Bike Paths and Battlestar Gallicta

Just some random stuff today. Nothing too exciting going on, other than lab work. With all the emails flying recently about the Rose Bowl ride and cyclists in Pasadena, I thought I would share my own experience yesterday of getting yelled at by a French motorist. Most drivers here are incredibly courteous to cyclists, and most cyclists here almost completely ignore any sort of traffic sign or signal. If there aren't any cars, you're clear to go. But, I was riding down a wide road which leads to and from where the lab is, and a truck pulls up beside me, and the guy inside is furiously yelling and waving his hand at me. Now, his window was up so I couldn't hear what he was saying, and it's not like I would have understood it anyway, but the message was something like "You idiot! Get off the road! There is a bike lane right there! Use it!" Now, he may have had a valid point. There was a bike lane right up the curb, but I hate most bike paths for two reasons, and these apply to California, Minnesota, and France. First, I'm going faster than most people commuting, so riding on the bike bath is annoying. But secondly, and most importantly, is it impossible to make a smooth bike path? Is it really different thatn paving a road? Seriously, nearly every designated bike bath I have ridden on a road bike kills my butt and shoulders with the bumpiness and waviness. I'm suprised I haven't gotten sea sick.

On a final note, I downloaded the Battlestar Gallactica Miniseries from iTunes yesterday and watched them last night. Fantastic! I'm hooked, and will now need to buy the other seasons. I'm just contenplating whether I should buy them from iTunes or on DVD when I get home.

Later!

My Day in Paris

I now had sunday to kill before catching a 7:30pm train back to Grenoble. So, I got up at 6:15, and headed into Paris. I got off the train at Notre Dame and walked around there for a few minutes before getting on a different subway to go to the Eiffel Tower. I checked that out, walked to the Arc de Triumph, and then to the Champs Elysses, where I stopped and had breakfast. It was only 9:30am. Croissants and coffee....mmmm. A met a couple from Missouri who was nice enough to take my pic. I actually heard more English on sunday than French, plus lots of other languages, some of which I recognised and some I didn't. I proceeded to walk down the Champs Elysses and the Seine river to the Louvre, which, after seeing that entry was only 8.50 euros, I had to go in. I spent a couple hours in the Louvre, although it would be more deserving of a couple days, and say the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Mile, as well as many other artifacts, sculptures, and paintings. This is a great time for me to point out that I'm a crappy museum goer. I'm surrounded by all these famous works of art, and understand that great talent is required, but don't understand why the Mona Lisa is really that different from any of the other 35,000 works of art in the Louvre. After "finishing" the Louvre, I continued walking down the Seine river to Pont-Marie, which is a small island in the middle of the river where it widens. My French host, Alain, suggested I find a specific ice cream parlor here and have a scoop; so I did, and it was delicious! Praline Pecan, and it was the creamiest, butteriest and best Praline Pecan ice cream I have ever had. For those of you who find yourselves in Paris and want to experience some truly wonderful ice cream, it was called Bertillon. There are actually three locations on the island, but only one is a dedicated ice cream parlor. It's sort of in the middle of the island, and not one of the two places you see when you first walk onto the west side. (Just FYI). From here I walked to where the Bastille had been, then down to Place de La Nation, and trough some open air furniture market. It wasn't really my intent to shop for furniture, as I was looking for the Promenade Plantee, which is apparently a covered shopping area where Pariseans go. But, I never found it and was getting tired of walking. So, I started walking to the train station. Once I arrived, I found a crepe vendor, bought a Nutella and banana crepe (delicious!) and sat down after 8 hours of continuous walking. I hung out at the train statino for a few hours and then caught my train back to Grenoble. This also highlites why I am a crappy site seeer (Is that a word?). Now, I won't claim to have seen all of a Paris, but I hit many of the major tourist locations before lunch! I guess that just reinforces what I already knew...I like vacations where I go to do something. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time walking around and see all these things, but not something I would want to do for two weeks. Drinking coffee at any of the thousands of cafes or bars, that I could do for two weeks....if I only spoke French.

Paris Air Show 2007

Well, I finally have a few minutes in between measurements and actually feel like writing. This past weekend I had the opportunity to travel to Paris and attend the Paris Air Show. Let me start by saying, I'm an aviation nut. I've grown up with it, started taking lessons in high school, and got my pilots license as a freshman in college. Let me also preface the following by saying I'm a little bit of an air show snob, as I have seen literally close to 100 shows over the years. This was my first time attending an air show out of the country, and I have always heard how great the Paris Air Show and the Farnborough Air Shows were. The Farnborough and Paris shows occur on alternating years, and are the industry trade shows for the commercial and defense aviation industries. Basically, that means that there are lots of military jets and commercial airplanes on display and in the airshow, which was the reason I have always wanted to attend. Most air shows in the US are composed of many civilian acts (Extra 300, Waco, P-51, Wingwalkers, etc) which are cool in their own right, but often don't include many military demos that burn more than the required amount of kerosene. So, I got up at 4:00am on friday and caught the first tram (which was of course 6 minutes late, causing me to get a little worried as I had a tight connection at the station) to the Grenoble train station. The 3 hour train ride to paris was uneventful, and I slept a little more. Once there, I bought a delicious croissant (still warm) and an espresso (American coffee doesn't really exist) and caught the RER (regional train) to Le Bourget and the Le Bourget Airport, which is a northern suburb of Paris where the show is held. I had figured out ahead of time what trains I need to take to get there (and to my hotel) but didn't quite understand the ticketing system. As I later learned, tickets within paris are 1.40 euros, and more if you go further out. But, I bought a 1.40 euro ticket and got on the train to Le Bourget (the ticket should have cost more, but I did't know at the time. Fortunatly, I have never seen anyone check for tickets on any tram or metro rail system, although I hear it happens from time to time). I arrived at the Le Bourget stop, and took the Air Show shuttle the couple kilometers to the show. I walked this leg the three remaining times, as they were running the shuttles in series, and should have been running them in a parallel fasion to eliminate the 30 minute wait (not to mention when I tried to take the shuttle back on the first day, traffic was so bad that it took us an hour to move 6 blocks at which point I got off the bus and walked). I arrived at the show about 9:30am, presented my student ID and got in free. The weather wasn't great on friday, but held until lunch time. So, I spent the first couple hours walking around the static displays. Unfortunately, they had all the airplanes fenced off and I couldn't get very close them, something I'm used to being able to do from my many visits to the EAA Fly in in Oshkosh, WS (still the best aviation event in my opinion), but there were some cool planes such as the Airbus A380, Boeing 777, Dassault Rafael, Eurofighter Typhoon, Eurocopter, Piaggio Avantio P180 (one of my all time favorite airplanes), and a bunch of other stuff. After checking out the static displays, I bought a sandwich and headed into the exhibit buildings. Again, I'm used to the exhibit buildings at Oshkosh, where the booths are somewhat small and "no frills". Not so much here, and this is how you could definitely tell it was a trade show (read "about money"). The boothes were giant and extravagent, and many had privite rooms for business. In fact, most of the static displays had their own meeting rooms (that looked more like box seats at a sporting event) as well. As I happened to be walking around during lunch time, it was funny to see exhibitors drinking wine and champagne with their crackers, cheese, etc. Not a bad lunch, if you ask me. I didn't talk to any of the exhibitors, as there wasn't much for the general aviation finatic, but I did enjoy standing in the MiG and Sukoi booths, and seeing all the vendors who manufacture stuff for the defense and airline industries. Unfortunaly, it was now pouring, and I had to wait around for a while before going back outside. The rain let up just before 2pm when the flying program started. The ceilings were low, and it rained on and off (I spend much of the show under an overhang) so they had to modify the program, but it was still fun to see the military demos, which included A Mirage, Rafael, Eurocopter, Eurofighter, F-16, Su-35, the A380, and some other things. One of the best demos was of an Italian transport, the C-27J (of which the US military has purchased 70). This thing was really impressive; 8000 HP, it climbed and performed like a fighter. They even flewy a pass on knife edge! The SU-35 was also cool to see with its thrust vectoring capability. The show lasted until 4:30, and then I headed to the train station and caught the RER to my hotel, which was only 100 yards off the RER line, a few stops down. I lucked out with the hotel. Good location and a very nice room at a good price. I had dinner int he hotel restaurant and then went to bed. Saturday, I got up, caught the train back to Le Bourget, bought a couple croissants at one of the bakeries on the way to the show, and headed in. As I had already seen the static displays and the exhibit buildings, I decided to bay the 4 euros for a museum ticket. The museum was alright, but not spectacular. They have quite a nice display of pre WWI and WWI aircraft, and many of the plackards are written in English as well as French and German. One of my favorites read "During the war, a new type of combatant appeared: the aviator. For a lot of military chiefs, he inspired only limited confidence because, at least apparently, his induvidualism made him abhor discipline." After the museum, I bought a "hot dog" (which was really a foot long dog on baguette covered with some sort of real cheese, in comparison to the crappy liquid cheese we have in the states) and found a place on the two square meters of grass that existed for all 10,000 spectators (it was a terrible venue for an airshow) to sit, eat, and wait for the show. The weather was a little better on saturday, and the ceilings allowed for the normal show. It was basically the same program as friday, with the addition of an F-18 E and a few other things. I really appreicated the way the fighter pilots demoed the aircraft. Mostly, if the airplane was equipped with an after burner, it was used for the entire program. Shut it off? No way! We have extra fuel to burn. I love the smell of jet fuel! And seeing flame shoot out of anything is always cool. The Airbus A380 was also impressive, and upon takeoff, the pilot pulled back like he was in a fighter. It actually reminded me of watching a C-130 with JATO's. Very impressive. After the show (or most of the show, as I didn't care to see the Extra 300 performance, something I have seen dozens of times) I bought some groceries for dinner and headed back to my hotel where I proceed to eat, and and watch BBC world news until I went to sleep. I would have gone out and walked around, but I my hip was pretty sore from a little spill I had taken on my bike while riding to work in the rain on wednesday, and I opted to stay in. Thus ended my adventure at the Paris Air Show.
Overall Impressions:
Nice military demos, with lots of kerosene and afterburner
Definitely a trade show
Not a great venue for the public
Worth going once, but
Oshkosh is still FAR better.
I've posted picks on fotki and some videos on Facebook and YouTube.
ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnAdhasftKI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx4reVp-Zjk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgQoizmgzaU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EG6PcLw7WM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tzP-qX1ZMQ

Pics of Grenoble

Check out http://www.grenoblecycling.com/PhotoPage.htm for som great pics of the area.

Sunday's Ride

As I didn't get enought cycling or climbing on Saturday's ride, I decided I was going to gou out and ride again on Sunday. Actually, when I woke up, I wasn't really in a cycling mood, but what else was I going to do? I didn't have a gate access card so I couldn't go to work, I don't have a car so I can't really go anywhere, and I don't have internet access in my room so I wasn't going to browse the web. Hence, more croissant's and nutella for breakfast and then out the door. I had done a little searching online for where to ride in the area around Grenoble and came across on pretty decent site with a few nice routes. There is this nice "reginal park" called Parc Naturel Regional de Chartreuse bordering the north side of Grenoble, and there are a number of nice Col's encompassed by this area. So, on the recommendation of this website, that's where I headed. I wasn't sure how my legs were going to feel after saturday's epic ride and they were a little sluggish at first, but then came around and felt pretty good after I warmed up. I rode into the center of Grenoble and then North through La Tronche. This is where the climbing started. I knew it was going to be a tough day, as I had been up the first climb on a shorter ride and the website (http://www.grenoblecycling.com/the-Chartreuse-Route2.htm) I took the route from mentioned that the final ascent had sustained sections of 16%. So, I started up the 16 K stretch to the Col du Porte. This is a beautiful stretch of road that climbs at 8-10% right out of the center of Grenoble, through a number of towns, and finally summits in a beautiful are surrounded by a couple cafe's and lots of nice looking hiking trails. There were, again, lots of cyclist going up and coming down, not to mention quite a few hikers at the top. The descent down the backside was fast and fun, not to mention very pretty. There is one pic below of an old building that I believe was an ore processing facility. The picture doesn't do it justice, as it was probably 5 times as large as the part you can see, with buildings on both sides of the road. Clearly, not still used, but cool to see. After arriving in St. Laurent du-Pont, I made a wrong turn and accidently rode south instead of north. I figured this out about 25 minutes later (all climbing) and turned around. The return trip to St. laurent du Pont only took 15 minutes, and I was soon back on track heading north towards Entre-deux-Guiers and then east alont the Gorges du Guiers Vif river. After a little flat riding, I climbed into St Pierre d'Entremont, where I really wanted to stop for a crepe...but I didn't. I then turned south and the roads pitched up again as I approached the Col du Cucheron, maybe another 8 k of climbing. This, too, was very pretty, and there is a pic or two below looking up to the tunnel the road goes through. The descent down the backside of the Col du Cucheron was again, fast and fun, and at this point I was unsure whether or not I wanted to tackle my proposed final ascent up the steeps of the Col du Coq. But once I arrived at the appropriate turn and had only been riding for 4:10, I had to do it. The climb was 16 k long with the first two at 8-10%. The next two k were a little flatter, but then I turned onto what could have been considered 1 lane, out of repair, road and the grades kicked up. With the exception of a k or so near the top, the grades were pretty tough, but the scenery was awesome. In fact, near the top there was a ski area with some open pastures...a picture perfect scene. I didn't stop to take pictures, but I should have. I finally reached the top, and was quite happy to stop pushing a 39-25 at 45 rpm and 260 watts. I felt much better than I did when climbing Alpe d'Huez (as that was the my first long ride in a while), but a low cadence sure does a number on the ole legs. There is one pic below from the top of the Col du Coq. There were tons of hickers at the top, and as I started down the backside, it started to sprinkle. I was a little worried that it was going to be a cold and slippery trip down, but it quickly quit raining and cruised most of the way. The descent really was great, particularily after I got off the top sections and onto a little wider roads. As I was descending, all I could think think about was how fast Salvodelli would take all the tight switchbacks. I really did feel like a Euro pro...it was great. Finally, I arrived in the town of St. Nazaire les Eymes, crossed the freeway and headed southwest back home. 6:15 ride time (not including stops), 4000 calories, average cadence of 70! Ouch. ~7500 ft of elevation (not too bad there). Enjoy the pics.

The end of the mining building I mentiones
Yep, that's where I'm headed. Right through the rock.
Like I said. Very cool.
Ahhh, snow on the peaks looking south from the Col du Coq.
I was a little tired at the top, but you can see that there was lots of luch foliage going up and down the mountain. I, in fact, haven't been above the tree line yet. Ventoux????

Check out all the Pics at Fotki

http://public.fotki.com/jcmckeen/

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.

Looking into the vally on the way up.
At the top of my last summit of the day.