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

Poo

Today I went for a long ride. When I came back, Chloe had that "I NEED OUT" look on her face after a little too much time with the feuding kids. Indeed, she was already in her running gear, and was out the door a few minutes after I wheeled my bike in the door. There was some cleaning to do, so I immediately got to work, and didn't even have a chance to take my bib shorts off! Happily, the kids were occupying themselves in their room building a tower with blocks. To find more blocks, Zoe was sending alex under the dresser to retrieve more blocks. A word of explanation here: Alex's most favorite past time is hiding things under other things, and most of the block collection was now under the dresser and crib. Anyway, as I was unloading the washing machine, I noticed an unusual smell. My first instinct was that it was the Diaper Genie, which is next to the washing machine, but I soon realized that it was not coming from there. I walked to the bedroom and gave alex a sniff and discovered that he was the source of the foul aroma. No real surprise there. So I picked him up, brought him to the changing table and to my horror realized that he had poo running down his leg. And not just a surface smear, but big clumps! I immediately went into biocontainment mode. If I had a haz-mat or biohazard suit, it would have been on. As I did not, I removed things from him at arms length and gingerly carried him to the bathtub, where I finished wiping him down, and then started spraying him with the shower. At about this time, Zoe wandered in with an unhappy look on her face and said, "ugh, I'm gonna wash my hands". I thought nothing of it, and then did a double take. "WHY?". I looked down and my heart sank: poo on her arms, poo on her hands, and was that a little fleck of poo in her hair? More stripping down and biohazard work, and into the tub for kid number two. I gave the shower head to Zoe and she started spraying Alex down as I washed every centimeter of their bodies and their hair. They were both laughing the entire time, because poo decontamination is hilarious stuff. Meanwhile I started the poo detective work. They had been in their room, and alex had been … crawling on the floor. Heart sinking moment number three. I let the kids spray each other down (drain OPEN of course) as I crawled, nose to the carpet around the room. I found a few turds ground into the carpet, which required much chemical treatment and several sponges, but I eventually got it all, I think. Who knows though. Chloe got home just as I was drying the second of the two kids off. My account of the excitement was met with smirks and barely contained laughter.