pic de laigle

Chloe and I drove over Galibier to try a new climb on the Pic de L'aigle. We parked by plan Lachat (next time we will drive up to the barrier, I think) and then walked up to the peak. The peak itself is visible from the road down from Galibier, but not Plan Lachat, and it is very impressive when you round the corner of a hill and see it looming there in front of you! It took one hour and twenty minutes to get to the base of the climb.

The hike goes through the French Military camp of Les Rochilles, used by the 93ème régiment d'artillerie de montagne. The last part of the path goes up a scree slope, and behind one large boulder, I found a stack of NATO 5.56 casings, and a bullet:

The first pitch of the climb turned out to be very hard, and we decided to bail since it was also very cold (snow on the ground!). About halfway through our return hike, the weather turned very bad and started raining... so it is a good thing we backed off. The climb looks beautiful though, and I would really like to go back to try it on a warmer day. It's been a tough vacation , weather wise. It still amazes me how quickly the weather can turn bad in this part of the Alps. Just look at how clear it looks in the approach photo, and then imagine the sky completely blocked out in grey, with peaks shrouded in clouds (all in the space of less than thirty minutes).


We saw a lot of mountain bikers on the trail. Someday I'll have to come back with a bike! I was thinking that a bike approach to this climb would be ideal, since it could cut down your approach time and descent significantly.

Later, Zoe and I got stuck in a traffic jam going into Briancon (45 minutes to get there from monetier!) trying to get to the toy store. On the way back, while sitting in traffic, I saw this mural



Which looks like the cover for ZOMBIE BIKERS. Either that or Anquetil and Poulidor were suffering from some terrible skin problems.

MTB Lauzet loop

I started mountain biking in high school on a Specialized "streetstomper" that was a little ill adapted for technical singletrack. My favorite trails were in Tilden, while it was raining so that there would be fewer people to dodge. Anyway, in college I started road biking, and except for on and off phases since then, I haven't really done much offroad. Periodically, I'll get motivated to get muddy again, and there is no better motivation than the spectacular alpine trails around Monetier. Actually, on Beaux Quartiers, I saw people riding by on the "Chemin du Roy", so I thought I would try to get Tom to ride that loop with me. It turned out to be one of the most beautiful trails I have ever ridden, and made me wonder what I've been doing sucking diesel fumes and endangering myself on the roads with jackhole car drivers. Anyway, it was gorgeous! The descent was a little dicey and I crashed twice. The second time I went over the bars and slid down a small hill. The impact ripped the HD cam off the bars (and was unfortunately NOT filming at the time.. booo!). Other than a few abrasions and bruises, I'm fine though.

Market day!

Also, we made pizzas on the grill, which was fantastic. Zoe made her own pizza, from kneading the dough, to rolling it out, to choosing condiments

Beaux Quartiers

Today, thanks to generous babysitting by the entire chalet crew, Chloe and I were able to do a fabulous climb on the Aiguillette de Lauzet. The "Petite" Aiguillette is an impressive formation that overlooks the road to Lautaret, and Beaux Quartiers is supposed to be one of the best routes up it. At 300 meters and a whole lot of pitches, it is a fairly serious climb. I was so cold for the first 5.10d pitch that I could barely feel my fingers! After pitch two, we got stuck behind some other climbers, who we had to wait for for the majority of the climb. They eventually bailed after the steep 6a+ chimney, but we continued on with the last three pitches and topped it out.

On the walkoff, we saw a troupe of baby chamois bounding up and down rock faces.

as well as the "daddy", who seemed unimpressed by us.

We were unsure of whether he would charge us to protect the young'uns, so we gingerly walked by him.

When we were about two thirds of the way down from the walkoff, we noticed the other party on the climb, who had managed to arrive in some gully and were just now walking back to the base of the climb to get their stuff. It looked like maybe they had gotten lost in the rappels (which is another reason to not rap off, given the choice of a walkoff!).

Anyway, it was an excellent climb, and thanks again to the babysitters!!!

Tour de Friggen France

Today was the big day: The "Queen" stage of the tour de france which passed through three mythical cols, for a whole lot of altitude gain. With a profile like today's, it was fairly certain that some kind of attack would happen, but I don't think anyone imagined how exciting a stage it would really be. I was thinking about recent tours, and it was definitely the most exciting stage I have watched for a long time. Perhaps more importantly, the tour was going right through the town that we are staying in!

For the past few days I had been trying to drum up excitement in my generally non cycling obsessed co-chaletards, with limited success. However, when you see Andy Schleck attack with 60 km of hard riding left to go, and in particular relatively exposed and headwindy terrain... I think most everyone was excited! Unfortunately, the day did not get off to a great start, when
Christine, Terry and Robyn went to the wool mill in Chantmerle in the morning and were unable to return because of the road closures. Instead, they had to walk back to the chalet, much to their chagrin. They managed to make it back well in advance of the tour, though.

Everyone went out an hour early or so to see all the hotdog cars go by, and get free stuff.


The race spectators were worse than grad students at the prospect of free stuff: one enormous imbecile walked right in front of Jon and me and began swinging his hands in two arcs trying to get packets of Nesquick thrown at him. A middle aged woman next to me was throwing elbows and muttering about free laundry detergent. When the first detergent mobile passed her by, she was visibly distraught, but perked up when she saw a second detergent mobile. I don't think she really need a free one-dose detergent packet, based on the fact that she lives in a GIANT chalet next to the chalet that we were renting. Eventually, I got fed up and braved the wrath of the young gendarme who was blowing his whistle and yelling at people for walking in the street (what would he have done on Galibier, I wonder?) and crossed the street. There were much fewer things being thrown onto the left side of the road, but less of a feeding frenzy, which was fine by me. All I really wanted was the coveted Carrefour polka dotted caps for the kids, and to get pictures of the chalet posse.



We went back to the Chalet to watch the tour live on TV, and were amazed to see the Andy-attack. I thought that there was no way he would maintain his gap on the ramp up to Galibier, since it isn't that steep, and there is ton of wind, but they had sent one of their teammates up in advance of the attack, and actually increased the gap. Here they are, several (4?) minutes ahead of the peloton

And then the peloton, which probably should have started reeling them in earlier!

Worth mentioning: Team Sky has the nicest team cars:

After the peloton whizzed by, we (okay, I) rushed back to the chalet to watch the run up to Galibier. When Schleck hit the base of Galibier with the same lead, even the French commentators assumed that Voeckler would not be in Yellow at the end of the day. Amazingly, he hung onto Evans' wheel for all of Galibier (dropping Contador) and made the gap small enough to retain the yellow jersey! During one of the most memorable sections of one of the most memorable stages in recent Tour history, I heard a "Daaaaaaady-o" coming from the bathroom, which was the song of the three-year-old-butt-that-needs-wiping. So while Voekler was killing himself trying to keep the jersey, I was frantically searching for diaper wipes and cleaning butt. Epic stuff.

After all the tour hullabaloo was over, we dropped Terry off back at her stranded car in Chantemerle. I guess her epic was just getting started, and it ended up taking quite a long time to get to Geneva that night. Along the way, I noticed that the HTC-Highroad team (one of three US teams in the tour) truck was in a lot across the street, so I crept up on it and took these photos.


Amazing things that I missed:
1)That is mark cavendish's bike!! (bib 171)
2)I think that is Tony Martin (one of the world's best time trialists) talking to the mechanic!
3)There is a rubber chicken hanging in the team truck

also, the mechanic was slamming the crankset into the frame with a hammer, having declared the previous crankset "caput". It wasn't even a sprint stage, and Cav still managed to nuke his crank.

Rocher Baron, Tour de France, Casset

Chloe and I were supposed to climb the Aiguillette du Lauzet today, but when we arrived at Pont de l'alpe, it was snowing a little bit! Not wanting to freeze to death, we opted instead for sunny single pitch climbing at a crag called Rocher Baron (just south of Briancon). When we arrived, I noticed that some barriers were being set up, and there were cycling fans everywhere. It turned out that a small French cycling race called the Tour de France was about to come through! I had no idea that the stage came so close to Briancon, but we managed to inadvertently stumble upon the hill preceding the Montgenevre climb! This is the third time I have managed such a feat (the first two were for the paris stages of the 1991 and 2003 TdFs). We did some nice climbs (Titeuf, Eau Secours, Pas de bile, J'en reve encore, Je n'ai qu'une seule vie, Derniere danse) on excellent rock before heading back down the road to watch the tour. A small escape had formed, and we got to see Voeckler in yellow, with Europcar doing work at the front of the peloton.





THOR!

We got down just in time for the riders, so we missed the usual "pre-game show" of cars shaped like pigs etc. I did notice that instead of the just the usual gendarmes, there were also italian police (in BMWs, not Fiats!) because the stage ended in Italy. The road was supposed to be closed until 4 PM, but they opened it at 2:30, so we went back to the chalet for a walk to le Casset with the crew

snow on izoard

Jon, Sue and I drove to Izoard today with the kids. I had been hearing about the beautiful landscape of the casse desert for a couple of years, and assumed that the best way to get there was from the Guillestre side of the famous col (Since I had not seen any of it when I rode Izoard from the North side), so we drove south of Briancon to approach the col from the South. It was raining very hard, but we stopped briefly to look at the Mont Dauphin Fort, built in 1693 by the famous French military engineer Vauban. It was quite impressive, but not worth dragging the kids out in the rain for! From there, after a few wrong turns, we were on the road to Izoard. There was supposed to be a cycling race today, but hopefully it was cancelled. We continued up, and I noticed a whiteness on the tops of the mountains that looked suspiciously like snow. In a matter of minutes, the temperature had dropped to zero, and we found ourselves in a snow storm in the middle of July. It was not light snow either, but huge swirling flakes. We saw quite a few foolhardy cyclists descending and climbing the col. I have a feeling that they were even colder than Ian and I were last year. We stopped a few times for pictures, and the Casse Désért is absolutely beautiful in the snow.


After a few slighlty scary switchbacks we reached the col.

My plan had been to stop at the Auberge Napoleon for lunch, but the snow was sticking, and I decided that it was not worth getting stuck up at the col, so we descended and headed back to the chalet. Zoe got sick from all the windy roads, and vomited on her shirt and Alex's stuffed animal. Poor ZZ!

Du miel et des abeilles

Chloe and I got on a very short "grande voie" today. We got stuck behind some very, very slow people. Otherwise, it was beautiful and the rock was good!




The walkoff was easy, and we were soon back at the car. After driving back to the Chalet, we all went to Briançon together for ice cream, fort touring, and browsing the whistling marmot stuffed animals.

Monetier

Cycling, Jim

I went for a morning ride up Charmette today (only a few seconds faster -- I dont know how I am going to find enough power or lose enough weight to get to my goal of 1 hour even). It felt pretty hard, which I guess is expected for a hors categorie climb, but I need to work on my endurance on climbs over 600 meters.

Anyway, I usually turn around and go home at the col, but I decided to be a little adventurous and try out the forestry road that descends to St. Laurent du Pont today. I had heard different things about the state of it, so I just took it slow and was careful. The road was in very good shape; the only problems were the unlit tunnels. The first two were short enough that I could see what I was riding over, but the last one (tunnel des agneaux) was very long and *very* dark. I made it through without crashing, happily. The views from the road are spectacular,

and you pass a convent along the way

It's a wonderful ride, with no chance of cars! You just have to be careful and take it slow on the descent, unless you are on a mountain bike, in which case it would be no problem at all. I'll probably bring a mini bike light for the Tunnel of Death next time.

Later on, an old colleague from south san came by (he is in Europe for four weeks), and we went into town for vietnamese food and a trip to the top of the Bastille. It was great to catch up and gossip about biotech days and people and show him our new stomping grounds.

pool with the kids

First stop was Decathlon, since there is a rule (I am not making this up!) that you must wear speedo style swimming trunks at public pools in France. I tried on various pairs, which varied widely in their levels of hideousness, and eventually landed on a pair that did not induce any muffin topping. From there, it was off to the public pool in St. Egreve, where we played with the kids in the water for a while

and then had lunch. The kids went for the the organic free-range sausages. All natural!


I was still recovering from a crazy virus that gives you headaches and pains in your sides (chloe also had it), so I was pretty exchausted by the end of the day. At least I have a banana hammock now!