Headwinds and Cols

Today, the plan after eating my morning museli was to ride to Bourg d'Oisans and have tea with my new friends who own King of the Mountain chalet in le Rivier d'Ornon. I rolled out of town around 10:30 and made it to their chalet by about 12:45. The trip took me on a beautiful route through the valley of the Oisans and into Le Tour de France territory. I took the N75 to the N85 to Vizille, then hopped on the N91 all the rest of the way. Its a 48km ride to Bourg d'Oisans from Grenoble or 55km to the chalet with 38km being all vertical. It wasn't terribly steep but there was some nice 7% sections just to remind you that you aren't immortal. The ride from the N91 to the chalet was the most challenging but the most scenic. I hope to get some of the many pictures of the valley posted for you. It was pretty steep the entire way and a nice headwind only added to the luster. Upon arrival at the chalet which is in a tiny ~15 house village, I knocked on the door. I thought Guy and Helyn weren't home until the neighbor came out and pointed me to the back of the house. Apparently this neighbor keeps a watchful eye on everything that Helyn and Guy do. Its quite funny. I guess when you live in a village of 15 houses, you have to occupy yourself somehow. Some read, some knit, some spy.

When I arrived, they had just finished lunch and were getting ready for tea, cake and fruit. Helyn was super kind and she made me a ham and cheese sandwich, small salad, and gave me some of the leftover pasta. Guy fixed me up with a nice cup of coffee. It all hit the spot nicely as I was feeling a little hungry after my trek 1700kj so far and it was almost 1pm. There house is very nice. Down below they were laying concrete to build a secondary apartment. We convened out on the backyard table. It was a real pleasure to sit down with them and their two friends and eat and chat. They commented on how well my cycling kit looked, much better than any of the french club kits which Helyn pointed out. When they first saw me at the race on Saturday, they say I stuck out b/c of the look of my kit. Gosh, I thought it was my pro physique. I guess I have more training to do. But as I have always taught my junior sailors, "looking good is 90% of it. If you look good, people don't question you."

What surprised Guy the most was that I was even at the cyclosportiv on Saturday. I told them I just found it on the internet. He said the race was very french and not like the many popular cyclosportivs which pull in a large number of foreign riders. I thought that was pretty cool. As I said in my last post, being the only american, the post-race volunteers took a real liking to me and treated me like a king.

I finished up lunch and tea around 2:45 and thanked Helyn and Guy for their hospitality. i hope to meet up with them later in the week or at the Vaujany event next sunday. they are incredibly nice people. Rolling out of their chalet was 8km of wicked fast descending over some steep clifs. I wasn't pushing it as hard as I could but managed to make some nice speed. The objective was to roll out to le Alpe d'Huez and mark my claim. I thought it would be easy to find so I rolled further east to Bourg d'Oisans but couldn't find it. After consulting a map on my return I found it was just off the road. Nevertheless, I will conquer her later on and multiple times. At this point its about 3:30pm and I needed to be back to Grenoble by 7pm. There was a huge storm rolling in and I didn't want to take on le Alpe and get stuck in the storm. So I mobilized and headed back to Grenoble....

Now, it should have been a sweet ride back down b/c its all downhill. But when you have a 15-20kt breeze right on the nose all the way down, you don't get to enjoy the sweetness of alpine descending. So when your parents tell you they had to walk to school uphill in the blinding snow both ways, believe them, b/c I rode uphill both ways for 100km out of 120km.

once back in Vizille, I stopped by Le Château de Vizille. It was a castle built during the French resistance. The Oisans region was a stronghold for the French resistence during WWII for you history buffs. It was historic and life changing for me. I ran into two french couples. They were impressed with my riding and gave me pats on the back. Got to love it....

Au revoir,
Matthew