Today was our “option” day; the ‘Tour isn’t passing by close enough to make it practical to see (and we’re going to get plenty of ‘Tour viewing in the next 5 days straight!) so instead we chose to do a ride local to the Grenoble environs, something we could ride directly from our hotel to. And if anybody ever gets the idea I’d rather avoid driving, they’re right!

We’re staying a few miles out of town, in St Egreve, nestled in a valley between the Vercors and… something else. We’ve ridden the Vercors; we’ve seen the steep stuff on the other side, and wondered why there weren’t roads going up there. A quick check of mapmyride and strava confirmed my worst fears. There are roads going up there, but very few people ride them. Why? I guess it depends how you like your roads. If you enjoy Sonora Pass, Ventoux, Redwood Gulch, China Grade… then D105 up to the Col de la Charmette might be for you!

First a trip to one of the few bakeries in this town, for breakfast and “spare” cokes to bring with us for refueling. Next a stop to pick up more sunscreen, and then the main event. Up, up, up and more up. I’ll have photos soon but ran out of time for this entry due to having to plan tomorrows big day at the time trial. But we survived, had a good time, and downed more coke, orange juice, water and lemonade than you would have thought possible. So yes, we’re staying hydrated.

So what sort of person who’s traveled to France, what, 11 times now?, discovers that he forgot to pack his cycling jerseys and shorts? Actually, at the last second said person did toss in one pair of shorts & jersey, for good measure. Thankfully. But what type of person does/doesn’t do that? Apparently one who wants to do laundry each night! Thankfully it’s been quite warm here in France, so things do dry overnight if left out (in this case, the window opens up to a shutter, which has become the hanging device for the clothes to dry on). The lens flare reference is to the two recent Star Trek movies, where the director, JJ Abrams, believes that a scene without lens flare is like a hot dog without mustard.

It was the ‘Tours rest day and a travel day for us, leaving Avignon and heading first to Orange, to finally see the Roman Amphitheater that we rode to but couldn’t enter on Saturday (no place to leave our bikes since we didn’t have locks). No real drama once we figured out the ultimate travel tool was the latest & greatest Google Maps that gives directions by talking to you! What a difference that makes when driving around France, where road layout can often be incredibly confusing. And it gets even-worse when you can’t take the direct route because it’s a toll road and you’re not sure it’s going to accept your credit card (which you don’t find out until you try to exit, causing some real problems for me last year when I visited the Loire Valley with my wife). From Orange we took a slightly-goofy route to Grenoble where we’re staying in a pretty oddly-placed hotel 3 miles out of town.

Curiously, we had our first issue with “French” food today, at a place called “Flunch”, a kind of low-rent Chilis found in some shopping centers. The mistake we made was ordering hamburgers, which unfortunately are cooked fresh for you. Unfortunate because if it had sat around for a while it might have been a bit less raw. I’ve had milkshakes that took more effort to drink than this hamburger took to eat; it was difficult to tell where the meat ended and the bun began. I never considered that a well-done burger or steak (as I generally like them) requires more effort to eat.

Tomorrow we do our second “free” ride, no stage to see. We’ll find some hills, of course, but not yet sure if we’re going to do one of the cool cliff-hugging roads like we found two years ago, or something a bit closer by (that we could ride to). It’s really unfortunate that local train service has been shut down this year so the line can be modernized… that means a lot of extra driving! But thank goodness for Google Maps, as mentioned previously.