Long commute home - variant 1

TdMB minus 54 days

Bike of choice      : Kap ... bit pointless this line innit ?
Distance               : 94Km
metres climbed    : +1090m

It's been a threatening stormy day all day today but the plan was to slope off from work "early" at 5pm and put in the first long commute home of the year. This means riding past the start of the normal climb to Lans and heading West and round the side of the vercors in the direction of Valence.

The target was to ride up the Gorge des Ecouges, a fantastic scar in the west flank of the Vercors, then over the Col de Romayer down into the Gorge de la Bourne and then up to the plateau and hence Lans. It's the simplest long commute available ....

Did you spot the fact that the was, was in bold ?

So we headed off, Fred and I again, straight into a fierce headwind and assumed the 2-up formation taking 2Km turns .... absolutely HAMMERED the first 35Kms !

We were well warmed up by the time we got to the bottom of the climb, and then deflated as we rode past the sign telling us the climb was closed. Popped into the wee village and went to ask what was wrong at the Marie (toon hall) ... is it really closed or can we sneak past the edge of the roadworks with our bikes ?

Turns out there's been another massive rockfall up by the tunnel near the top. The road is completely blocked and as it's been cut into the rockface itself, sneaking round the side would require climbing gear that we don't have in our jersey pockets .... merde !!!! This is the 2nd time we've been spurned by this climb. Same thing happened at the same place 2 years ago. It's one of the harards of living on a limestone massif. Looks like it'll be closed all summer too as they don't even have a date for the surveyor to come and look at it.

Shame as it's a superb climb.

OK so we can jump on the tailwind and be back in Grenoble in jig time or head into that headwind for another 25Kms to Pont en Royans and salvage the ride by going all the way up the Bourne ... the other option is Nan - Malevas - Romayere - bourne but it's already too late for that one.

Headwind it is. By the time we actually started climbing we had over 60Kms of thrashing into a headwind on the flat in our legs, that's not something I do but I guess it's all good preparation.

The climb up the Gorge passes quickly even with a 10min phonecall stop along the way and before long the mental calculations are estimating a ride distance of 94ish Kms .... laps round the village are planned to bring it up to the metric ton.

With 10Km's to go the storm that has threatened all day unleashes itself and the importance of metric tons are rapidly washed away. 94 it is for the day :O)

Magic - oh yeah Fred ... he still had to ride down my regular commute to Grenoble, I offered him my car but we both knew that he was already as wet as he was going to get and it's just as fast on the bike.

Another great ride and more burny leg pain so it must have been useful