May 31, 2019 Grenoble to Gap

Today was shaped up to be another killer day with 123 km and 1936 meters of climb.  However Bob got on line yesterday and found that we could take the train from Grenoble to Lus-la Croix-Haute which was 73 km down the route we were taking. This cut off all of the major climbs and left us with only 49.5 kms and 321 meters of climb.  However it was in fact a net downhill as we had a decent of 573 meters.   So yesterday we had hurried down to the station and got our tickets.  At 11.50 Euros it was a small price for cutting off 50 kms of ride and 1600 meters of climb.

The train left Grenoble at 10:10 and we were down to the station good and early.  Ken and I being new to French trains we were not sure what to expect.  So we stood around nervously in the station for 20 minutes before our train was posted on the arrivals/departures screen.  Finally at 9:40 it was posted and we hurried over to our platform.  We were glad we did as when the train arrived it was only a single car and with only two spots for bikes we were a little nervous one of us may have to get off.   Bob and I jumped on and hung our bikes in the two slots for bikes and tucked Ken’s bike into the luggage area.  We then proceeded to grab premium seats for the journey.  Our fears of getting thrown off for too many bikes were without basis as one bike after another arrived and crowded onto the train.  Most of the bikes which followed us were self-supporter bikes which were laden with huge panniers.

The train left the station, there were 4 stations which were real close together and the train barely got rolling before it was stopped for the next one. However after that the train had to climb the mountain to get the next station and you could hear the diesel grinding away. We sat back and enjoyed the spectacular scenery.  The snow-capped mountains and lush green valleys were spread out beside us.  It was a magnificent day and I was feeling that I should be out riding but on the other hand I was glad not to be climbing the big hills.  I was surprised at the number of tunnels and huge trestles on the route.  Some of the tunnels were quite long and one in particular was probably several kilometers long.  

Just as were we getting off the train Agnes and Judy pulled up in the car.   So as it was lunch time we all rolled around the corner to a little café which was just opening. Sitting and enjoying our lunch on the patio with the mountains as a backdrop was spectacular.

After lunch Ken, Bob and I rolled down the hill.  There was about 18 km of about 3.5% downhill grade which was just perfect a person could fly along at a good rate without riding the brakes but without being flying along out of control.  The road had a pretty good shoulder and even thought there was a fair amount of traffic it was great.  With 31 kms to go we turned off the main road and started up the road to Gap.  There was a good grade here of about 3 kilometers of grades up to 5% (as posted).   This took us up to the Col des Eygaux.  A fast downhill followed by another 15 kms of rolling up and down hills but mostly ups took us to within about 3 km of Gap.  There we were presented with an amazing view of the city of Gap and the valley.  We had to pull in for a photo before making the last fast downhill into Gap and our hotel.  

The weather was absolutely gorgeous making all the views so beautiful.  It was also a really fun adventure taking the train with our bikes and having a fun downhill ride.   Maybe there is a bike/train tour in my future. 

Terry

May 30, 2019 Rest Day Grenoble

Today was a rest day in Grenoble so we were slow getting rolling today. The main thing we all wanted to do was to take the gondola to the bastille at the top of hill on the opposite side of the river.  This is the second generation gondola and has become iconic with Grenoble. It is 635 m long and rises 235 meters.

The gondola originally opened in 1934 and the iconic bubbles were installed 1976.  The bastille at the top was constructed in 1825 and was one of a series of defense works which were constructed at that time.   Today there is a museum, café and a gift shop at the top.   The gondola runs year round and attracts 600,000 annual visitors.

The Airbnb condo we are staying at is only 2 blocks from the gondola so it was an easy walk over to the Gondola. We were there at opening bell at 10:30 am.  Each of the bubbles takes 6 people so we had a car to ourselves.  Once the bubbles clear the station they move at 6 meters per second which is surprisingly fast.  

The view from the top is amazing as you are totally surrounded by the mountains.  We were so luck as the day before it was so windy and cold.  Today was warm and sunny.  There was some haze but not very much. 

We took the museum tour which told the story of the French Mountain Grenadier Units. You were given a set of headphones which told the story of the mountain units through their history from the earliest units which were formed in the 1890’s through WWI, WW2 and their deployment in special UN forces.  It was very well done.  

By now it was lunch time and we headed down to the main town and found a great local place. The plat de jour was meat balls and chips which was surprisingly good.  

The crew is pretty tired and it was decided that we would take the train from Grenoble down to Lus-la-Croix-Haute rather than ride our bikes.  This cuts 74kms and 1600 meters climb off of tomorrows ride. This will leave only 49 kms and 330 meters of climb for tomorrows ride.  So we walked down to the train station to confirm that we could in fact take the train and buy our tickets.  The tickets turned out to cost us only 11.50 Euros each.  

Grenoble is such a pretty city we really enjoyed our visit here.
  

Terry  

May 29, 2019 Lyon to Grenoble

This morning we were up and on the move. Agnes got the car from the lot a couple of blocks away while the rest of us transported the luggage down stairs.  With the car packed we headed out.  I had hoped to be on the road by 8:30 Am and we were.

I had spent more time working on this route than any of the other routes on the tour.  The problem with getting out of Lyon was that there were several places where a person had to cross railroad tracks. The only place to cross the tracks was these overpasses which were not very bike friendly.   So no matter which route you took you had to go to one of the overpasses.  When we got there in the morning there was a lot of traffic and so we walked the bikes along this very narrow walkway with trucks flying past only a few feet away.  

The second problem with getting out of Lyon was that if you were heading in the south east direction you had to take the D518 which was a 4 lane road which had a bike lane well more of just a shoulder than a real bike lane until you came to a roundabout and then it was everyman for himself. You just had to time it so that when a big truck was coming through and blocking the entrance to your left you had lots of time. The D512  went out to the 25 kms mark of the ride.  I didn’t think they were so bad but Bob hated them.  

The next real problem with building the route was that the roads in this area all run SW to NE and we were headed NW to SE or perpendicular to the roads.  The reason the roads run this way is that is the way the valleys run.  So when you are going perpendicular to the roads it is down one side of the valley and up the other side. The roads which do go up the sides of the valley are really steep and winding.  In addition the Google street view does not cover a lot of these roads.  So I had to guess as to their condition.  I thought there was a chance that we may run into some unpaved sections and indeed we did the first section was about 200 meters and the second one was about 1.3 kms of which about 300 m was really rough.  I didn’t think it was a bad penalty for saving around 30-40 kms of extra distance, but Bob was not pleased.

At about the 30 km point in the strap on my new bento box broke and dumped my camera on the ground.  Luckily Bob spotted it.  I was not pleased that my new bento box with less than 1500 km on it had failed.

When we got to the 57 kms mark we were at the summit of the climb for the day, we were half way into the 114 km ride, it was 12:00 am, and we were standing in front of a very fancy restaurant (Michelle rated).  L’ Auberge D’Eclose was just opening and the owner stepped out to put out the open sign and he invited us in for lunch.  The menu for lunch was ravioli in broth plat, a steak with rice and vegetables for the main course and an apple tart for desert all for 18 euros.  It was a very fine meal, and certainly the fanciest lunch of the tour.

When we got out to the restaurant there was a really nasty cold wind blowing.  Bob and I pulled on our coats but Ken did not have a coat with him.  Fortunately the wind was out of the NW so it was a tail wind.  However every time the road made a twist the wind cut into you.  This wind was to plague us all the way into Grenoble.  

It was mostly downhill for the second half of the ride but there were still a few climbs to do and fortunately no more unpaved sections.   We were all feeling more than a little tired and every hill just seemed to go on.

When we got to the 94 km mark we turned on to a bike path which followed the river into Grenoble.  With 18 km still to go I thought it would fly by but instead an icy rain started and it was driven into our faces by the wind.  

When we finally pulled into the Airbnb we were immediately set upon by some irate neighbor that we couldn’t put our bikes in the court yard which has other bikes in it. 

Somehow what should have been an easy day turned hard and everyone is exhausted.  It was only 114 kms and 995 m of climb. 

terry hot biker

May 28, 2019 Rest Day 2 Lyon

This morning we woke up to a great treat, as Bob had gotten up early and went down stairs to the market and had brought back fresh Baggett.  The smell of fresh bread and coffee in the morning was absolutely fabulous.  

Ken and I had a few bike chores to complete so we headed down stairs to the garage to work on bikes.  I needed to adjust my brakes.  It seems that I have been doing a lot of braking and have worn down the brake pads quite badly.  Having soft brakes is never a really good thing.  So that little task out of the way I cleaned and oiled the chain.  I also had a tube which needed to be patched.  Surly takes a 28x554 tubes which is not a common size so I always patch the tubes as you never know when the next time you are going to find new tubes. 

With chores out of the way Ken, Judy and I headed off to see the Museum of the Confluence.  This is the big ultra-modern museum here in Lyon.  It is right at the confluence of the Rhone and the Saone rivers. This is a magnificent facility. It is extremely well done with both French and English descriptions on everything.  It has a huge range of exhibits which explore everything from the origin of the universe to Japanese religious masks.  There is an excellent natural history section with a huge range of mineral specimens, fossils and animal mounts. There is a section on the industrial history which covers everything from early telephones to particle accelerators. Yes they have an early particle accelerator.  

The three of us met for lunch and walked out on the upper floor balcony to enjoy the view.  It was very pretty.  What a perfevt setting for this monument. 

On the main floor of the building is a large buffet restaurant.  I did not know that it was a Chinese buffet until we got into the restaurant.  It was absolutely great food.  They had a huge selection of sushi, which was very tasty.  There was a good selection of steamed buns and other dim sum items to choose from.  There was a special section where you could choose your food and then have it cooked by the chefs in the woks.  Then there was all of the stuff I love, the lemon chicken, sweet and sour pork, beef and onions, chow main noodles and on and on.   It was one of the memorable meals of the tour.  

Tomorrow we are back on the road and riding down to Grenoble.  This is the last of the segments.   It is hard to believe that we have only one week left of this tour. 

Terry   

May 27, 2019 Rest Day Lyon

Today was the first day of a two day layover in Lyon.   We all slept in this morning. Not really late but late for the rest of the tour.   We were taking a hop on – hop off tour which started at 10:00 am from downtown.   So we were all up at 8:00 am and down to the metro by 9:00 am.  The metro here is extremely well organized.  It is right at the corner of the building where we were staying and runs every two minutes.  A couple of stops and then a transfer and we were right in the heart of downtown.  

The Hop 0n-Hop Off tour starts from the Bellacour square which is right in the heart of the downtown section of Lyon.  The complete circle of Lyon takes 1.5 hours and goes past all of the major sites.  The tour talks about the history of Lyon.  It was originally a major Roman settlement and there are several large Roman sites. After silk worms were smuggled out of China in 552 AD and brought to Lyon, Lyon became the center of silk manufacturing for Europe until the invention of artificial fibers such as nylon and rayon.  The spin off technologies from the silk industries lead to a large pharmacy and chemical industries in Lyon.   The city has had a lot of ups and downs in its long history.  The city has done a great job of melding the old with the modern and today it is a vibrant and exciting place.  Cranes dot the skyline but there are hundreds of sites where the historic buildings are under renovation.  

After we did the hop 0n- hop off tour we wandered out into the mall and ate sandwiches with beer from a vendor.  The Baggett stuffed with sun dried tomato, goat cheese, pickles and lettuce washed down with a beer was great.  The meal also came with a huge fig square.   It was great eating lunch and watching the people.

After lunch we took a tram tour which was a series of little carts hooked together.  This tour covered some of the same ground as the morning tour but went down a lot more of the extremely narrow and steeper streets that the bus could not access.  It took us deep into the silk workers area of town which in the Middle Ages would have been a pretty grim area.  

It was time to head home so we found the closest metro station and after a quick consult on the big map we were on our way back to the condo.  The metro is very fast clean and modern.  We really need to build more of this sort of infrastructure in our cities.

We arrived back at the condo just in time to enjoy a few beers with cheese and bread on the balcony.  Everyone laughed when I said I wasn’t going home but I was serious.

terry hot biker

May 26, 2019 Roanne to Lyon

Today was the easiest day of this week at 95 kms and 1050 m climb.  With check in to our Airbnb at 3:00 pm there was no real panic to get out of the hotel too early.  So when Ken, Bob and I rolled out of the hotel at 8:40 we were plenty early.   The morning chill was off and the sun was high enough that we could be seen by over taking motorists.   

Roanne is not a really big city so we were out of the city in no time and headed south.  The route was down a kind of busy road however being a Sunday morning there was very little traffic.   We were making good time even though the route was generally uphill.  At about the 15 km we turned off the main road and headed down some country lanes.  At about the 18 km mark we hit a section of newly applied chip seal.  Not the big rock variety but the small sharp angular kind which really tear up tires.  In addition all of the potholes were filled with loose rocks.  When you hit them it grabbed your tire and threatened to throw you over.  Fortunately it was only about 4 kms.  

Back on the main road we started the big climb of the day.  It was 15 km long and got steeper and steeper as we got closer to the summit which was at 38 kms.  The total climb was 410 meters.  By now the traffic had increased quite considerably.  While we were doing the climb our side of the road had a wide shoulder however after we reached the summit the shoulder was on the other side of the road.  There were a large number of motor cycles who were flying up the hill on the wrong side of the road passing cars as they went.  As there were cars passing us this meant the you had two cars, a motor cycle and us all side by side on a narrow two lane road.  It was a little disconcerting to say the least.  It looked like these motorcyclists were all weekend warriors out proving their manhood.  Fortunately the downhill section was only about 20 kms long and it went by quickly.

As it was now close to lunch we pulled into one of the large boulangier places which are really large cafes and specialize in serving lunch to tourists.  The classic ham on a baguette was lunch and we were on our way.

I had done a lot of work trying to figure a way into Lyon as it is a very big city and has a lot of traffic.  I had finally settled on coming through a light industrial section and winding down to the river on a bunch of back roads and lanes. This worked perfectly as it was a Sunday and everything was closed.  We had not seen a single car for maybe 10 minutes when some jerk driver buzzed Ken and then yelled at Bob and I.   It looked like he had been doing some ramming with his beat up old car as the front was all smashed up.  It was the one and only bad driver we have seen.  Absolutely every other driver stops and waves you through. The drivers here are so polite it is amazing.

Lyon is built at the fork of a river and we had to cross the first river and then the section between rivers and then the second river to get to our Airbnb apartment.  The section between the two rivers has huge tunnel under the city.  There are actually three tunnels, two for cars and one for bikes and pedestrians.  This tunnel is over 1.5 kms long and is an amazing piece of infrastructure.  It is lighted, has music and moving light shows which play along the walls. It was really quite an experience riding through there.  

After the tunnel we cruised down the bank of the far river to our apartment and found Agnes and Judy already checked in and they had everything under control.

This was a great ride day as is was sunny and warm the entire day.   This ends the second and by far hardest section of the tour.  I am looking forward to our two rest days and  touring Lyon and seeing some of the sites.

Terry