My first two Cols!

Went for a long bike ride today around the mountain that sits behind Grenoble. I'm too tired/hungry to give a full debrief now, but (a) I was high enough that there were still snow banks on the side of the road at the top (b) hitting the little sign marking the Col at the top and seeing that it was more than 1100m was AWESOME!

Biking is the new black.

Update: the bike i bought last week at the "bourse aux vèlos" is a liberia brand (french) from ca. 1983. it looks like it still has many of the original components (e.g., the pedals are those heavy shiny metal kind popular back then). but it was also very well maintained / it looks like it probably sat unused for years in someone's garage. there's a nice english language grenoble cycling page that has details of all these local climbs. i decided to start with the easiest one: a tiny 600m climb over the col de la clémencière, about 15km from my house. i looked on a map and it looked like there was a loop where i'd do the climb, decend, pop out between two mountains west of grenoble, and head back home. so i hammered up the col, stopped at the top to admire the view, eat a banana, and drink some water, and then i flew down the decent. then the road started to climb again! i stopped to look at my map and realized that i'd missed the turn off (it was a tiny road) and that i was headed for the next town (dèviation!). i kept climbing and climbing and climbing... then the trees turned to pines, i noticed snow banks by the side of the road, and worst, the sun started to set... i was getting a little bit worried but i'd remembered the story of my mom and step-dad's frozen day biking in france last fall (they spent all of september climbing in provence including le mont ventoux!) so i'd packed my ziptop, a fleece, and a shell (though no pants, should have brought running tights). i just kept going and hoped i wasn't headed off towards switzerland (you know how there are signs pointing to the next city on the freeway? here those signs say geneve)... at one point i tried to slip into my lowest gear on the rear shifter and the chain shifted right off the gears. i stopped to fix it and another cyclist came up behind me right as i re-mounted. he asked me "ca va?" and i said (in french), "i'm fine, but the bike is lousy". he, riding a fancy look-brand bike glanced down and said "ah! liberia! i used to have a bike like that. then i got this real bike". i laughed, and told him that the real problem was the state of my legs! he laughed, then told me that i could get home by going over the next pass... so i ended up doing a second col (i think col de porte... about 1100m? when i finally got to it i glance at the sign and elevation and can't remember now what it's exact name was). i hit the top right as the sun was about to slip behind the vercours range and flew through several small ski towns down the long, long decent back into grenoble.