versailles + font

Versailles.

Generally known for a big castle, its garden and the thousands of people that visit it every day, we decided to go there for the slightly less popular singletrack.

There wasnt much, but it was quality. Leafy, flowy tracks cut up the regularity of the radial forrest roads that are such a defining feature of the forrests around here.

After the ride it was a short roll into Versailles for lunch and then hop the train back in to Paris.

Saturday/Sunday we spent rolling around the beautiful Foret de Fontainebleau. With our climbing shoes left back in Aus, the boulders were safe from a demolishing, but we still managed to barefoot our way up some problems throughout the weekend.

Saturday we spent exploring the Rocher Canon area, SW of Bois-le-Roi, and camped there overnight in a wee amphitheatre of boulders.

Sunday morning we rolled through the forrest into Barbizon for breaky, and then back in to the forrest eastwards to Cuvier. Listed on bleau.info as having 422 boulders sub-7, and 173 boulders at 7a and harder, this was more like font!

Po, above, has just rolled in to the Cuvier area. Smooth, clean landings. Font boulders. Beauty.

Me, below, with my 5.10 barefooters on.

paris in the 14e

for this month we've ditched the panniers, the bikes, the hills, the lycra and the tent, and we've got ourselves an apartment, a school, velibs, a pair of thongs and some trousers.

yep, we're subletting joe's apartment while he's back in Aus on holidays for the month of August. its a fit little 2 beddy, on the second floor of an apartment on reille avenue in the 14th arrondissement [about 100m from parc montsouris]. i bought a 12euro pair of runners and we're running a lot in the park, or over the road in the cite universitaire's park.

po and i have both enrolled at alliance francais for 3 weeks of language school [which is the reason why we're here]. po is doing 'intensive' [5 afternoons a week], while im slacking off and doing 'extensive' [3 mornings a week], and its been pretty rad so far. po's been meeting me after my classes with baguette and cheese for a pique-nique lunch in the courtyard, and after po's classes we've been getting out and catching some of the festivities that are happening as part of the summer festival; antibalas afrobeat orchestra, open air cinemas, random african street jams, pong-pong tournaments and wine drinking.

we're starting to explore outside the city a bit now aswell. yesterday i went for a ride down to roughly fontainebleau and back for a bit of a blat. this weekend we'll watch andy in l'hexagonal, etape 3, his last race before he and rosie head back to aus. next weekend we'll be muscling it up some problems in le foret de fontainebleau ala ben moon [albeit bare-footed], and then the weekend after we'll hopefully head north of Paris to see whats there.

update on the state of my ring[s]

ah yeah, thanks for reminding me mikey, unfortunately the granny has been getting quite the workout [sorry jen!]. i cant quite imagine doing 20+km ascents at 12+% without one!

end of the tour

on the eve of stage 17 it was time to hit the road. a quick blat down the pavement and we were being swarmed by unfriendly roadies, signaling our arrival at Le Bourg d'Oisans, the town at the base of the hill from Alpe d'Huez. we pitched our tent just down hill from bend 7; crazy dutchy corner equipped with pub, discotech and polkerdot-mini-bike.

we watched the race the next day from bend 1, the last hairpin before the finish, and it was pretty heart breaking to see Sastre powering up the hill with such a huge lead over Cadel and the other troopers. anyway, its meant we havent had to break our asses in getting back to Paris for todays final stage!

after Alpe d'Huez it was time for some cols. firstly Col du Glandon, which this pic is looking towards. we camped at the end of this lake, just before the col as the spot was just too good to ride past. the next morning coffee was only a few minutes away at the conveniently placed bar just before the col itself. not bad.

after the col, it was downhill with views over to Mont Blanc [a bit faint in this photo], down to La Chambre for an early lunch and then the most hot-arsed slog to the top of the next one, col de la Madeline at about 2000m [next pic].

we've got a bit of a thing going with Haribo's over here. they tend to feature quite predominantly on our up hill rides so we've started thanking the empty packets at the top.

and now we're lazing away in a campground just out side Albertville. we caught yesterdays final time trial of the tour in a bar in town and have been lazing it up today, soaking in the sun and getting ready for our return train to Paris, probably tomorrow.

good work blairy and matty [and barnesy!] on the transalp!

hilly bits

we have just managed some amazing days riding through some real hills. firstly a few days through the Pyrenees, following stage 11 of Le Tour. It took us 2 days to cover the route from Lannemezan to Foix. The second days category 1 climb over Col de Portel was luckily overcast and misty so we could happily spin our way to the top without overheating. and the view from the top was probably amazing!

the wildlife here is pretty threatening. this dude probably has the best job on le tour circuit.. fanging around in a furry lion go kart. he doesnt do too bad for speed either; certainly keeping up with the giant wheely bins no problem. it'll be an awesome sight to see this guy struggling up alpe d'huez in just a couple days time!

after a train ride from Foix to Toulouse (and a day hanging out by the river in Toulouse), we boarded another train to Valence. from here it was a beautiful 2 day ride to Grenoble through the Gorges de la Bourne area, although it was a pretty hard slog. the gradient wasnt too steep, but it did go on for 30km, and the day was still and about 35°.

anyway, we're now in Grenoble, surrounded by stunning hills, and getting ready to ride to Alpe d'Huez to for the 17th stage on wednesday. should be a winner!