After my ride up the Col de L’Epine the other day, I did a shorter ride just to kind of recover. It was just a ride to Aix-Les Bain again and to Lac Bourget. There are some steep climbs from there that I wanted to check out for future reference. Mostly, I wanted to make sure I knew how to access them. It was only a two hour ride at the end of the day for me.
The next day, I had to do a lot of errands and was planning to take a days rest. First off, I had to got to the real estate office to sign all of the documents for my apartment that I will be living in for the remaining weeks of my stay in Chambery. I move in on the 15th. To say the apartment is small might be giving it too much credit. It is a single room with a REALLY SMALL bathroom, and a kitchen “area” that is even smaller. But it does have a range and microwave oven along with a small refrigerator. Now I can do a bit of cooking and save some money since I have been eating out a lot.
Next, I needed to get to a bike shop. I had found one the other day where I bought some cycling stuff so I headed back to it again. My bike had not been quite right since I reassembled it after the plane flight over. There was a lot of noise coming from the drive train. I knew the rear derailleur had been bent a little bit, biu I had straightened it out by reefing on it with my hands, but it did not solve all of the issues. The guy at the bike shop checked it out and determined that the derailleur was still a little out of alignment. He had a tool that I had never seen before that put the derailleur into perfect alignment and now my bike is running like a champ again. Now, I was ready for a longer ride.
On Saturday, I decided to ride to Grenoble. Grenoble is a town famous in my mind because it hosted the 1968 Winter Olympic games. Jean Claude Killy showed the entire world how to ski by winning all 3 races offered at the time and Peggy Fleming won the USA’s only gold medal in figure skating. It was the first Olympics that I really remember so it is special to me.
The weather for this ride was absolutely perfect. Sunny, no wind, and moderate temperatures. I would follow the National Bike Route 63 south to Grenoble. The route is mostly on exclusive bike trails so I would not be worried about any cars today. The biggest challenge is route finding since the trail has lots of turns and not exactly a straight line. Needless to say, I expected to make a lot of wrong turns, but hopefully not get really lost; only inconveniently mis-directed.
So off I began. The ride would be around 40 miles to Grenoble and then the same coming back for an 80 mid total ride. Another thing about France that I like is that they are on the metric system. So an 80 mile ride is 130 km. Most long rides will be “century” rides (with the asterisk that they are metric century rides)!
The ride offered spectacular views along the entire route. The Alps were visible from the beginning and as I turned west I was treated to views of the Massif de Chartreuse. It reminded me of the epic day last year of riding through Glacier Park along the river with the Rockies surrounding me at every turn.
The route went past Lac de St Andre which is just a small local lake that people go to swim and picnic. From there it winds through the countryside and goes through several small towns, eventually following the Isere River into Grenoble.
Just on the outskirts of Grenoble, I turned around. I was starting feel a little fatigued and I was thinking my fate today would be running out of energy and Bonking. One small problem with France I have so far is that I cannot seem to find anything like a Power Bar so I haven’t been riding with any food. I was starting to feel the gas gauge getting close to empty so getting to some kind of restaurant/cafe was getting to be a priority now! I had previously noticed that there was a cafe in the town of Bernin that looked like a good stopping point so I made that my immediate goal. So after about 50 miles into the ride, I finally stopped for food and immediately felt a lot better. I was able to finish the ride fairly strong after all.
The last treat from this ride was to go eat at my favorite restaurant, Bistrot du Verger where I had Linguine aux Legumes, pasta with vegetables. Did I mention a few beers also!
All and all, I think I am starting find some pretty good riding form. I guess riding 4-5 times a week will do that so I think I will be venturing into the Alps next week for a real test. Weather permitting, Alpe d”Huez is beckoning and must be obeyed!
Beautiful scenery for sure!! If you don’t find Powerbars soon, now that you will have an address, have Amazon send them to you 🙂
do I have to do everything for you? I bet your bike store has plenty of cycling food, and hit the grocery store and pick up some dried dates and figs and bannanas.
Seriously, great post, loved the sideways photos and descriptions. what a fantastic adventure you are on.
On a side note, summer arrived here yesterday, it was over 100 while I was riding, I’m not even close to being acclimated to heat and is was painful.
Looks pretty idyllic, except for all those pesky uphills. We know you’re having fun obeying the mountains.
Greg! Very impressive goals, trip, beautiful scenery. Love Greg C.’s comments. I bet you could even find some leftover WWII MRE’s to sustain you. (Meals Ready to Eat).
au revoir for now….