To the Ornon and ... Back!

Today turned out to be rather gentle, which was fine after yesterday's exertions. We did a bit of gentle shopping in the morning, That did result in Alpe d'Huez jerseys for each of us. The perils of visiting a bike shop on holiday! I figured that, having ridden up it three times so far, it was about time to buy some memorabilia. So I got a tee shirt too.

When we got back, we did some more fettling on Andrew's bike. He fitted the 11 speed front mech he bought yesterday, but it still needed some adjustment. Once we'd figured out how to do that, the whole shifting experience was much improved. Time to ride.

We'd already decided that today's ride would be up the Col d'Ornon, to give Andrew experience of something a little less focused than Alpe d'Huez. We finally set off early in the afternoon. A quick blast along the main road and around Bourg brought us past the micro brewery (which  wasn't  there last time I was here) and to the turn to the Ornon. We headed up.

The road up the Ornon really does cling to the
mountain in places.

As with most of the climbs in this area, the first few kilometers are the hardest, as the road climbs the gorge. The Ornon is relatively benign, with few areas approaching 10% even at the bottom. It's also shaded in the gorge. Andrew made impressive progress, and was certainly faster and stronger today. Maybe he's getting some conditioning.

Andrew managed to make this one look easy

He enjoyed today's climb much more than Alpe d'Huez, and even threatened to ride it again. Progress!

The old fool is still having trouble taking selfies

 We took the obligatory photos at the top.

All smiles at the top. Chapeau!

Nice here init?

Then we headed back down for an early finish. I tried out the video camera again on the descent. This time with Ms Pickett's command from last year that 'drops are for descending', I tried to set it up so that it would not simply record my front wheel when my hands are on the drops. A first view of the results seems to indicate that it worked!

Leaving Bourg and heading back to Le Clapier, I relaxed for a moment and let my mind wander, and the next thing I knew, Andrew had attacked and disappeared off into the distance! It took me several kilometers of hard riding to get back on. Clearly he had some energy left after the climb. And the final indignity was that he did it to me again, on the kick up before the turn to where we are staying. I wasn't willing to follow that one!

I think he's going to be fine on some more climbs this holiday.

The Activity for this ride is available on Strava.