TDF-The Alpe d'Huez

Its all the craziness its cracked up to be and words can't come close to doing it justice . . .

The view from our just outside our campsite in Le Grave--halfway (about 20 km) between the Lauteret and the Alpe

Caravan swag from the stage from Pinerolo to the Galibier--the candies are smurf gummies!!

Ahh, the beach.

Riding to the Beach....

After L’Etape we headed for a little R & R down on the French Riveria.  As a young lad of eleven years, and then again when I was 13, I spent two summers lounging on the beaches of Cannes with my grandparents and I was anxious to see how my childhood memories held up against the “modernization” of the last 25 years.  We took a couple of days to traverse the winding mountain roads through Provence and arrived in Vallauris (just up the hill from Cannes) just in time for a torrential rainstorm.  I got thoroughly soaked as I assisted Hannah in backing the Starship Enterprise into our home for the next 4 or 5 days. 

Roadside Camping on the Way to the Beach

The first impressions of Valluaris were not so great—just another town with apartment buildings and, sadly, a McDonalds.  This used to be a sleepy little hamlet that was known for its artists, particularly its potters.  Picasso lived nearby, as at one point did Matise and Miro.  Fortunately, after we had gotten through the stress of docking the Enterprise in tight quarters, we realized that this modern town of apartment buildings had at least one oasis of the old world. 

Our home for a few days was the garden of a 200+ year old pottery belonging to long time family friends Monsieur Gilbert Portanier and his lovely wife Annette.  Gil and Annette are dear friends of my grandparents and I have very fond memories of the time spent with them as a lad.  Much to my delight, the pottery hardly changed a bit since my youth.  It was tucked now directly between two multistory apartment buildings and had a huge sunlight dappled garden of fruit trees, bamboo, flowers and one towering Cypress tree. 

The hospitality of Gil and Annette showed no boundaries.  We dined at their amazing home situated high on a hillside from which each of the THREE decks/terraces overlooked the Mediterranean and the bay between Cannes and Antibes.  Gil and Annette designed every aspect of the home to showcase Gil’s ceramics.  Everything from the sinks, to the deck railings to the spa and accompanying fountain are all works of amazing art.

We did take one nice bike ride through the hilltop villages of Provence.  They are as picturesque as everyone says and its pretty amazing that these places were built without modern machinery.  A lot of people carried a lot of large rocks to the tops of a lot of large hills.

Oh yeah, the beach....Gil and Annette showed us the best beaches and took us to an amazing fireworks display on Bastille day. (Ironically, the show was put on by the Spanish as part of an international competition.) Hanging out on the coast is like having a front row seat to the lifestyles of the rich and famous.  We gawked at innumerable cars worth far more than our house and when took a stroll thorough the Antibes harbor where we saw not one, not two, but three yachts with helicopters perched on deck. 

Well, I'm going to unceremoniously cut this entry short.  I'm actually writing from outside Bormio, Italy and Hannah and I are off to the spa (!)  after climbing the Stelvio Pass (the third highest in Europe) from both sides yesterday.  Folks, that was a total of 83 switchbacks and over 12,000 feet of climbing in apx. 80 miles.  Ouch.    More to come soon, including a report from the Tour de France.  Here's just one shot as a teaser...

There's Not Much I can Add...

Here come the Alps

The fair skies and pleasant breeze gave no indication of the impending battle awaiting our protagonists…you would be forgiven if you are thinking of our duel with the Telegraph, Galibier and Alpe d’Huez.  Unfortunately, the battle of which I speak is the crazy process of our pre-ride logistics.  

After arriving at the foot of the Telegraph in St. Michael d’Maurianne, and getting settled in with our pre-booked room and board (we decided it might be nice to have spend our pre-race nights in a real bed) we headed off to Modane to pick up our race packets and inquire on the details of the dropping the RV off at Alpe d’Huez (so that it would be waiting for us at the finish) and getting the organizer provided bus back to our home base in St. Michelle.  Picking up the race packets went without a hitch.  Getting the transfer back…um, not so much.  It turns out that ASO (the same people who run the Tour d’France) had grossly underestimated the number of people needing transfers and had no availability on any of the busses.  Luckily, as we were desperately inquiring with the Tourism Bureau about public buses, trains or Teradacktyl flights from the Alpe to St. Michael, a Brit in the same predicament as us overheard our conversation and we struck a deal where he would follow us to the Alpe in his car, we would leave the RV there and take his car back to St. Michael.  Our own personal shuttle of sorts. 

SUNSET FROM OUR ROOM AT THE FOOT OF THE TELEGRAPH

WE NOW KNOW WHERE PARK TOOLS GOT THEIR INSPIRATION!

After we solved our transfer crisis we ambled through the little fair of local vendors in Modane where I showed that my love for sausage truly knows no bounds.  Behold the ass salami.  Seriously.  And it actually, tastes pretty good.  Put enough spices in your cured meat and its previous life form doesn’t really much matter.

BEHOLD, THE ASS MEAT

 The following morning we set off on our personal transfer following our new British friend Joe to the Alpe ‘dHuez.  As luck would have it we traversed the exact route we would take on our bikes the following day and thus got a preview of our fate.  Two words.  LONG and STEEP. It was going to be a big day. A third word, SLOW, also applied as there was a cyclosportive celebrating the100th anniversary of the Tour d'France passing over the Galibier and our procession up the mountain was basically at the speed of the thousands of other cyclists on the same road at the same time.   At least the scenery was nice.

Race day started early with a 4:30 alarm bell.  We had to eat and then ride 20k to the start line (with a bonus 1000 feet of climbing I might add…).  We got to the start with the 10,000 other riders and then proceeded to wait 90 minutes for our start chute to be released.  We rolled across the start line at 8:00 am and we could already tell the bright sun was not to be our friend.  It was gonna be a hot one.   

CYCLISTS SHIVERING IN THE EARLY MORNING CHILL AS FAR AS THE EYE (AND CAMERA) COULD SEE

 Despite the heat, the race went great for both me and Hannah.  I clocked just under 5 hours of ride time and Hannah put in a fantastic 6:41 despite the unavoidable dead legs following a 30 minute wait behind a road closure for the medivac chopper (better to wait behind than be in the chopper).  The Alpe was a killer for both us.  13.3 km between 10 and 13 percent in the blazing sun after already conquering the Telegraph and the Galibier is no piece of cake.  Both Hannah and I did, however, get to feel like pros as the roadside tifosi sprayed us with hoses and dumped bottles of cold water over our heads!

ON THE WAY UP THE GALIBIER

GUESS WHERE!

DAVID'S STATS

Perhaps the coolest part of the ride, however, was sharing the road with 10,000 other cyclists and no cars (only the occasional ambulance and gendarmes on motorcycles).  The panoramic views on the road up the Galibier showed only mountains and cyclists as far as the eye could see. Now it is off to my old stomping grounds on the Cote d’Azur for some well deserved beach time and a rendezvous with our old family friends Gil and Annette.  That's all for now.  We'll try to post again soon.

BTW,  Good luck to all our friends racing the High Cascades 100.  Make Bellingham Proud!

I heard it through the grapevine

THE ANCIENT VINEYARDS IN LAVAUX, SWITZERLAND.  LAC LEMAN IN THE BACKROUND

We apologize for the delay in the Roobeck blogcast, but it has been many days without easy access to the internet.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled update…

We departed Paris for our date with the Galibier and the Alpe d’Huez still almost a week away so we aimed plotted a course for Starship Enterprise toward Lusanne, Switzerland for a rendezvous with the our friends the Sofields who have spent the past year living near Zurich.  We engaged the engines and headed down the highway at warp .000003.  In no time at all (it was actually like 4 hours), we found ourselves in a tiny little campground near Nuit St. Georges, on the Cote d’Or the heart of the Burgundy wine region.  We got settled into a nice shady spot and still had plenty of time for a pleasant spin through a string of hillside villages.  The grapevines and fields fo sunflowers glowed in the early evening sun as we stopped at the halfway mark of our ride top enjoy a cold beer.  I will note at this point that one area in which the U.S. (at least the PNW) has Europe beat is beer selection.  Although the Kronenberg we had while gazing at the vineyards was pleasant and refreshing, it was really our only choice.  There were a few other selections on tap at the local pub/pizzeria, but all were variants on your basic lager.  I don’t need four different IPAs to choose from, but a little variety would be nice.

The drive to Lusanne offered us our first taste of mountain driving.  I should mention here that Hannah’s fondness for operating heavy machinery (you should have seen the giddy smile on her face when she was operating the mini-excavator we used on the driveway last summer) apparently extends to operating RVs.  She enjoys driving and I’m perfectly happy to navigate and stare out the window so I’m typically playing copilot to her captain.

After some very frustrating cell phone experiences (the guy who sold us the SIM card failed to mention that any incoming or outgoing call or message outside of France would cost approximately a million dollars) where my preloaded Euros allowed for a 30 second conversation, we managed to meet up with Darrell and Ruth and set off on a classic Sofield guided adventure.  We rode a few short kilometers along the shores of Lac Leman to the Unesco World Heritage site of the Lavaux Vineyards.  These grapevine terraces have been in place for something like 1200 years.  Crazy.  We wound our way up and through the terraces on single lane roads that were all above 18% gradient!  Too much steeper and we might have tipped over backwards. 

As I mentioned earlier, our trip was being guided by cartographer extraordinaire Darrell Sofield.  For those of you who know Darrell, you probably also know that we were in for a bit of an adventure.  What was supposed to be an easy 40 km spin turned into an epic 70km grand tour of the hinterlands bordering the Laveaux Vineyards.  After some tortured route finding and a good stretch of gravel road (complete with dumptrucks and excavators) we were found our way back home for a traditional Swiss dinner of raclette.  I think the Sofields plan on treating many of the B’ham crew to a similar experience so we won’t spoil the surprise.  If you want to know the details, you’ll have to whip out the old Wikipedia.

The evening ended with a rainstorm worthy of a true Asian monsoon.  The drops pounding on our mobile Quonset hut made for quite the racket but we eventually drifted off thinking about our impending dual with French Alps.

Vallauris= R&R on Beach

Bonjour from Southern France.... we have not forgot you!  Post coming soon...We are busy working on our tans!  ;)

I think I lost my fillings!

The Neubeck’s have stretched their lead into the Forest of Arenberg! The field isn’t anywhere in sight!  Not another bike racer.  Not another RV.

So, we’re pretty sure the Forest of Arenberg isn’t high on the Lonely Planet’s “must see in France” list.  We only found the place after receiving some very general directions from Freddy Maertens who curates the Tour of Flanders museum (Yes, the Freddy Maertens!).  We actually drove right by the entrance without noticing it and bumped around the creepily sleepy town of Wallers for quite a while before figuring it out.   We pretty much had the whole place to ourselves and a few other local runners.

After finding the place we had a nice ride through the French countryside before finishing with some bumpy fun on the gruesome cobbles.  I’m pretty sure my fillings will need replacing when I get home.  The Arenberg cobbles make the Flandrian cobbled climbs look like well paved superhighways. I can’t imagine flying over those things with 200 other guys bouncing all over the place around you.  Its no wonder mayhem usually ensues.

After our Arenberg adventure we found our way to Paris where we made the obligatory walking tour of the Eifel Tower, the Arc de Triumph, the banks of the Seine and Notre Dame.  Our poor cyclist feet were fairly aching by the time we met Hannah’s old friend Cheryl (a ex-pat Parisian of many years) for a lovely dinner in the Marais.  I got to hear some great stories from Hannah’s younger years and we ate a very fine meal at a very French little sidewalk bistro.  Hannah had smoked Haddock and potatoes as a starter and duck breast with capers for a main.  I had a delicious appy of sardines and tomatoes in herbed olive oil followed by a very nice steak (the cut was some uniquely French thingy suggested by Cheryl).  Cheryl had the steak tartar (to my disappointment she skipped the raw egg).  And of course we shared a lovely carafe of house red.   I think need to come up with some more “flavorful” adjectives if I want to become a food writer!) Hopefully, we’ll solve the camera situation soon and you can experience our meals visually rather than having to read about them.  

Its morning now on the 4^th of July and we’re hopefully going to celebrate our Independence Day by reaffirming our modern day servitude to electronic communications.  On yesterday’s jaunt around Paris we spotted the cell phone shop we need and hopefully by the end of today we will have both telecom and internet access.   We’ll keep you posted.  Over and out from the Starship Enterprise.

PS.  Check out our first blog...we added photos!

Shit you don't see or get to do in America!!

Well, we now know what we forgot…I am sorry to say that this blog could be a bit boring as we seem to forgotten the cord to transfer pictures from the camera to the computer.  Oh well.  UPDATE 7/4/11--WE HAVE PHOTO TRANSFER.  FEAST YOUR EYES BELOW!

Apart from the cord, everything else is just dandy.  The flight was fine—definitely worth the extra $30 to choose the row with only two seats.  Finding the taxi to the rv rental shop was a bit of an adventure (our flight got in at 6:10 am and I’m pretty sure the guy overslept) but we eventually made it, put together the bikes and off we went!

The RV is pretty standard.  I don’t think we would have wanted it any smaller.  It’s got a bed above the cab area and a bed in back. Obviously we aren’t planning on using both (unless we really get in a big row!), but its nice to have the bed in the back for stowing things. 

The first night we drove about 3 hours before the 27+ hours without sleep got the better of us and we pulled over in a campground outside of Colon…along with about 1000 other people.  Yikes.  The Euros really do like the RV action.   Also, just as a side note, the Autobahn left lane if for those moving in excess of approximately 110 miles per hour.  Our taxi driver from the airport was missing a hand that he told us he lost in an autobahn accident at 230 kph! I would be SOL with the governor set at 107 on the Focus.  I would however, fit right it with the station wagon as that seems to be the preferred style of vehicle.  No SUVs, just lots of very cool diesel wagons. 

Day number two started with a drive to Gent, where we again settled into a nice campground on the city edge with approximately 1000 other people.  We were now in Belgium so we went about our Belgian business.  We took the 75km “Leitstreek”  tour of the countryside in, out, down and around the little villages and farms.  We saw some shit you surely wouldn’t see in America:  a human powered “party bus” contraption where everyone on board is pedaling their own stationary bike type thing to propel themselves down the street at 10 km p/h—all while some lady in the middle is dancing an exhorting people on with the obligatory Euro techno music; some guy motorpacing his buddy down a city bike path (mopeds are allowed on the bike paths; and speaking of mopeds we witnessed a mother “duck” on a moped leading about a dozen other “duckling” moped riders in what must have been a moped driving class. Everyone was dressed exactly the same and the mother duck had a big flag and sign to stop traffic and let everyone pass.  Very amusing. (We have subsequently witnessed at least five or six identical scenes.  Apparently moped classes are very big here.)  One other thing that you wouldn’t find on an American bike tour route was the dedicated bike ferry crossing.  Now, we got a pretty late start on our ride.  No one told us there was a ferry.  And no one told us that the ferry stopped at 6:00 pm.  Hmmmm.  With some decent directions and some pretty good dead reckoning we found our way back home to complete our Belgian day with a couple of orders of very tasty frites…no mayo though.

Belgian day number two.  Not such an auspicious start to day two we attempted to move the Starship Enterprise to the center of the Ronde de Vlaanderen in Oudenaarde.  Apparently, the campsite listed our 2009 “Camping and Caravaning in Europe” seems to have closed.  (A bit of a side note mea culpa here…I was too cheap to shell out $50 for the 2011 version of the book, so I paid $15 for the 2009 version. I now know why it was $35 cheaper...).  After a bit of an adventure finding someplace to land the RV,  we found a nice parking lot in a nature preserve and set off to follow part of the Tour of Flanders route.  The not so auspicious start continued as Hannah got some genuine Belgian road rash after crashing on the cobbled SIDEWALK less than 50 feet into the ride.  Its not too bad.  I just makes her look like more of a bad ass.  Once we got on our way, all can say is…WOW!! That is some cool shit!  Almost all of the roads are really just glorified sidewalks and driveways 10-12 feet across at the most.  We mashed our way up the Eikenberg, the Kwaremont, the Paterberg and of course the Koppenberg.  If we had method of transferring photos you would have visual proof of Hannah and I grinding our way up the fabled cobles.  We both rode them all…no walking.  (Hannah gives a shout out here to B. Dagnon lending us the compact crank.)  I’m pretty sure the “THOR!” I saw painted on the road was not for me.

GRINDING UP THE KOPPENBERG!

Between our rides on the first two days, we got to see some amazing countryside that you could never find without bikes.  Windshields suck. Bikes rule! But, y’all knew that already.

This brings us to day number three.  We are soon headed of to the Ronde de Vlaanderen museum where I spotted some free wi-fi and hopefully will post this blog.  Were headed off to Paris today (maybe with a stop at the Forest of Arenberg and the velodrome in Roubaix).  We’ll keep y’all updated as we can when we get a phone number.  Peace out.

THINKING OF TRADING IN THE RV