A big ride

I'm not much of a long distance rider -- my longer rides end up being 80-90km, and in college I used to dread the longer team rides. But, inspired by the "big birthday ride" concept of my friend Hank, I decided to push things a bit further, and formulated a plan for a big (for me) ride through the Chartreuse. The plan was to go over some of the well known cols like Col de Porte and Granier, then back along the plateau. I spent a little time on Strava and even figured out Hank's uber secret tiny road route near the Cirque de St. Meme. Judging from the other roads I've been, this one would be a worthwhile alternative to the bottom of the valley slog from St. Pierre d'Entremont to Entremont le Vieux. I convinced a coworker to come with me, who has done an impressive list of Brevets, the Marmotte etc and planned on deferring to his pace to avoid bonking a long way from home. On this last point, I was actually a little nervous, so we started off the day climbing the Col de Porte about as slowly as is possible. The flip side was that my legs felt 100% solid at the top. Then it was a descent to St. Hughes, then onto the climb to Cucheron then into the next valley. Feeling good, laughing at the forecasters for being wrong *again*, we started into the Cirque detour. I had mentioned that we should try it to my work friend, and something was lost in the translation, because he told me that he knew the road. However, when I started up the hill, I was surprised to hear him ask if I knew where the road went! I was pretty sure I had it right, but asked a farmer (in French) at the side of the road whether the road did actually go to Entremont le Vieux. He responded (in English): "Best road!", then smiled broadly, pointed up the hill and gave us a big thumbs up. The road is spectacular and at times clings to the side of hillsides with majestic views towards Granier and Cucheron, not to mention across the valley towards Clusaz. During the descent, a huge -- maybe 6 ft wingspan bird of prey took off from a low hanging branch and glided down the road in front of me for a while before peeling off into the canopy. I was pretty excited to catch this on the GoPro camera, but on that super wide angle lens it looks like a sparrow. From Entremont we pedaled slowly up to Granier, which the tour will hit this year, but from a different side, down the descent that I did a few weeks back, and onto the plateau. I had never ridden there before, and I gotta say that the plateau is about as good as it gets. There are plenty of short climbs, followed by descents in between fields, all the while you are surrounded by huge limestone cliffs to your right, and snow capped mountains to the left. It did finally start raining on us here, but it wasn't too bad. Unfortunately, the gopro battery ran out of steam at this point. From the plateau it was down to the valley and then a mercifully downhill/flat ride home, after 126 km, 4+ cols and 10,200 feet of climbing.