J.C. McKeen: Saturday's Ride

With the successful conclusion of my first week at CNRS, I decided to do a little cycling. I planned out a route for Saturday that I thought would take around six hours and give me a chance to see some of the beautiful area south of Grenoble. Come to think of it, there isn't really any area around Grenoble that isn't beautiful, and I think the pictures will reflect that. I rolled out of bed around 8am and had a delicious breakfast composed of a rasin filled croissant and a plain croissant covered in Nutella. In any case, after eating and taking my sweat time to get ready, I headed out in full PAA Pro kit. It took me about 25 minutes to get out of town, which was longer than it should have as I made some wrong turns in trying to find a better route than I took last weekend, but eventually made it. After getting to the south-east side of town, I started climbing (that's where I saw the high end bike shop that I'm going to hit up at some point) towards St. Martin d'Uriage. I really like this climb; the grade is a little less than going up the 2 and the road has a bike lane and climbs for a few miles. I then descended through Visille and rode northwest for a few k's before starting my southward trek. Upon turning south I began to climb again and did so for quite a while. I rode south along the river/lakes, which were beautiful, as the pics below reflect, and through numerous small towns eventually arriving in La Mure. At that point, I contiuned north on the otherside of the mountains I had just ridden through, riding through Aveillans and Laffrey. After descending through Laffrey, I came across a sign that said Alpe du Grande Serre 12k, and it was going up hill. At this point, I had been in the saddle for 4:10, and thought, do I really want to climb for 12k? Then the thought process was, "food..check, water...check, legs...check" (and they really were still feeling good), so like any good cyclist, I decided to start climbing with the intent of turning around when I got tired. Well, like any good cyclist, I climbed to the top at the Commune de la Morte. The last few pics looking over the city are from this ascent, and the last pic is from the top. Then, I decended back down the same way I had came, and rode the 12 or so K back to my apt. 93 miles, 4000 calories, 6:30 minutes, probably 10,000 ft of elevation. Not a bad day in the saddle. Then I took a nap, read some papers, bought groceries, had dinner, and went to bed. Enjoy the pics!

This was on the way out. The water was very pretty.
Lovin' it.