier, after all, even if it's from the easier side. I took a moment to look up and soak it all in, returned my eyes to the road…
and saw everyone hammering: Sweet! The climb was magnificent -- the best conditions ever for me, and this was my fourth time up. Even at low speed, it feels heroic. Regarding the speed, I did my best to keep up with the young'uns (even though they were clearly not going full gas) but I was soon sucking huge lungfuls of air and my HR was through the roof.

From the top, we took pictures, talked for a little while and then had to split up, as I had to get back to work for some previously scheduled experiments.

La Meije:


The Col

We went into town for pizza, ice cream and provisions (OK, cheese) today. To kill time before the pizza place opened, we walked up the steps towards the Bastille


There is a community garden project that we stumbled upon: wheat, strawberries and various other things, growing among the tall grass! Unusual, but very cool

Charmant Som

Today was the big day: test my newly stretched and rehabilitated knee. I'd been having more and more problems until finally a few weeks ago the pain had been so intense (IT band -- I'm sure many of you have experienced it too) that on a ride up to Porte, I couldn't go any further and resorted to pedaling with one leg to get home after abandoning the climb. No problem on the flats, but it proved to be a major pain in the ass on the one small climb I needed to get over to get home. Anyway, I've been working on it and on cleat position ever since, and did a test ride earlier in the week -- the standard lunchtime loop, with 600 or so meters of gain. No problems there, which was awesome, so I decided to try for something bigger. I threw caution into the wind and went for the exact same itinerary at which things had fallen apart for me last time: col de Vence, col de Porte and possibly further. After rolling through Grenoble, things were feeling good: no issues. Then the climb began, and ... no pain!! Speed was respectable, and I was in the zone on the steeper section before col de Vence. Then came the flat section, up the valley via Sappey and to Porte. I stopped there to hydrate and readjust cleats slightly, and then on to Charmant Som. Charmant Som isn't a huge climb -- another 360 or so vert meters, but they are steep, and it comes after the HC climb to Porte, so it always feels pretty tough. The road snakes through trees and under the odd derelict ski lift, and eventually you emerge from the trees and into a beautiful alpine pasture, with sweeping views in all directions of the Chartreuse. Awesome. At the very top, there is cafe/restaurant




which sells fruit tarts, coffee, and the usual good stuff (also available at col de Porte, by the way), but the 10E bill that I usually leave in my saddle bag was nowhere to be found, so it was descending time. Down via Sappey, across the col de Vence, then towards Quaix

and home.