Gastrobiking

No wonder the garden's such a mess

After cleaning my bike this morning the plan was to spend the afternoon tidying the garden but I thought I would go for a quick spin before I started, something short like St Jean and Pont.

I think I took a wrong turn somewhere - there are so many road closures for various reasons at the moment that the signposting gets rather confusing.

Which way now?

I soon found myself climbing Combe Laval and, once at the Col de la Machine, I thought the views from the Col de la Chau over the Grand Veymont would be nice so headed in that direction, only to find the road closed where they are rebuilding the bridge.

Work had obviously been put on hold because of strike action and snow so I managed to sneak through.  It looked rideable ....

until I got round the corner.

So I turned round and went over the Col de Carri where it was 2°.

Down the Goulets and into Pont where they are digging up the road (as is the case in most villages around here at the moment).  So I took a slight detour down by the river which didn't do my average speed any good but the views were nice.

 

Having hardly ridden our mountain bikes all summer, we had a really fun afternoon out on them in the Vercors last Sunday.  The day before was a long one in the Beaufort region (riding the Cormet de Roselend amongst others) so it was a cloudy Sunday afternoon by the time we set off from Lente.  Despite the lack of sun, the autumn colours did not disappoint. It's a time of year I love.  We rode over to Chaud Clapier and Font d'Urle and then back via the Col de Carri. 

I could post 101 pictures of various shades of trees but we'll leave it there for now.

On Thursday we went back to the Beaufort region, this time with our mountain bikes - there seemed to be a ton of great tracks when we were there on Saturday so a couple of hours in the car to the other side of Albertville and we were climbing high above the cloud up to the Col du Coin at 2400m.  It was a short ride, only 42kms, but an intense and memorable one, both in terms of spectacular scenery and weather - thick cloud, an amazing inversion and a dicey off-road descent through thick fog back to the car.  The Col du Coin is the most surprising of cols - a hike to the top where you balance precariously on a thin ridge, admire the views in both directions and scramble down the other side.  Having missed out on the views on the descent, it's one we'll definitely go back and do again.