Today we went with Vero and her kids to a new (to us) place: The small ski area near St. Nizier. It's *fabulous* and I'm sad that we only discovered it at the end of the season. There's a moving walkway to bring you to the top, and then you can either ski or sled down. Alex, who is normally a bit reticent about the cold, and cold weather activities, absolutely loved it, as did Zoe.
Here's a little movie:
Tonight chloe was off shopping while I was watching the kids. Zoe had taken it upon herself to paint small scraps of paper towels and then affix them to the wall above the now non functional iMac with tape. This was absolutely fine with me, as it allowed me to veg out on the couch and relax a little bit. My couch-bliss was soon interrupted, however. All of a sudden, zoe announced "I GO PEEPEE IN MY PANTS", to which I responded "WHAT? Nooooooooo", but it was too late. A few milliseconds later, a torrent of pee began rushing out of her pant leg and into the top of the DSL router (her foot was perched right next to it). The lights on the router immediately went out and the now sodden router emitted a sickening fizzing noise. A small puff of steam or smoke emanated from the back of the router, where the DC power supply comes in. Not good. Later that night, I emptied the router of pee and then drove into lab to use some de-ionized water to wash the printed circuit board. This was followed up by a thorough air drying. Amazingly, the router came back to life! I thought it was curtains for the router when I saw the smoke/steam, and was already looking up the words for our imminent call to customer service for a new router.
I did another fun ride with Hank today -- this time to Peuil, where we have gone bouldering many times. I always thought that the road up there might be a nice ride, and it turned out that Hank had done it before. We parked around espace Comboire, took the beautiful new pedestrian/cycle bridge over the Drac to the golf course, and we found ourselves on the climb in a matter of minutes. My legs didn't feel great after two days of riding, but eventually they loosened up. When we got onto the Peuil climb, I was definitely suffering; it's steep, but beautiful at this time of year. Because there are no leaves, you can really see a lot more than you would in the Spring and Summer. In any event, the weather was beautiful and we reached the top in good form. I actually felt kind of sorry when we hit the dead end because I wanted more climbing. From there it was a short descent to a bridging dirt road to another red pumice stained road, and then back to the col de Cossey. There was a strong cross wind along the col, and I was getting thrown around like a leaf. It can really feel exposed out there sometimes on a bike.
I found a nice road up above Layat today which seems to end in a small cluster of houses called the Grand Ratz. On the way back, I took the vieux chemin, which is a blast on a road bike. Way better than facing oncoming traffic on the route nationale.
Our cold/crappy weather Sunday ritual is this: take the kids to the gym around noon when most locals are bringing their kids home for lunch. Chloe and I take 20 minute turns playing "Monster" with the kids and belaying Zoe while the other parent boulders alone. When the kids get worn out, we prop sit them down in front of the iPad and boulder together.
Rode up to Planfay. On the descent, I encountered this:
which had apparently fallen onto the road after I passed this particular road cut. Happily, it did not fall on me during my descent!
Shortly afterwards, I was at an intersection waiting for a light (yes, occasionally we cyclists wait for lights!) and my foot got jammed behind my wheel. This is known as wheel overlap, and really sucks. The result was that I fell over, much to the amusement of everyone who was nearby. Of course, after I got up and dusted myself off I saw a friend from work just down the road, who had witnessed the whole embarrassing incident.
Later on, I saw this along the road
Not good. It looked like it had happened a while ago, and crew was there getting ready to pull it out of the ditch.
After the freezing cold, I could not take another day of not riding, so I went up placette. It was -6 at the top, without the wind, and slush + snow everywhere. Dicey.
Even in the cold (and yes, it was VERY cold), my bike commute is pretty incredible. What a privilege.
no party is complete with out a Les Alpages Cheese plate (brought by Francois, to Lolo and Vero's shindig)
Dusted off the split, found the skins (glue was not great, but good enough), and skinned up a few hundred meters of powder above mont saint martin. For those of you unfamiliar with the sport, you put climbing skins on the underside of your skis/board, which allow you to ascend, then peel them off and ski back down.
Because I would like to avoid dying in an avalanche, I was going up very low angle paths -- 15 % at most, and in the trees. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot os snow cover, and I ended up hitting limestone rocks the size of basketballs on the way down. Even so, it was lovely being out there in the snow-enhanced silence of the forest.
Today, Zoe makes crepes at school, so we are supposed to bring an egg. Hopefully it won't explode on the bike ride.
At some point in my childhood, Origami (the art of japanese paper folding) became the cool thing to do. We were all suddenly swept up in a wave of brightly colored square paper, cranes, boxes, frogs and even more ambitious objects. Those of us with less innate folding skills fingers were relegated to the production of origami balls and simple birds. Of course, when other people in our classes would come to school with flocks of delicate interlinked cranes, my pals and I knew that it was time to get serious. Getting serious meant buying origami books. Origami books meant that we were introduced to the bewildering world of origami instructions. I am convinced that there is some unspoken rule among Origami instruction authors that the diagrams be as obtuse and frustrating as possible. I suspect that such authors are sadists and psychopaths. Anyway, the instructions always start out with the square of paper that looks comfortingly like the paper that you would have in front of you. Then there would be a series of increasingly complex intermediates, and at some point (usually quite soon), you would realize that your little crumpled ball of paper with the odd pointy crease did not look anything like the instructions. You would dutifully unfold, refold and if you were lucky get one step further. All the while your gaze would be drawn to the final product. Sometimes it was the only image rendered in full color. It would be there taunting you.
Why do I bring this up? Zoe and Alex recently received some beautiful origami paper, and my job is to fold them into "Omigami", as Zoe calls them. As I have become more ambitious in my folds, I have re-experienced the frustration and inadequate finger dexterity of my youth. It's like Proust's madeline, but I'm not eating anything, and with frustration. How can I refuse though, when Alex comes trundling into the room shaking a beautiful gold and red print origami paper at me with expectant eyes, asking for a oiseau.
Another great ride with Hank today in the foothills around Tullins. Today's was a little bit different in that we explored a new (to both of us) road, and ended up on some muddy cobbly dirt roads… on our road bikes, with skinny tires! It was a total blast, and I could see Hank go into mountain bike mode, concentrating on the line and getting the power down. We crossed paths with an offroader and some guy out walking his dog, both of whom looked at us with some bemusement -- custom Ti and full carbon road machines are not typical in the forest. From there it was a cool descent on excellent pavement back to Tullins.
I went for a long ride through the Vercors today. I underestimated the amount of climbing it would be so it took a bit longer than planned, but it was pretty spectacular. Things started out well with a tailwind along the bike path to St. Gervais. I hooked up with some members of a local club on the path, which cut down on the boredom of the bike path for a bit. St Gervais was still in the shade when I got there, but that's where the climb starts so there was plenty of opportunity to warm up. It is beautiful scenery almost the entire way up to the col, past waterfalls and huge cliff faces. The last time I had been through here was ten years ago, when Chloe and I first moved to France (and before we moved back to the states) and our friend lolo took us on a drive through the Vercors: Pont-en-Royans, Presles, Romeyer -- I remember being overwhelmed by the beauty of alpine meadows and three hundred and sixty degree limestone faces. It felt pretty much the same to me this time. If you're ever in the Grenoble area, a trip through the gorges is a must. Anyway, everything was great up until the tunnel, which was a bit terrifying: a half km of pure darkness. I have a small headlight on my bike for just these occasions, and it was barely able to cast enough light to see. The tunnel is also extremely narrow, which adds to the fun and spookiness. All I know is that I cranked through that thing as fast as I could. As I finally emerged from the tunnel, a breeze swept by the mouth of the tunnel, carrying flakes of rime fluttering through the air and into an intense beam of sunlight.
After stopping to refill my bottle at the col, it was back through more gorges, Lans-en-vercors, Engins and back into the valley.
90km, 1400 meters of climbing
