he he

115k euros might buy you cutting edge technology, but perhaps not reliability!

Mont St. Martin climb

time compressed into 8 mins

Zoe's new thing

is to collect snails, and then yell "MARCHEZ!" at them (WALK!)

Lunch at ciao a te

Excellent

Helmet cam, mont st Martin

I bought a helmet cam and tested it out on the ride up to Mont St. Martin. I'm still working on compressing the ascent, but here is the descent video:



I'm capturing in the 60fps mode, which is amazingly smooth and high quality. I tried mounting the camera on the handlebars, but the results were not good. The helmet works fine, but it makes you look like a tool.

The ride itself was ok. It felt a little better than normal, and the power output was decent.

Parents in Town!!

Ombleze

We drove down to Ombleze yesterday to stay at La Moulin de la Pipe, and enjoy their excellent restaurant. We met Ian and his mom there around 6 PM or so, and had a chance to walk around with the kids, scoping climbs as the clouds rolled in. Today we started off in the on s'pete la Ruche sector, warming up on Apericub. Midway up, I was savagely attacked by a mutant half sparrow-half eagle hybrid, but I stayed on and finished the climb. We also did El pachalane to the right. Both climbs are excellent. Next, it was off to the Evasion sector, which is my new favorite at Ombleze: interesting moves on absolutely fantastic orange blocky limestone. Perfection. I did l'unique and Prince a vue. Next, it was lunch time and finally on to Aqualand, which is a sandbagged, and nasty sector without much interest except for the short approach (which unfortunately involved walking through an icy cold river). I lurched up Barboton first try, but it was ugly. Shortly after we decided to stop climbing, it began raining really, really hard, and kept raining all the way back to Grenoble. On the descent from the col de Limouches, we saw some pour touring biker getting absolutely drenched.

expe

We stopped in pont-en-royans to check out expé: very nice! They seem to have everything. Even this:

Gas powered hammer drill!

Lans

Cycled up to Lans after work. It felt pretty easy after all the hell rides we have been on recently, and for once I wasn't in my biggest rear cog. As is typical of cycling in France, we passed some guy at nearly twice his speed after Engins, and the next thing we knew he was putting the hammer down to catch us and draft off of us. I'm definitely getting sick of that kind of behavior and will just have to pass with more authority next time. I don't understand what is going through their minds! I guess it's just the embarrassment of getting passed that quickly, but jeez!

Eight hundred something meters, with a very fun descent.

Note chain droppage at 75 mins. ergh.

col de porte

Cycled col de porte... felt pretty good but was almost in Bonk City by the end. We went via Clemenciere and the col de Vence, rather than Sarcenas, and then back down through Quaix. At the col, we scarfed down cola flavored gummies and compotes de pommes to recharge, and refilled our bottles with the delicious cold Chartreuse water (hopefully not trucked up from the Isére).
All told, more than 1000m of climbing, and it didn't take too long, so I'm starting to get my legs back.

les Écouges

climbing at les Ecouges with Ian. We set up the tent under the big overhang, hoping now hardmen would show up to do the 7c+ there, while we took turns with baby duty. Récup Active is fantastic, if a little runout, and Mouli Net is the best route I have climbed recently, on varied terrain, huge tufas and cracks. Oh yeah.

oh yeah

new cycling shoes!! full carbon soles! ... are awesome!

climbing at St Egreve at lunch. Gotta love living in Grenoble

Riding

cycled up to St. Nizier, through lans-en-vercors and back down the D532. An exceptional ride, but at more than 3000 vertical feet, a bit painful. All in all it was 36 miles. Yes, it's cycling heaven here!

burglary, again

Our cellar was broken into (they destroyed the door, but were unable to break the Abus lock), but the thieves did not take anything. Yes!

most painful ride ever

While perusing google maps, I found a road just West of us that goes out of Voreppe to the Monastere de Chalais. I didn't have a chance to look up the altitude gain before I left, but noticed that there were very few switchbacks: surely that meant that it was not as steep as the dreaded Mont Saint Martin, right? No. It was definitely the hardest climb I have been on here, and "relentless" does not even begin to describe it. We actually had to turn around because I needed to get back to the apartment, but shortly before the turnaround decision, I saw where the road was taking us and despaired. It went into a steep switchback which seemed almost designed to scare off bikers. We had no way of knowing that we were only a half mile or so from the end, but I don't think I could have continued in any case. If you look at the power plot, you can clearly see me struggling and bonking: boooo!


The road does not seem to dip below 11% for more than fifty feet or so.

At around 10pm that night I started eating everything in sight. Next time I will do some serious carbo loading, I think.

edit: I forget to mention that we came across this guy walking his Camel on the way:

Grenoble, Bike Trailer

We went into Grenoble today to look for clothes for Chloe and have lunch. After finding rockstar parking right next to the Place aux Herbes, we wandered around and I discovered that someone is re-issuing a classic skateboard deck design, apparently:

I stopped by my favorite ice cream place in town, near the Jardin de Ville

and then it was Jardin de Ville with Zoe for her to run up and down the play structures. While I was sitting on the bench, I discovered an amusing wifi access point

Shopping was mildly successful, with the best purchase being a new set of sunglasses for Zoe


We stopped at Routens to look for a bike helmet for Alex, and I picked up a few little things too (Mavic road cycling shoes!!!)

When we finally got home, we got down to business finally setting up the bikes and bike trailer. We bought a special infant sub-seat for Alex, which took us forever to figure out how to attach, but otherwise it was pretty straightforward. Alex's helmet unfortunately cants his head forward, which made him a little less than happy



But in the end, we cycled on nice deserted roads through wheat fields and took turns trying it out. I put the binding posts on chloe's bike and my road bike. I'm not sure if it's bad for a race frame, but I wanted it on a bike with really good brakes (and Campagnolo Chorus fit the bill).

Zoe likes my socks

Zoe on my new Mavic cycling socks: elles sont JOLIes chaussettes!

Tabac again

This afternoon I saw the Gendarmes van parked outside the Tabac. I was thinking about how nice it was for them to follow up on the burglary, but then discovered that they were just there to buy Lotto tickets.

Break in

The Tabac downstairs from us was broken into last night. I slept through both the robbery (at 1:30 AM), the alarm, AND the Gendarmes. Chloe was woken up by the alarm, but by the time she looked out the window, the owner was there with the Gendarmes. I talked to him today, and it is his fourth robbery in five years. He did say that it was much better than in the center of town, where as a Tabac owner (which are apparently favorite targets) you can expect to have your store broken into 2-3 times per year! They came in through the non-fortified owners entrance via a crowbar and stole cigarettes. He said they left all the books, noting that they were not intellectual burglars, apparently. In le Fontanil, the boulangerie, mini market and florist have all been broken into in the last several years. When I suggested that he install a surveillance camera over his doors, he told me that he would need authorization from the city hall to do that. I can understand not wanting to have France become like the UK, where CCTV cameras monitor every street corner, but I don't see why a shop owner can't point a camera AT HIS OWN DOOR! I guess there would be no use in just installing a pinhole camera himself because he wouldn't be able to show it to the Gendarmes for fear of getting fined himself. Brilliant.

After work ride

I did a quick after work ride with Ian today up the Mont Saint Martin. My legs are DEAD now. This climb is relentless: no rest and an *average* gradient of 10%.

Happy Birthday Chloe!

We went out to Ciao a Te -- a wonderful restaurant in the antique quarter of Grenoble to celebrate.

A bike commute gone wrong

Biking in the Grenoble area is generally a joy, but sometimes it is not. Profound words, I know, and maybe you disagree, but read my sad story of poor planning and almost getting crushed by trucks.

Today I had an "off site" meeting to give a talk at in St Quentin, and since the weather forecast was good, I decided to go by bike. Things being a little hectic with two kids, I did not have very much time to consult the Grenoble bike path guide, and blindly plugged the endpoints into Mappy. It came up with a very reasonable 8 mile ride, with only a little complexity at the start. Also, on my previous exploits, I had seen people biking on the opposite side of the Isere (the side closest to the Vercors), so even though it had me going on the Route Nationale, I held out hope that I would be able to stay on the bike path. This was sadly not to be. I started the trip by missing the first two turnoffs, which was no big deal since I could make a different left and I was in a comfy fully separated bike path. I found the alternate left hand turn towards the Vercors and soon found myself on a road without a bike lane. There was almost no traffic, so things were still going well for me. I was slightly disturbed by the fact that I had to cross through two busy lanes of traffic to/from the autoroute, but no biggie. There was even a short bike lane which took me over the river. Unfortunately, it dumped me out onto a dirt track with huge river stones, and I quickly found myself mountain biking with my road bike. The bumps were so jarring that my hands were cramping up and at one point they shook my chain off the chain ring and rear cog (not fun to deal with on a bike with no derailleur). Why didn't I just go onto the road? Because I was on top of a very tall dike with a concrete retaining wall (at right in the photo below)

Eventually, the retaining wall disappeared and I slid down the grassy embankment and started pedaling like mad. The problem is that there is no bike lane (see above and below)

which by itself would not be a problem, except that there were trucks and cars whizzing by at 60 mph. Eventually I gave up on the sweet tarmac, and went into cyclocross mode and started riding on the shoulder. The shoulder seems to be a convenient place for people to throw their bottles, because it lights up like a chandelier if the angle is right. I am amazed I did not get a flat tire. I should also mention that it was wet and muddy.

It will not surprise you that I was the only one to arrive by bike.

My trip home was much longer, but I found an alternate route which took me to the bike path on the other side of the river. I only had one crossing of an autoroute entrance/exit to deal with. Nice. 20 hard earned miles added to my bike odometer today.

Vespa convoy

climbing at St. Egreve: a little worn but fun.

Stealing cookies from babies

first sighting of a hipster bike in grenoble!

Huzzah! I'm breaking out my skinny black jeans and metal studded belt!

hike near Proveysieux

We hiked near Proveysieux today to try to get up to the huge limestone towers that are visible from the valley floor. It turned out to be a little too much of a hike with the babies, however. We turned around after ~1100 vertical feet. It traverses a lot, so I have no idea how long it was, but it felt like it went on forever. At this rate, I'm not sure how we will survive the 3740 vert foot approach to the Dibona this summer.

excellent dinner at Cyril's

We went up to our coworker and friend Cyril's place in between Lans-en-Vercors and Villard-de-Lans for an amazing dinner of confit de canard, potatoes cooked in duck fat, and home made ham. There was also a fantastic homemade cake by Franck, and some delicious truffle cheese.


wonderful! I will try to convince Cyril to show me how to make ham the next time he does it.

Chocolates

Easter around here is similar to the states: lots of candy eggs and excited children. The candy eggs tend to be a bit more elaborate than in most places in the states though, and are generally *ridiculously* expensive. These easter treats, for example are 78 euros per kilogram... but just look at them!




(no, we didn't buy any). Zoe seems to be more interested in using easter eggs and bunnies as toys at this point. Next year we will probably save our pennies to buy a fancy one for her!

annot

We just got back from Annot: 1.5 days of bouldering before the rain shut us down. It felt great to pull down on sandstone again. We first went to Annot way back in 2002, on our way back up from a climbing and canyoneering trip to Nice and Antibes and immediately fell in love. It has appeared a few time in this blog, but the summary is that it is a small town in the Alpes de Haute Provence which is surrounded by countless sandstone boulders and cliffs (and limestone cliffs too. There is a farm fairly high up the bouldering road, called "La Rouie", which is a bit rustic, but perfect for bouldering. The rooms are spartan, but equipped with refrigerators, hot showers, ovens and gas heat. After quickly leaving our stuff at "the farm", as we call it, we headed up very slowly on the dirt road to one of our favorite sectors, and after spending a lot of time trying to keep the kids comfortable, managed to actually climb a few boulders. I was happy to do the "Toit du cul du loup" first try, with minimal pain (compared to the last time I was here), and then "Kung Foot". I also was very happy to discover that with proper technique, you can use a crash pad as a very effective two year old carrier!

(photo by Ian)
After only grinding the undercarriage of the car a few times on the way back to the farm, we headed to the Madness sector to do a few laps on old favorites like Bachotage and Bacalauréat and Le gymnasium (sit start), Ian and I wandered over to the La Baleine sector, where we found a nice project and a scary highball which I did not manage to send (and I came back the next day to try, too! The top out is just too goddam scary). Finally, it was time to get back and eat some raclette. It was a pretty full day, what with the 4 hour drive down, but the weather report was for rain on Saturday, so I wanted to get as much as possible in.

The next day, it was back to Madness and La Baleine for the whole crew, and then Ian and I tried to get to La Ruche, but the road was covered in snow. We walked for a little while before realizing that it was hopelessly far. Instead, we went to place Vendome, where we both fell pathetically off of things before the rain finally arrived. From there, we ran into everyone else and went to a cafe/off track betting place in town. I was dismayed to see that one of our favorite sectors (Dragonball) had been turned into a hillbilly boot camp: road carved into the hill, camo trailer parked against a boulder, trees chopped down, terrible plastic furniture everywhere. I guess the bright side is that it's not just America that has backwards ass yokels willing to destroy beautiful things without so much as a backwards glance from their quad. Anyway, next came dinner, beer, scotch, and the drive back home the next day. I have very little skin remaining on my fingertips now, but am very motivated to get down there again as soon as possible.

One logistical note, for those that care: going this early in the season means that you will be brushing the hell out of the boulders. I guess the rocks exfoliate a lot over the winter.

expensive planters

I noticed that a house up the street has used lithograph stones (which were expensive at some point!) to line their flowerbeds

MTB

I went for a very short mountain bike ride yesterday, up behind the rocher de Cornillon. It was quite nice, but it had been such a long time since I had done anything technical off road that I forgot one key thing: you need to be careful braking when descending muddy hills. As a result, I had a few close calls, got a little sideways on the turns, and got uncomfortably close to a blackberry bush. Other than that, it was great to get outside and do something after being a little sick for most of the week. Hopefully I'll get a col in before we head down to Annot on Friday.

amy charlie and mark here!

Ombleze

Chloe and I took the day off today, and after dropping the kids off at day care, drove to one of our favorite "local" (ok, 1.5 hours away) climbing areas: Ombleze. We got a little lost on the way there, but reacted with equanimity and without any anxiousness about getting routes in before having to drive back to Grenoble. Once we got there, it was rude awakening time: routes that used to be relatively easy for us shut us down badly! My feet would get so tired from the vertical technical climbing that I would have to shake them out to regain blood flow and feeling. I also managed to take a big fall and got cheese grated against a particularly sharp feature in the rock that is caused by water droplets etching out little tiny upwards facing daggers in the rock. It might be time to get outside more often if we want to have any hope at all at doing some long routes this summer. In any case, it was a beautiful sunny day in the Vercors, and we got to pull down on immaculate (but sharp) limestone.

First ride of the spring: Proveysieux

I took my road bike out for the first time this year. It is quite amazing how different of an experience it is from my commuter bike: it stops well, handles really well and generally does exactly what you ask it to, regardless of how misguided or stupid that may be. For that reason, I imagine making the switch is a little like driving all winter in a Yugo and then getting into an M3: if you're not very careful you're going to end up picking limestone pebbles out of your chin at the bottom of a ravine. However, the handling part of it didn't really come into it until later. My first concern was that my back was aching on the climb up. As expected, my easiest gear really did not feel adequately easy, either. I rode up past Proveysieux and thought about descending via Quaix, but remembered how pebbly and steep it is and nixed the idea. I think next time I'll ride up via Quaix, as the descent through Proveysieux is really a lot nicer. And speaking of descents: it was totally harrowing. 34 mph felt like I was at warp speed and VERY twitchy. My hands were cramping from riding the brakes and sweat was streaming into my eyes from the climb. I didn't have an altimeter, but according to mapmyride, it is something like 450 or so meters of climbing from my house. I had the power meter on to motivate me to get back in cycling shape:



A word about this ride: while hardly a blip by local standards, I find it quite hard: longish sections of >10% gradients, with some 13% sections and ~1500 feet of elevation gain.

bike trailer, espace montagne, local color

Our daycare situation is a little complicated: Alex and Zoe go to two different nannies in different towns, and on wednesday, Alex goes to the local state run day care here in town (which is totally awesome). The problem is that Chloe and I want to be able to bike to work; it's such a nice ride and an easy way to guarantee a little physical activity on those days when you are stuck in front of the computer all day. The problem is that it takes a lot of time to do the kid shuttling in a car, and by the time you have done the drop offs, it doesn't make a lot of sense to drive home and hop on your bike. Enter the bike trailer. Before I left, I had been trying to buy a Chariot Cougar 2, but never found one in the Bay area because EVERYONE wants one. Here in france, they cost upwards of $1000, which is just silly. It's not like we're going to be going on bike camping tours! So yesterday, we tried out a Croozer which we both liked a lot: very light, metal wheels and folds down. Oh yeah, and it converts to a double jogging stroller. So after a little deliberation and Zoe testing, we ordered the double trailer from our local shop, as well as the infant hammock for Alex. We shall see if this all works out as planned. I think I'm going to need to change the gearing of my single speed though!

We also stopped at the new Espace Montagne: pretty damn awesome. They even have a little mini climbing wall for kids to play on.

Remember when REI had those too? Before the lawyers? I bought a new pair of climbing shoes for the spring (YES!) and was looking around ro see if they had any Valandre jackets. If you haven't heard of Valandre, they make some of the best and lightest weight down sleeping bags in the world. They are a French company located in the Pyrenees and I think some of their stuff is less expensive here (but still ridiculous). Anyway, I'm in the market for a new down jacket after my trusty old North Face has lost a lot of it's loft. I have heard that Valandre gets its down from the foie gras industry, but not sure about that one.

Finally, on the way home, I had one of those "laugh-at-local-drivers-and-point-in-incredulity" moments when I saw a guy on a motor scooter with a toddler wedged between himself and the steering column. He was passing me in the bike lane, of course. Anyway, I thought it was going to be like every other absurd and dangerous traffic infraction that you see in these parts, and laughed even more when they passed a police car without any apparent response. However, it turned out that eyebrows WERE raised and a cop jumped out of the car and chased him down. So yes, there is apparently some limit to what you can do on the roads here! And that limit is using a toddler as an airbag.

Don't Spork up your life!

Marketplace

We bought Zoe a push bike yesterday and she now refuses to go anywhere without it. We picked up the usual things, but my big find was a new (to me) kind of gruyere from the Savoie. Also, Zoe got many compliments on her sunglasses -- Thanks, Nana!




I was feeling very lazy today and barely left the house. I did, however, manage to move the bookcase and do a little cleaning. I know, I know you thought that I couldn't top my post about shopping for pants, but here I am surpassing myself again with a magical tale of doing nothing.

Mr Carnival: special guest entry by Chloe

The customs of a new country can be delightful, startling, or disturbing, and sometimes all at the same time. Last week Zoe took part in Carnival, a festival where all the children in the town dress up in costumes, follow Monsieur Carnival through the town, and then eat snacks- or at least that's how I understood it. There was one aspect I hadn't quite grasped. The evening after Carnival when I was picking Zoe up from her nanny's house, I asked about Carnival. Zoe was a little scared apparently because there were so many children and it was too noisy, but overall she enjoyed the parade through town following Monsieur Carnival, the arrival at the square, the subsequent BURNING OF M. CARNIVAL, and then the snacks. I repeated this back to the nanny, thinking that with my limited french I had misunderstood the Carnival customs, but no, M. Carnival gets burnt at the end (and then everyone gets snacks). Somehow I had missed the part about burning M. Carnival a la the Wicker Man in the description of the Carnival events in the town newsletter. Zoe didn't seem too traumatized-I think the presence of enough papillote (little candies is foil paper), brioches, and assorted bon-bons made up for the potential trauma of human sacrifice.

It will be mine

oh yes it will be mine

biking with Zoe

I got ZZ out of chloe's hair for a little while and plopped her (Zoe) into the kid seat for a bike ride up to Proveysieux. It was quite slow going, but we made it. Along the way, Zoe patted me on the ass and said "Daddy butt ... big!"


Lots of rocks and other crap on the road. Anyone on a race bike would be smart to slow waaaay down on the descent.

Typical of the mutant fitness levels of the Grenoblois: I saw a guy casually roller blading up the hill at high speed during our descent. crazy.