velotel
10-29-2017, 03:33 AM
Forecast for the weekend was for a change in the weather, cold air, probably some rain, possibly snow, as low as 1000 meters, the elevation I live at. Starting Friday with clouds and winds, Saturday sliding into wet and cold, Sunday the day rain and snow come in earnest. Bummer. Not unexpected obviously. This is the Alps, it’s late October, of course it’s going to get cold.
Still a bummer. I like getting high in the mountains. As in riding my bike up to 2000 meters or more when I can. But will settle for 1600, 1700 meters if that’s what’s happening. I’d been on a roll recently, bagging some fine rides that took me over 2200, 2300 meters. I was loving it. Gorgeous days, empty roads, discovering new-to-me dirt roads and single-tracks in crazy settings. The more I bagged, the more I wanted. And now the weather gods are shaking their heads at me, threatening to pull out that infernal red card.
Well damn! Only one thing to do. Get out and do another one before that bloody card floats down to land at my feet. Thursday was looking like the day. Still warm, blue skies, air calm.
Car time didn’t appeal to me. No particular reason, just how I was feeling. Except all the big highs mean car time. So do something local, across the valley from where I live, not high but I can get over 1400 meters, maybe over 1500 meters, with only 15, 20 minutes of drive time. A plan crept into place. Do Col du Barioz north side by the shortcut, the hard approach, then up the small road to the nordic ski station. That’ll get me just over 1400 meters. After that the series of dirt and rock tracks across the mountain to Pipay, part of the Prapoutel ski station. Done it twice this year, good fun, some sweet line-picking, all the time between 1400 and 1500 meters. Only downer is the whole distance is in a forest so views are only quick windows through the trees.
Or maybe check out that dirt road I remember seeing heading up from the nordic station. See where it goes, assuming it’s not too steep. If too steep or doesn’t go anywhere, turn around, do the track across the mountain.
The shortcut road to Barioz always puts the hurt to my legs. Even on good days when I hit it feeling fine, ready to crunch the grades. I spin the through the hamlet at the base, hit the first ramp, and oh man this damn thing is steep! Never fails. Didn’t fail Thursday either. Well, actually it did because I wasn’t harboring any illusions of power. Just rolled in knowing I’d be slow.
Lowest gear, spinning it out, enjoying the road. A laner-and-a-half, twisting over the contours, past stone houses weathered and settled into the landscape, past fields with cows chewing their cuds, legs curled underneath, gazing out at the views, another field with nice looking goats this time. A fine climb.
Join the regular road 3 K below the col. Two lanes and paint, a normal road. And no easier. Well, a little but by then my legs have a hard time telling the difference. Through a hamlet where there’s a fountain of sorts and a sign that says in effect that no one checks to see if the water is safe to drink or not but we all drink it anyway so go ahead and drink if you want but if you get sick it’s your own damn fault because you were told it’s not controlled. One of those cover-your-ass signs. I always fill-up there.
Half a K or so above the fountain a cyclist on a mission passes me. Fully lycraed out in some team colors, head down, hauling butt. Doing twice my pace, at least. Passes with a bon jour and small tsunami of wind whipping off his wheels. I keep pedaling without even a flutter of acceleration. I’d like to think I’m saving myself for the hard stuff up high, dirt roads he probably doesn’t even know exist, except I know damn well on a day way beyond my best and going at full throttle, he’d still drop me like I was riding flat tires with the brakes rubbing. Oh well.
The col is just a passage over a low ridge from one valley into another. Friggin good descent off the south side though. I go left, a dead-ender in the asphalt department so not popular with roadies. Good climb, 5,5 K, 400 vertical meters (1300 ft), 7% average, but harder than that. A flat section with a bit of downhill nicely camouflages sections slipping into double-digits. Boring road, hardly any views and those only brief windows in the forest. If not for the dirt roads up above I’d never ride this.
End of the pavement, large parking area full of cars, hikers probably but a few with bike racks so probably some mountain bikers up here too. A car with a mountain bike on a rack arrives as I’m circling, resting the legs. Then a van out of which come a young man and maybe his girlfriend and two mountain bikes. I head off, onto the dirt road I’d never done, past a gate, into the climb.
Turns out to be a joy of a dirt road. Relatively smooth, grades maybe high single-digits, traction excellent, lots of mountain bike tire tracks in the dirt. Big views out over the valley. I love it already and I’m barely into the climb. Turns out like that all the way up. A few sections of steepness but all short, then some lazy switchbacks followed by smooth traverses. Have to stop a few times for photos.
Around a switchback to the left and the grade goes limp and I’m on top of the ridge rolling onto a broad meadow. Beautiful. Photo stop. The three mountain bikers I saw in the parking go by. Two hundred meters further on the road ends at the Refuge du Crêt du Poulet, altitude around 1700 meters. Crêt du Poulet in english would be the cock’s cockscomb. Crêt is also a summit ridgeline, usually gentle on one side, abrupt on the other, Which is what the ridgeline above the meadow is. No idea where they came up with the cock though. Or at least I didn’t see anything resembling a cock’s head. Maybe I wasn’t high enough.
Time to drink, eat a pain chocolate, soak up the sun’s rays. Chat a bit with one of the mountain bikers who’s enchanted by my bike. He’s young, early twenty-something, Says it’s kind of like one of the old time mountain bikes. Hmmm, well, sort of I suppose, at least no suspension and I’m riding it on dirt trails. So yea, kind of an old-time mountain bike.
I watch some hikers on the far side of the meadow hiking up a trail of some sort. Doesn’t look too steep. Turns out that’s where the mountain bikers are heading. I watch them go then roll off. Yep, a trail, a double-track, first hill is steep but doable with my gearing, barely. If it had been longer I might have run out of steam. Cool trail, working its way along the ridge, curling around pockets of trees, up and over humps, down into a hollow with a small lake, around that, up another hill onto a rocky spur. All the time views that make concentrating on the trail a challenge.
Another small lake, actually they’re ponds, and small ones at that. Around that pond, into a small forest and straight at a long, steep hill. Way out of my gear range. Definite hike-a-bike for me. Check the time, okay, that’s enough, been 4 hours to here, even if I hike up it I’ll still just end up turning around not all that much further along. So, call it good, head back, Maybe at least an hour of nothing but downhill back to the valley floor.
Turns out to be 10 minutes less, 50 minutes to drop 1504 vertical meters (4934 ft), from 1747 meters to 243 meters in 22,4 K. That’s 50 minutes of going down. First 5 K on dirt, the rest blacktop. Top speed 60 kph. Could have gone faster down Barioz (hit over 80 another ride) but I was tired and just let the bike roll with never a tuck, never an effort.
Almost 25 years now I’ve been living and riding here and I’ll be go to hell, did something I’d never done before, didn’t even know it existed. Excellent. And there it was all those years right in front of me, assuming across the valley on the range of summits is right in front of me. Riding in France always amazes! So many roads, so many hills.
Now it’s Saturday, clear skies, cool but far from cold, tomorrow looking like more of the same. So much for that forecast. Still glad I looked at the weather because Thursday was indeed the best day of the week.
Still a bummer. I like getting high in the mountains. As in riding my bike up to 2000 meters or more when I can. But will settle for 1600, 1700 meters if that’s what’s happening. I’d been on a roll recently, bagging some fine rides that took me over 2200, 2300 meters. I was loving it. Gorgeous days, empty roads, discovering new-to-me dirt roads and single-tracks in crazy settings. The more I bagged, the more I wanted. And now the weather gods are shaking their heads at me, threatening to pull out that infernal red card.
Well damn! Only one thing to do. Get out and do another one before that bloody card floats down to land at my feet. Thursday was looking like the day. Still warm, blue skies, air calm.
Car time didn’t appeal to me. No particular reason, just how I was feeling. Except all the big highs mean car time. So do something local, across the valley from where I live, not high but I can get over 1400 meters, maybe over 1500 meters, with only 15, 20 minutes of drive time. A plan crept into place. Do Col du Barioz north side by the shortcut, the hard approach, then up the small road to the nordic ski station. That’ll get me just over 1400 meters. After that the series of dirt and rock tracks across the mountain to Pipay, part of the Prapoutel ski station. Done it twice this year, good fun, some sweet line-picking, all the time between 1400 and 1500 meters. Only downer is the whole distance is in a forest so views are only quick windows through the trees.
Or maybe check out that dirt road I remember seeing heading up from the nordic station. See where it goes, assuming it’s not too steep. If too steep or doesn’t go anywhere, turn around, do the track across the mountain.
The shortcut road to Barioz always puts the hurt to my legs. Even on good days when I hit it feeling fine, ready to crunch the grades. I spin the through the hamlet at the base, hit the first ramp, and oh man this damn thing is steep! Never fails. Didn’t fail Thursday either. Well, actually it did because I wasn’t harboring any illusions of power. Just rolled in knowing I’d be slow.
Lowest gear, spinning it out, enjoying the road. A laner-and-a-half, twisting over the contours, past stone houses weathered and settled into the landscape, past fields with cows chewing their cuds, legs curled underneath, gazing out at the views, another field with nice looking goats this time. A fine climb.
Join the regular road 3 K below the col. Two lanes and paint, a normal road. And no easier. Well, a little but by then my legs have a hard time telling the difference. Through a hamlet where there’s a fountain of sorts and a sign that says in effect that no one checks to see if the water is safe to drink or not but we all drink it anyway so go ahead and drink if you want but if you get sick it’s your own damn fault because you were told it’s not controlled. One of those cover-your-ass signs. I always fill-up there.
Half a K or so above the fountain a cyclist on a mission passes me. Fully lycraed out in some team colors, head down, hauling butt. Doing twice my pace, at least. Passes with a bon jour and small tsunami of wind whipping off his wheels. I keep pedaling without even a flutter of acceleration. I’d like to think I’m saving myself for the hard stuff up high, dirt roads he probably doesn’t even know exist, except I know damn well on a day way beyond my best and going at full throttle, he’d still drop me like I was riding flat tires with the brakes rubbing. Oh well.
The col is just a passage over a low ridge from one valley into another. Friggin good descent off the south side though. I go left, a dead-ender in the asphalt department so not popular with roadies. Good climb, 5,5 K, 400 vertical meters (1300 ft), 7% average, but harder than that. A flat section with a bit of downhill nicely camouflages sections slipping into double-digits. Boring road, hardly any views and those only brief windows in the forest. If not for the dirt roads up above I’d never ride this.
End of the pavement, large parking area full of cars, hikers probably but a few with bike racks so probably some mountain bikers up here too. A car with a mountain bike on a rack arrives as I’m circling, resting the legs. Then a van out of which come a young man and maybe his girlfriend and two mountain bikes. I head off, onto the dirt road I’d never done, past a gate, into the climb.
Turns out to be a joy of a dirt road. Relatively smooth, grades maybe high single-digits, traction excellent, lots of mountain bike tire tracks in the dirt. Big views out over the valley. I love it already and I’m barely into the climb. Turns out like that all the way up. A few sections of steepness but all short, then some lazy switchbacks followed by smooth traverses. Have to stop a few times for photos.
Around a switchback to the left and the grade goes limp and I’m on top of the ridge rolling onto a broad meadow. Beautiful. Photo stop. The three mountain bikers I saw in the parking go by. Two hundred meters further on the road ends at the Refuge du Crêt du Poulet, altitude around 1700 meters. Crêt du Poulet in english would be the cock’s cockscomb. Crêt is also a summit ridgeline, usually gentle on one side, abrupt on the other, Which is what the ridgeline above the meadow is. No idea where they came up with the cock though. Or at least I didn’t see anything resembling a cock’s head. Maybe I wasn’t high enough.
Time to drink, eat a pain chocolate, soak up the sun’s rays. Chat a bit with one of the mountain bikers who’s enchanted by my bike. He’s young, early twenty-something, Says it’s kind of like one of the old time mountain bikes. Hmmm, well, sort of I suppose, at least no suspension and I’m riding it on dirt trails. So yea, kind of an old-time mountain bike.
I watch some hikers on the far side of the meadow hiking up a trail of some sort. Doesn’t look too steep. Turns out that’s where the mountain bikers are heading. I watch them go then roll off. Yep, a trail, a double-track, first hill is steep but doable with my gearing, barely. If it had been longer I might have run out of steam. Cool trail, working its way along the ridge, curling around pockets of trees, up and over humps, down into a hollow with a small lake, around that, up another hill onto a rocky spur. All the time views that make concentrating on the trail a challenge.
Another small lake, actually they’re ponds, and small ones at that. Around that pond, into a small forest and straight at a long, steep hill. Way out of my gear range. Definite hike-a-bike for me. Check the time, okay, that’s enough, been 4 hours to here, even if I hike up it I’ll still just end up turning around not all that much further along. So, call it good, head back, Maybe at least an hour of nothing but downhill back to the valley floor.
Turns out to be 10 minutes less, 50 minutes to drop 1504 vertical meters (4934 ft), from 1747 meters to 243 meters in 22,4 K. That’s 50 minutes of going down. First 5 K on dirt, the rest blacktop. Top speed 60 kph. Could have gone faster down Barioz (hit over 80 another ride) but I was tired and just let the bike roll with never a tuck, never an effort.
Almost 25 years now I’ve been living and riding here and I’ll be go to hell, did something I’d never done before, didn’t even know it existed. Excellent. And there it was all those years right in front of me, assuming across the valley on the range of summits is right in front of me. Riding in France always amazes! So many roads, so many hills.
Now it’s Saturday, clear skies, cool but far from cold, tomorrow looking like more of the same. So much for that forecast. Still glad I looked at the weather because Thursday was indeed the best day of the week.