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