Gastrobiking

Snow biking

We went to some friends of Sophs in Pont en Royans for dinner last night and were very well looked after. Alain took me to select a bottle of wine from his wine cellar which consisted of a garage lined on 3 sides with over 1000 bottles of wine, the oldest dating from 1922.  We left late, with a gift of a bottle of rosé champagne, which meant we got up too late to go skiing in the Vercors so we went mountain biking in the snow instead.  Just as good.

Biking in Boffres

Whilst at work yesterday I had a sudden hankering for two things: to eat chicken and prunes such as my mum used to make during our long summer holidays in Morocco and to go mountain biking in the Ardèche.  On the way home from work, I picked up the chicken and left dinner to cook slowly whilst I went out for a run and then back to work for an evening lesson. Much later, after the chicken, an episode of Desperate Housewives and production of 8 jars of mincemeat, I sat down to work out where to go in the Ardéche today.  We ended up at Boffres, the other side of Valence, easy to get to and with a number of permanent randonnée routes marked out.

The temperature was hovering around 1°c at about 700m altitude when we arrived and barely improved on that all afternoon.  So we did what we're good at, found a warm café and drank hot chocolate before braving the unrelenting wind.  We needn't have worried though - once out, we soon warmed up, sheltered as we were in the forest and with lots of climbing.  The afternoon reminded me once again why we are spending more time on our mtbs and very little time road biking this winter - stay much warmer, have much more fun.

Today was first time it has felt wintry and I loved it: cold air rushing against the face, tingling finger tips, hot chocolates, home-made salmon chowder this evening, a roaring fire and cuddles with the cats.  Really, what is there not to like?

Chusclan randonnee

Another mtb randonnee today, this time out of Chusclan, a little village in the Gard, a 90- minute drive to the south of us.  We were treated to summer temperatures, sunshine and blue skies, miles of singletrack, 1500 m of climbing, great views over Ventoux, ample food and wine at the 3 ravitaillements, more food and wine at the end and a bottle of local wine to take home.

Here's some of the action

Le toboggan des Chambarans

We met up with Guy from King of the Mountains today to do a 48 km mountain bike randonnée, organised annually by the Saint Simeon de Bressieux Cycling Club.  It starts in St Simeon, which is a few kms west of Grenoble airport and heads up towards La Forteresse and the Col de Toutes Aures, before going in the direction of Roybon and home through the Chambaran forest.  We missed out on the views we normally expect from over that way because of the typically British conditions at the beginning - low cloud, fog and lots of mud.

The organisers were delighted by our participation, which they thought gave an international feel to their event and, as is always the case with randonnées, as much fun was had at the ravitos as on the ride itself.  For a number of reasons .. latish start, lots of chatting, lots of eating, and a case of severe chain suck .. we were the last to return, by which time everything was being packed away.  Three chairs were hastily set out for us and hot dogs and vin chaud served by a posse of waiting club members. 

Phil has done a little video of the day.

Autumn

We're in the middle of a longish period of anti-cyclonic weather here, conditions which have been fantastic for cycling and have set off perfectly the amazing autumn colours in the Vercors and around.  Laurence has been here before in October and only managed a couple of days riding in the Vercors.  This year, however, we have headed up almost every day for a feast of cycling and photography; Laurence alone took over 1000 pictures during his week here, each day the weather and the colours seeming to surpass the previous one.  We topped the week off with a fun outing to the Grenoble 6 Day track cycling.

Sorry for the abundance of pictures below.  I'll eventually sort out some more to put in an album.

Venturing over to the Other Side

We've been spending the last few days getting acquainted with our new mountain bikes and some of the tracks around here and in the Vercors; I already have numerous bruises, cuts and scratches to show for it.  The furthest afield we've gone so far was yesterday's extreme off-road bike / hike up to Presles and around the Coulmes forest over to Rencurel.  Other than that, it's all been local tracks over to St Jean, towards the abbey, around La Sone, St Romans, Beauvoir.  There are so many tracks we never knew existed; now we have suitable bikes, we'll probably spend most of our winter trying to get to know them.

Here are a few excerpts of some video we have taken.

A fruitful weekend

This year has been a bumper year for fruit; cherries, apricots, melons, peaches -we've been eating them in abundance.  At the moment when out riding we're being taunted by the blackberry bushes, urging us to stop riding, get off the bikes and start eating.  We had a free afternoon on Saturday so decided to combine a bike ride with some blackberrying. We thought we would go and check out the road up to Chatelus and then head over towards Montagne.  We donned old cycle wear and filled our backpacks with old (empty) ice cream punnets and extra bags in case we got lucky and headed off.

As it turned out, the blackberrying / biking balance was somewhat unbalanced in favour of the blackberrying as we didn't get any further than Chatelus, where we discovered more than enough berries to keep us happy for the rest of the afternoon.  After a couple of hours, we had filled all our containers and a bag and reluctantly headed home, knowing that there were still loads of bushes untouched.

Sunday was a gorgeous day and we wanted more biking and more blackberrying but thought it best to keep them separate.  So, after a quick blast up to Col de la Bataille in the morning, we spent the afternoon scrambling up the side of the mountain to fill another 6 punnets.  Balancing on the side of a mountain, leaning into a prickly bush, deciding which way would be the best to fall in case of loss of balance, trying not to drop the contents of a punnet in one hand whilst stretching out with the other to reach the perfect bunch just a few centimetres out of reach is such good fun in itself, without the added bonus of the kilos of fruit to enjoy.  We look as though we've gone 3 rounds with a cat stuck in a cat box, but it was still good fun.

So far, I've made some jam and I've frozen lots, which will bring back memories of sunny September days when in the midst of winter.  There are still some in the fridge awaiting their assignement.

Oh, and I also made an apple and blackberry tray bake that I found on the blog of a fellow advocate of cake-eating.

Waiting for a rainy day

Phil's been waiting for a rainy day to sort through some photographs, but we haven't had any for quite a while.  So, before they get copied onto CDs and buried under a pile of chocolate wrappers never to be seen again, I thought I should do something with some of them, even if that something isn't very inventive.  Three days of cycling in Italy .... three little videos with some pictures. 

Mad dogs and Englishmen

When we left the café in Die town centre today to go and fill up our water bottles, I took a look down at the temperature on my computer to see if was as hot as it felt.  I had just moved my bike from the shade to the sun so the reading started going up quickly.  

We didn't hang around to see where it stopped; we had a 20 km south-facing-with-no-shade climb to go and do.  Fortunately, the climb was the Rousset and the gradient is very kind; had it been Alpe d'Huez on the day of the Marmotte the heat probably would have got the better of me and I would have melted away to a pile of cycling clothes left by the side of the road.

When we arrived home this afternoon, Mme Marquet was outside watering her flowers. She took one look at me and told us we should go out at 8 in the morning.  'We did' we replied, to which she wandered off, shaking her head, no doubt muttering something about mad English cyclists.

Ecouges

After riding his 11 kg Orbea all year (which he loves), Phil finally got around to making up his Look yesterday and was keen to try it out today and see how he would fare on some hills on a 39 - 23.

We went up towards Presles, through the tunnels onto the Plateau and then turned right before we got to the village intending to go to the Col de Pra l'Etang.  At the last minute we changed our mind and turned off onto a shaded forest road with a perfect gradient which brought us out at the Col de Mont Noir.  The roads through the forests around Presles are pretty bumpy but we like the fact that we didn't see a car or a person our whole time up there so don't mind a few bumps.

The café at the Col de Romeyère was closed so we missed out on a coffee and a waffle and headed straight back down the Ecouges.  We hadn't been up there since before the road collapsed last year; the tunnel option had never been that appealing.  We took lights today but they were pathetically inadequate for the job and it was only the fact that a nice Dutch couple followed behind in a car to light the way that got me through.  It was even darker than the tunnel on the Gavia; in the middle you can't make out the sides of the tunnel and get all disorientated.  The Dutch woman got out at the other end to take some pictures and told me she was scared in the car!

It was a beautiful day for a bike ride, a few degrees cooler than it has been recently.  I always feel so lucky when I do these rides.  Here are a few pictures.