The Food Issue

It seems that everyone is asking how the food is in France.  Well, it's the same as last year, the year before that, etc.—fantastic.  Breakfast in France is much lighter affair than in the U.S.  Bread, croissants, yogurt, muesli, juice, and coffee.  If you are lucky, you might see an egg or some ham.  Still, it's enough to get you started for the day.

Once breakfast has settled, I usually head out for a ride, which can be anywhere from two hours to an all day affair.  I often skip lunch and just snack while I am riding and just have dinner.  However, there are lots of small restaurants where you can stop for lunch.  It's nice to sit outside and have a salad, but refrain from the burgers unless the rest of your ride is downhill.

Dinner is always a three course affair—a salad followed by the main course and then dessert.  Wine is always served with dinner with coffee or tea at the end of the meal.  French life is indeed centered around the table.

If I could import two things from France back to the U.S., it would be the local boulangerie (bakery) and the village marché.  Think farmer's market only thousands of times better.

Eaten Alive on Col de la Trappe

The Col de la Trappe is a climb of category 2 (medium) difficulty in the Ariège Pyrénées.  From east side, the climb is 5 km averaging a pretty consistent 7%. From the west, the climb is 17 km, but the serious climbing is only for the last 6 km (about 7-8%). Yesterday, rode up the east side from Aulus-les-Bains after making the long climb from Massat up the Col d'Agnès. The Col de Latrape was one of the most painful climbs that I can remember in recent times. The cause of my suffering—the dreaded Pyrénéan horse fly.

Every July, the horse fly makes its appearance for about two weeks in July. Although horse flies live for 1–2 years, the adult version only lives for a day or two. Adult horse flies feed on nectar and sometimes pollen, but females require a blood meal before they are able to reproduce effectively.  Much like male mosquitoes, male horse flies lack the mandibles that the females use in drawing the blood on which they feed. And the mandibles of the female horse fly are formidable.  Unlike a mosquito or a fire ant, they can bite though clothing. And it hurts!

When a horse fly lands on you, they do not immediately sink their teeth into your flesh. You have about a tenth of a second to swat the miserable little beast. It's not too hard because they are relatively slow.  Horse flies are also very persistent. They will follow you for kilometers just to get a meal. And if you swat one fly, one hundred will come to the funeral. Picture me riding uphill occasionally slapping various parts of my body.  I almost fell one time because I was climbing out of the saddle and trying to swat a horse fly on my backside at the same time.  The only defense is to ride faster than the horse fly can fly—about 10 km per hour. My maximum speed on the uphill must have been only 9.9 km per hour.

Horse flies draw blood when they bite.  It's best to avoid scratching the bites, and I am really glad that I brought a tube of hydrocortisone cream with me.

Other than climbing up the Col de Latrape, it was an enjoyable ride yesterday.  Two long climbs and a nice break for lunch in Seix before heading back up the valley to Les Deux Velos.

2015 Tour de France—So Far

The 2015 Tour of France (a.k.a. the Super Bowl and World Series of cycling combined) promises to be one of the most exciting in years.  Usually there are one or two strong contenders, but this year is different.  The fantastic four are:

1. Christopher Froome, the 2013 winner who races for Sky Cycling.  Froome has already worn the yellow jersey once in the 2015 TDF.
2. Nairo Quintana, a Columbian who won last year's Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy).  Quintana finished second in the 2013 Tour.  He can go uphill faster than most amateurs can ride downhill and is only 25.
3. Vincenzo Nibali, who won last year and has won all of cycling's 3–week tours (Italy, France, and Spain).  Only five other cyclists have accomplished this feat.
4. Alberto Contador, who has also won all three grand tours.  Contador has already won this year's Giro and is going for a Giro-Tour double.  This is sort of like trying to win the Triple Crown and hasn't been done since 1998, when Marco Pantani won.  If Contador were to win the Tour and the world championship in the fall, he would be the third cyclist to do so in history.  That's sort of like pitching a perfect game in the World Series (Don Larsen for the New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers on October 8, 1956).

There are only three Americans in the Tour this year:  Tyler Farrar, Andrew Talansky, and Tejay Van Garderen (currently third).  Of these three, Talansky and Van Garderen are both contenders for general classification (the overall win after three weeks).  Rigoberto Uran, who also hails from Columbia, is also doing well.  Uran seems to be flying under everyone's radar but is worth watching.

My prediction for the podium is Froome, Quintana, and Contador with Froome on top. This is provided everyone stays healthy. I don’t think Nibali is as strong as last year. Van Garderen and Uran are still in the running. Talansky is out of it. He is 2:30 down on Froome and there are too many good riders ahead of him.

Tomorrow’s stage hugs the coast, so wind could be a big factor. Sunday is the team time trial. The third day in the Pyrénées (Thursday, July 17) will be huge, when they finish on Plateau de Beille.  If this stage doesn't establish a clear favorite, it will certainly knock a few contenders out of the running.

Look for me on Thursday, July 17 at Les Deux Velos, where I am staying.  This will be an isolated farm house on the rider’s left with about 70 km to go.  Les Deux Velos is after the small town of Biert and before the small town of Massat.  If the riders have started up the climb to Port de Lers, you have missed me.

Lot's of good photos and videos of the Tour at http://www.steephill.tv/tour-de-france/.

France 2015—First Impressions

This is my third trip to the Vosges, the low mountain range in France just to the west of where France, Germany, and Switzerland meet. The weather for the last two trips was cool with quite a bit of rain.  It's been sunny and hot this trip—hotter than East Texas if you can believe that.  The temperature was 102 yesterday and 103 today. And there is no air-conditioning where I am staying either.

The riding has been great with the added benefit of cooler temperatures the higher you climb. Below is the view down to the valley floor from Le Markstein. It's an 18 km climb to the summit (1184 meters). Other than a short section at the bottom where it briefly ramps up to 10%, the climb is not particularly difficult, but it is long. There is a bike path all the way from Thann, where I am staying, to the base of the climb—about 16 miles with no traffic.

Of course, there was the requisite stop at the restaurant at the top of the climb. The lady at the bar filled my bottles. She even asked if I would like some ice, which never happens.

Descents are of course the rewards for the efforts of going uphill. Eighteen kilometers of downhill at 30–40 mph. Of course the pros go much faster. See the recent article in the Wall Street Journal to get some perspective on how fast they actually go. On a technical descent they can go faster than a car or a motorcycle. As the article mentions, it's like Formula One racing except that the drivers in Formula One know how the curves go—cyclists go into the curves blind at speeds of up to 70 mph. Thanks to Cory for bringing this article to my attention.

Here are a few miscellaneous tidbits for this first post.

• I have learned how to pack the bike to protect it from the airlines. Now I have to figure out how to protect it from TSA.

• I have had two totally different interactions with the police while on my bicycle in the last month. The first was in Colorado when I was descending from Carter Lake. The Larimer County sheriff was very upset with me because I was taking the whole road, which is the safe thing to do on a high speed descent. Fortunately, he didn't pull me over to ticket me. The second was this week in France. There were two gendarmes standing at the top of a col. They wished me "Bon courage" as I passed.

• This is the summer to ride in Europe. The exchange rate is the best it has been in at least 10 years (€1.00 is about $1.11). The cost of diesel, which is what my car consumes is about €1.15 per liter if you look around. Okay, that's still close to $5.00 per gallon, but my little Renault gets about 64 mpg.

• The picture below is Lac de Kruth-Wildenstein, and not Lake Naconiche as much as Steve Thomas would like to think it is.

I have a long drive to the Pyrénées on Tuesday (about 10+ hours).