velotel
12-30-2016, 04:25 PM
or at least giving them a serious push, the bench mark totally personal, as in what I can ride on the Stoner Bike (I know, totally obnoxious but what the hell, I love putting stoner bike in caps, the bike is so friggin awesome it deserves caps). Somebody else – stronger, younger, more skilled - would have totally killed what I worked my butt off to ride but guaranteed he or she would still have been blowing up the bench marks on what a Stoner Bike can ride. It was that kind of ride.
Also my last serious foray for oh-sixteen. My legs are toast, nothing more to give this year. Not a bad way to wrap this puppy up, 58 K (36 miles – a bit short when put like that!) with almost 1800 vertical meters of climbing (5900 ft – oh yea, I like that in feet, starting to sound impressive).
The numbers don’t even begin to tell the story. Like that 14 of the 58 were on dirt and of those 14 K, 6 were pure single-track. And then there’s the climbing bit that featured one heck of a lot of sustained steepness, all on dirt. The black stuff climbing was all mostly easy. And finally there’s that we were way the hell and gone out there and not at all sure where in the heck we were. I mean roughly, yea, definitely knew where we were. What we didn’t know was how we were going to get to where we wanted to get, before the sun disappeared. As in there were moments when a reasonable person might have started having doubts about what in the heck we were doing. Fortunately no one reasonable was along for the adventure.
Then there was this tunnel that is like a K long and effectively unlit, or at least barely lit, like the lighting consists of small lights mounted on the walls at various intervals. They don’t actually light-up anything, just let you know they’re there. Otherwise this sucker is pitch black.
The tunnel wasn’t a surprise. Not this time. The first time, totally. That was the day of my 70th birthday, the big ride with my son Mat, and two good friends, Sylvain and Max. Almost two years ago. We came storming into the tunnel carrying major speed and suddenly, blam, lights out, visibility not even a vague suggestion. So I knew there was going to be this tunnel and had definitely given the idea of bringing a light along major thought. And then totally forgot in the morning.
So while Sylvain (who’d been on the ride before and had also forgotten to bring his light) and Cédric were messing around with their telephones that are equipped with some sort of flash light, I just rode through the tunnel, following the lines (one on each wall) of lights, hoping like hell there weren’t any stones or broken car parts or whatever on the roadway because guaranteed I’d never have seen them. Also hoping like hell there wasn’t any ice on the road because it was friggin cold as the proverbial whatever in there. I’m talking riding through a damn freezer already!
But the cold in the tunnel was nothing compared to what we hit in the gorge after the tunnel! This puppy would have made the North Pole jealous! And there we were on our bikes! Talk about nuts. On the other hand it was seriously gorgeous in there with hoar frost generously coating anything it could grab onto. Which was pretty much everything. Unfortunately I was so damn cold that stopping to take pics was mission adamantly refused. So only one pic, shot when I stopped after exiting the tunnel to put on all the clothes I hadn’t bothered putting on earlier.
I’d been thinking about this ride for awhile, like since my birthday ride. I wanted to do the road to Col de Boulc because I didn’t haul my camera along on that day and I wanted some shots of that rather cool little col that hardly anyone’s heard of. I also wanted to explore this valley upstream from the gorge of ice. I’d seen pics of some striking rock formations up that valley and had this suspicion that some fun options could be done by bike out of the valley. Like maybe up and over the ridge and around and back to the Col de Grimone.
So I studied various maps and spent time on Google Earth attempting to see if something cool could be done with a fat-tired road bike. The potential was definitely there but, with my Stoner Bike, could be tricky. Like maybe so tricky that I’d just be doing a long hike-a-bike! Fact of the matter was that figuring out if it was ridable by looking at maps and looking at Google Earth was pretty much impossible. The only way to know was to go.
Which is how Sylvain and his friend Cédric and I ended up riding up this steep dirt road under these impressive climbing crags. For unknown reasons they’d bought into my idea of checking out this valley to see what we could do. So we’d stop from time to time and I’d dig out my map and Cédric and I would look at it while Sylvain was trying to see something on the map on his phone. There was definitely a trail up on the mountain to our right and said trail definitely went around the mountain and eventually back to the Col de Grimone road, the one we rode over to start the ride. Whether it was ridable or not remained a total mystery.
We got to the base of the climbing crags where there was a trail heading up the mountain in the direction we wanted. Unanimous decision, that wasn’t the one we wanted. Too low down the valley. There was another one further up the valley. Back on the bikes, back into climbing mode. Friggin road was steep!
Got to the trailhead. Checked the map again. Unanimous decision, let’s try it. Could be a hike-a-bike but couldn’t be all that long. Off we went. Brutal. Simple as that. But only because Sylvain riding a cross bike and me on the Stoner Bike didn’t have low enough gearing. Cédric was on his mountain bike with classic low mountain gearing and off he went, on the bike, having a ball. I’d ride until I was about to die then stop and drape myself over the bike gasping for air. Sylvain was smarter; he just headed off afoot while I kept stubbornly getting back on the bike and heading off once again. I’m a slow learner.
The trail was fantastic. Most of the time amazingly smooth, just steep but not desperately steep, just steady steep. On a really steep sidehill. Like falling downhill was not advised. Cédric rode all of it. Hit the ground a couple of times apparently but just got back on and kept going. Super fit guy and a damned good bike rider. Not having the low gears was frustrating as hell because I knew that the Stoner Bike was totally capable of cleaning the trail all the way up. Well, maybe a couple of spots might not have been doable. At least by me.
Actually a lot of it would have been a bitch for me to ride because ever since I lost most of the vision in my left eye, my sense of balance has gone all screwy plus I have a crazy hard time seeing anything when it’s all shadows and sunlight. But outside of that the trail was totally doable with a stoner bike, no question about it.
And then we hit it, the trail we knew was there, the one that does this long angling traverse up across the mountain. We could have gotten on it by continuing up the valley but the trail we did instead cut off a huge chunk of the distance. Plus it turned out to be one very cool trail. The new one was way wider and most of the time much easier.
So now we’re boogieing along up this trail, covering ground at a proper rate, which was good because the sun was well on its way to the west. We pop over the top of the ridge et voilà, we hit a chemin, a forest road for loggers and sheepherders. Naturally we start thinking we’re home free. Not even close. The chemin starts climbing up into a huge basin. We head up it and keep looking out into the basin trying to see if there’s a trail traversing it. We get to a trailhead, narrow trail heading down. Looks doubtful. We keep going up the chemin, to take a look. Nope, that’s definitely not the way. Back to the trail.
Major surprise, maybe even the gift of the day. Drops down off the chemin steep and narrow but only for a moment then it starts this long, twisting, traverse through a thick forest of trees and shrubs. The trail’s so tight and the shrubs so thick that most of the time we can’t see more than a few meters in front, if that. In fact sometimes we’d just bang into branches and as soon as we did we’d see the trail ahead. And the damn thing was totally ridable! Okay, I have to say no, I didn’t ride all of it. Between being half blind half the time from the sun coming in at the worst angle for me and my lousy sense of balance, I struggled a lot. Rode most of it but my style sucked. What can I say. Cédric and Sylvain I think killed it. I mean they were long gone.
And bang, the trail exits the woods and up into this wide basin swept clean of trees by avalanches pouring off the heights way above. An amazing trail, totally ridable, no question, even I rode most of it, and by then I was whipped. Then it gently angled up the slope on the far side of the basin and around the ridge and with that we’re heading downhill. Lot of rocks in this section that put me on my feet. Figured the last thing I wanted to do up here was crash onto one of ‘em. So when in doubt I hoofed it.
By now the lighting was turning the slopes this red/orange that was electric to look at. Which meant we were in a bit of race to get back to the car before the sun set. And of course at that point we didn’t know where we were, at least exactly. Other than on a smooth and fast looking chemin. There was one going up, one heading off straight ahead, and a trail heading down with a sign for Grimone. I said straight ahead, has to be what we want. I spent so much time staring at Google Earth that I was positive that was the direction even if the sign said otherwise. Besides, I was so tired by then that I’d do anything to minimize our climb back up to the Col de Grimone.
The chemin did the trick, deposited us right on the switchback just above the steep section of the highway, 2,5 K and 110 vertical meters below the col. From there we were home free! A fast run to the col followed by a ripping fast descent to the car. Plus a gorgeous sunset on the mountains. Perfect! Hell of a way to wrap the year, even if I do say so myself.
Also my last serious foray for oh-sixteen. My legs are toast, nothing more to give this year. Not a bad way to wrap this puppy up, 58 K (36 miles – a bit short when put like that!) with almost 1800 vertical meters of climbing (5900 ft – oh yea, I like that in feet, starting to sound impressive).
The numbers don’t even begin to tell the story. Like that 14 of the 58 were on dirt and of those 14 K, 6 were pure single-track. And then there’s the climbing bit that featured one heck of a lot of sustained steepness, all on dirt. The black stuff climbing was all mostly easy. And finally there’s that we were way the hell and gone out there and not at all sure where in the heck we were. I mean roughly, yea, definitely knew where we were. What we didn’t know was how we were going to get to where we wanted to get, before the sun disappeared. As in there were moments when a reasonable person might have started having doubts about what in the heck we were doing. Fortunately no one reasonable was along for the adventure.
Then there was this tunnel that is like a K long and effectively unlit, or at least barely lit, like the lighting consists of small lights mounted on the walls at various intervals. They don’t actually light-up anything, just let you know they’re there. Otherwise this sucker is pitch black.
The tunnel wasn’t a surprise. Not this time. The first time, totally. That was the day of my 70th birthday, the big ride with my son Mat, and two good friends, Sylvain and Max. Almost two years ago. We came storming into the tunnel carrying major speed and suddenly, blam, lights out, visibility not even a vague suggestion. So I knew there was going to be this tunnel and had definitely given the idea of bringing a light along major thought. And then totally forgot in the morning.
So while Sylvain (who’d been on the ride before and had also forgotten to bring his light) and Cédric were messing around with their telephones that are equipped with some sort of flash light, I just rode through the tunnel, following the lines (one on each wall) of lights, hoping like hell there weren’t any stones or broken car parts or whatever on the roadway because guaranteed I’d never have seen them. Also hoping like hell there wasn’t any ice on the road because it was friggin cold as the proverbial whatever in there. I’m talking riding through a damn freezer already!
But the cold in the tunnel was nothing compared to what we hit in the gorge after the tunnel! This puppy would have made the North Pole jealous! And there we were on our bikes! Talk about nuts. On the other hand it was seriously gorgeous in there with hoar frost generously coating anything it could grab onto. Which was pretty much everything. Unfortunately I was so damn cold that stopping to take pics was mission adamantly refused. So only one pic, shot when I stopped after exiting the tunnel to put on all the clothes I hadn’t bothered putting on earlier.
I’d been thinking about this ride for awhile, like since my birthday ride. I wanted to do the road to Col de Boulc because I didn’t haul my camera along on that day and I wanted some shots of that rather cool little col that hardly anyone’s heard of. I also wanted to explore this valley upstream from the gorge of ice. I’d seen pics of some striking rock formations up that valley and had this suspicion that some fun options could be done by bike out of the valley. Like maybe up and over the ridge and around and back to the Col de Grimone.
So I studied various maps and spent time on Google Earth attempting to see if something cool could be done with a fat-tired road bike. The potential was definitely there but, with my Stoner Bike, could be tricky. Like maybe so tricky that I’d just be doing a long hike-a-bike! Fact of the matter was that figuring out if it was ridable by looking at maps and looking at Google Earth was pretty much impossible. The only way to know was to go.
Which is how Sylvain and his friend Cédric and I ended up riding up this steep dirt road under these impressive climbing crags. For unknown reasons they’d bought into my idea of checking out this valley to see what we could do. So we’d stop from time to time and I’d dig out my map and Cédric and I would look at it while Sylvain was trying to see something on the map on his phone. There was definitely a trail up on the mountain to our right and said trail definitely went around the mountain and eventually back to the Col de Grimone road, the one we rode over to start the ride. Whether it was ridable or not remained a total mystery.
We got to the base of the climbing crags where there was a trail heading up the mountain in the direction we wanted. Unanimous decision, that wasn’t the one we wanted. Too low down the valley. There was another one further up the valley. Back on the bikes, back into climbing mode. Friggin road was steep!
Got to the trailhead. Checked the map again. Unanimous decision, let’s try it. Could be a hike-a-bike but couldn’t be all that long. Off we went. Brutal. Simple as that. But only because Sylvain riding a cross bike and me on the Stoner Bike didn’t have low enough gearing. Cédric was on his mountain bike with classic low mountain gearing and off he went, on the bike, having a ball. I’d ride until I was about to die then stop and drape myself over the bike gasping for air. Sylvain was smarter; he just headed off afoot while I kept stubbornly getting back on the bike and heading off once again. I’m a slow learner.
The trail was fantastic. Most of the time amazingly smooth, just steep but not desperately steep, just steady steep. On a really steep sidehill. Like falling downhill was not advised. Cédric rode all of it. Hit the ground a couple of times apparently but just got back on and kept going. Super fit guy and a damned good bike rider. Not having the low gears was frustrating as hell because I knew that the Stoner Bike was totally capable of cleaning the trail all the way up. Well, maybe a couple of spots might not have been doable. At least by me.
Actually a lot of it would have been a bitch for me to ride because ever since I lost most of the vision in my left eye, my sense of balance has gone all screwy plus I have a crazy hard time seeing anything when it’s all shadows and sunlight. But outside of that the trail was totally doable with a stoner bike, no question about it.
And then we hit it, the trail we knew was there, the one that does this long angling traverse up across the mountain. We could have gotten on it by continuing up the valley but the trail we did instead cut off a huge chunk of the distance. Plus it turned out to be one very cool trail. The new one was way wider and most of the time much easier.
So now we’re boogieing along up this trail, covering ground at a proper rate, which was good because the sun was well on its way to the west. We pop over the top of the ridge et voilà, we hit a chemin, a forest road for loggers and sheepherders. Naturally we start thinking we’re home free. Not even close. The chemin starts climbing up into a huge basin. We head up it and keep looking out into the basin trying to see if there’s a trail traversing it. We get to a trailhead, narrow trail heading down. Looks doubtful. We keep going up the chemin, to take a look. Nope, that’s definitely not the way. Back to the trail.
Major surprise, maybe even the gift of the day. Drops down off the chemin steep and narrow but only for a moment then it starts this long, twisting, traverse through a thick forest of trees and shrubs. The trail’s so tight and the shrubs so thick that most of the time we can’t see more than a few meters in front, if that. In fact sometimes we’d just bang into branches and as soon as we did we’d see the trail ahead. And the damn thing was totally ridable! Okay, I have to say no, I didn’t ride all of it. Between being half blind half the time from the sun coming in at the worst angle for me and my lousy sense of balance, I struggled a lot. Rode most of it but my style sucked. What can I say. Cédric and Sylvain I think killed it. I mean they were long gone.
And bang, the trail exits the woods and up into this wide basin swept clean of trees by avalanches pouring off the heights way above. An amazing trail, totally ridable, no question, even I rode most of it, and by then I was whipped. Then it gently angled up the slope on the far side of the basin and around the ridge and with that we’re heading downhill. Lot of rocks in this section that put me on my feet. Figured the last thing I wanted to do up here was crash onto one of ‘em. So when in doubt I hoofed it.
By now the lighting was turning the slopes this red/orange that was electric to look at. Which meant we were in a bit of race to get back to the car before the sun set. And of course at that point we didn’t know where we were, at least exactly. Other than on a smooth and fast looking chemin. There was one going up, one heading off straight ahead, and a trail heading down with a sign for Grimone. I said straight ahead, has to be what we want. I spent so much time staring at Google Earth that I was positive that was the direction even if the sign said otherwise. Besides, I was so tired by then that I’d do anything to minimize our climb back up to the Col de Grimone.
The chemin did the trick, deposited us right on the switchback just above the steep section of the highway, 2,5 K and 110 vertical meters below the col. From there we were home free! A fast run to the col followed by a ripping fast descent to the car. Plus a gorgeous sunset on the mountains. Perfect! Hell of a way to wrap the year, even if I do say so myself.