On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

After my epic ride of L'Alpe d'Huez, Lac Bassen, and Col Sarenne the day before, I found myself back at the Campanile Süd in Grenoble. I'd thought to find someone closer to the centre ville, something with a bit more character, but I was tired and having difficulty navigating the twisting roads of the city, and so turned on my Garmin Edge 500 navigation and followed the route I'd programmed to reach the Campanile. The Campanile is relatively cheap, has decent wifi, and provides a simple but nutritious breakfast. I decided to go with the safe bet. Luckily there were still rooms available. I checked out the next morning, left my backpack (my sole luggage for the trip) at the desk, then set off for Chamrousse, which had been recommended to me by a friend. If you go into Strava Segment Explorer, zoom into Grenoble, and move the climb selector over to "HC", the Champrousse climb becomes the obvious candidate. It was used in the Tour de France as a time tri...

After the climbs I just described, I did some serious lifting, first riding south from Grenoble to Bourg d'Oisans which involved significant elevation gain except on gradual grades along the D-series roads. Traffic was busy on these highways, and the riding was scenic for sure but not super-fun. Rain, which was forecast for the afternoon, arrived a bit early, and I was happy for the rain coat and rain pants I had packed for my trip. Riding with my stuffed backpack, a floppy rain jacket, and black rain pants didn't make for the Euro-racer experience, but it was effective. I stayed dry and warm. In Bourg d'Oisans, I had time to pass, and hung out for a bit in the main town. As the afternoon passed the rain picked up and I saw only a few riders. Riding was doable, as it wasn't super-cold (probably around 15C in the town, colder at elevation). But the 60 km I'd done to get there were enough. The next day dawned surprisingly cold, at least by my standards. In t...

Here's some climbs I've done the past few weeks in Switzerland and France, having been in Basil in part for work. As I write this I'm on a bus from Bourg d'Oisans to Grenoble, having just climbed L'Alpe d'Huez and descended via Col Serenne. What an absolutely spectacular ride that was in many ways.... I'll report on that later. The climbs I report here are relatively modest, perhaps with the exception of Le Grand Ballon, although even that wasn't to the standard of either the climb or the descent I did today. Actually, I don't have GPS data for L'Alpe d'Huez because I took two minor wrong turns, both quickly corrected, the second and more major of which I could have avoided had I looked at the marks in the road instead of staring at the Garmin Edge 500 navigation screen, which unfortunately at the time was on a relatively zoomed-out state -- it tends to scroll between zoom levels. Dornach - Gempen The first climb of interest is the clim...