Cool Dude Laughter and the Halibut

After yesterday's trip up to Alpe d'Huez, Andrew wanted to do something flatter today. He ended up doing a 10km run into Bourg and back, and picked up an 11 speed front mech on the way. He also rode to Allemont and did the loop around the lake.

That left me free to ride something a bit bigger than yesterday. So I chose the daddy of them all, and rode up the Galibier. I've not been up it from the Bourg side before. First order of the day was to ride up to the Col du Lautaret, which my phone's predictive text helpfully offered as 'cool dude laughter'. This is a roughly 35 km climb from where we're staying, and has an altitude of 2058 metres. Then there is the small matter of the last 8 km to the top of the Galibier, for which my phone's best effort was 'halibut', at an altitude of 2642 metres.

From Le Clapier to the Barrage du Chambon, the road runs in a steep sided gorge. This is the hardest part of the climb, with gradients up near 9 and 10%. There are also a number of tunnels on this section, with the longest at around 400 metres. These can be quite intimidating, and lights are a must. This  year, there is much less traffic on the route, because of the closure of the road above Lac du Chambon. A tunnel collapsed there a couple of years ago. They've had to bore a new tunnel, which won't open fully until December. In the meantime, local traffic is catered for by the 'refuge road'. After the tunnel collapse, the local authorities spent 6.8 million Euros converting a track into the RS1091 road, which runs around the other side of the lake. It's very narrow in part, and even has traffic lights to control traffic in one direction at a time at a point where it literally clings to the side of the mountain. Having ridden it, it was worth every cent! It's full of twists, turns, short steep climbs and descents. It doesn't have an air of permanence, however, so once the new tunnel is complete, there is a chance it will fall into disrepair, and ultimately, the lake!

The mountains are spectacular. Remind me
again why they look like that?
Oh yes, water, that's it!

Rejoining the main road above the problematic tunnel, the gradients ease back for a while, until the road reaches the pretty villages of  La Grave and then Villar d'Arene, after a couple more tunnels.

Not something you see in Hampshire

By Villar d'Arenne, the valley has opened right up, with broad vistas on both sides.

Not far now

The road makes it's way across, broad alpine meadows, finally reaching the Col du Lautaret.

Right, that's the first bit done

The main road continues down from the Col, towards Italy, by way of Briancon. The road to the Galibier is off to the left. Pausing only for some photos, I headed on up, determined to make this a single ride.

Just as well

There is definitely less oxygen at this altitude, and I was generating less power, but even so, the fairly unrelenting 6 to 8% gradients weren't really an issue. It goes without saying that the entire ride is spectacular.

That's the Lautaret down there.

 At one point there was a herd of cattle grazing at the side of road, and on it.

Reblochon, on the hoof!

Are we nearly there yet? Well, yes actually.

I paid my respects at the memorial to Henri Desgrange, the instigator of the Tour de France, and headed up the final, and steepest kilometer from the tunnel to the summit. 

Chapeau Henri!

Once again, despite the altitude  and the spiteful 14% ramp just below the peak, I felt pretty good when I reached the top.

Made it!

The Activity for the climb is available on Strava.

In previous years, it's been particularly cold, and the only order of business after reaching it, was to get down as quickly as possible. This time it was very different. It was warm. I took some photos, and then spent a fruitless half an hour trying to post a Strava update from the top. I could never get the phone coverage and Bluetooth connections to work together long enough to do it, and finally gave up.

The road to Italy

I put on a rain jacket and full finger gloves, before finally heading back, and strapped on my small Sony action camera. I have a new chest strap this year, which seems to work better. My arms take up less of the frame! Pausing to allow a group of motorcycles to leave first, I headed back towards the Lautaret. For the first time, I was actually warm! It's a brilliant descent, when you have proper control of the bike. Previous attempts have been a white knuckle ride, punctuated by a fervent hope that it would be possible to operate the brakes at the next corner. No such problems this time. Traffic was light and it was possible to use the entire width of the admittedly narrow road in places. I didn't stop at the Lautaret on the way down, preferring to try and get a single, continuous video down as far as the refuge road. It was great fun all the way down. I even had enough energy to pedal to keep the pace up. The only really scary moment was entering one of the tunnels where the absence of lighting and my sunglasses gave me no visibility at all for a short distance!

Reaching the refuge road, and beginning to overheat, it was time to remove my jacket, and prepare for the final part of the descent. I did stop a couple of times on the refuge road. There are views across the lake that may not be readily accessible in future.

Mizoen and the cascade

Then it was back into the gorge, and the final plunge back to Le Clapier.

One of the tunnels in the gorge

The Activity for the descent is available on Strava.

Epic!

Alpe d'Huez with Andrew

The objective, for our first day here, was to get Andrew up to the top of Alpe d'Huez. It's a climb that is tough enough to be a good test of how you are feeling, and a significant achievement if you do manage it. Equally it's not overly long, and it's all literally down hill on the way back.

The day started normally enough, with some bike fettling. After a long day strapped to the back of the car, they had fared remarkably well. A little lubrication seemed all that was required. Even tyre pressures were ok, presumably because the altitude here means that the air pressure is lower, compensating for any loss. 

And then Andrew pointed out that his front derailleur was rubbing slightly in bottom gear. An hour and a bit of fiddling and adjustment later, it transpired that when he had upgraded from 10 to 11 speed earlier in the year, he hadn't changed the front mech. Doh! So, we did the best we could in adjusting things, and set out rather later than intended. 

The quick blast from Le Clapier to the base of the Alpe went fine, and we stopped for selfies at Km 0, before heading up. Despite all my training rides, and last year in the Pyrenees, I was nervous about whether I'd be able to cope. Once the first couple of ramps were behind us, I started to feel better, and was pedaling quite happily up the inclines with a comfortable cadence in the low 70's, at a couple of hundred watts, and a heart rate in the 140's. Maybe I would be OK this year. 

The scenery here never fails to impress.

That lone tree in the centre of the frame just
demanded attention!

Andrew made really good progress up as far as La Garde. This is the toughest section of the climb, with ramps at 10% and sections that are steeper. We were stopping every couple of hairpins, to let him get his breath back, and to re-hydrate. Then, somewhere between La Garde and Huez village, his legs went. From then on, the stops got a little longer, and progress slowed. But at no point did he look like giving up, despite the obvious efforts he was making. He even managed to straighten up and smile for the photographers on the upper hairpins. And he didn't resort to walking, which is more than can be said for the guy in full Giro d'Italia winners kit, who did just that. Awkward!

The boy done good!

We stopped for water and some photo opportunities in the village itself, before pushing on the last couple of kilometres to the Tour de France finish line. For the first time, I managed to find the turning to the right to use the correct course. There is actually a sign, which I've managed to miss on two previous occasions. I even sprinted to the finish from the last roundabout, hitting nearly 500 watts during that short effort.

Chapeau Andrew!

Old fool and his eldest son at the TdF
finish line. Perhaps he'll get the hang of
selfies eventually!

It was getting quite late, and any thoughts of a return via the Col de Sarenne or Villard-Reculas had long since been banished. We took the direct route back down, the first time I've ridden it in its entirety. I managed only a nodding acquaintance with most of the apexes on the way down, and we did stop a couple of times to make sure that brakes and rims were not getting too hot. The final few kilometers along the valley were the first time that we'd really encountered anything more than a very gentle breeze all day. It was a welcome headwind. It had been over 30 celsius all day.

The Activity for this ride is available on Strava.

And, I was pretty impressed at the way my phone was able to use auto HDR to capture the events of the day. Chapeau computational photography!

Photo-Bimble

I went out for a ride this afternoon to get in a few miles, and to take some more photographs to test out the camera on my new phone. It was a bright day, with clouds and sunny spells, so there was lots of contrast on offer. These are pretty challenging conditions for photography.

Here are a few of the resulting frames. These are all straight from the camera, with no post processing. And, naturally, no optical filters were used in the making of these photos.

The Globe pub in Alresford.

Bighton Wood

Harvested fields between Bighton and Medstead

More harvested fields from Common Hill, Medstead

Woods near Dummer

I'd probably reduce the exposure of the woods, because it was quite dark in there. Here's how the picture looks with the brightness reduced. I just used the Photos app in Windows.

The woods with reduced brightness

 

 That sky looks threatening!

Ferns in the verge

 Just one of many thatched cottages in the area. This one is in North Waltham.

Combine Harvester above Hunton

Harvesting is well under way on the Hampshire prairies!

More thatched cottages, this time in Hunton village.

The light at Stoke Charity was gorgeous!

The Dever at Stoke Charity

Once again, this photo of the river Dever, flowing through Stoke Charity, looks a little over exposed. Here is how it looks with the brightness reduced.

The pond at Stoke Charity. Exposure in the sky has been held particularly well.

Stoke Charity church.

Overall, these are pretty encouraging. Still seems as though it should be feasible just to use my phone for photos on the rides.

Leaving the Camera Behind

In recent years, I've carried a 'compact' camera with me on major rides, to record the sights. This year, however, when riding in the Alps, I'm planning on relying on my mobile. Recent advances in mobile phone cameras include some fairly sophisticated High Dynamic Range(HDR) capabilities. Multiple exposures are taken automatically, and merged to maximise the perceived dynamic range in the resulting picture. This is just what you need to capture photos with a large contrast range. And that includes landscapes with bright skies.

View from the top of Dean Hill, direct from my phone

First experiments, from a group ride last Sunday, look quite promising. As a result, I'm planning on leaving my camera behind on big climbs, and using the extra space for more food!

Having a bit of history in image processing, I was interested in how the newer HDR approaches work. Conventional HDR involves taking a series of individual images while bracketing the exposure. Some shots will be under exposed while others will be over exposed. The combination of the data from the set of images, using the appropriate maths, leads to an image that better represents the full range of colour and brightness. Images in the sequence need to be registered with one another, of course, since there may be slight movements of the camera between individual frames. But that's the same task as stabilisation in video recording, and that has been available in real time for quite a while. The disadvantage with conventional HDR is the time taken to capture the multiple frames. This manifests itself as shutter lag to the photographer.

The newest approach to HDR appeared in mass market phones with Google's Pixel range. In Android, this is now known as HDR + Auto. As soon as the camera is running, it is actually capturing a continuous stream of frames, as if it were in video mode. These are stored in a buffer. Every frame is deliberately under exposed, so that they can be combined without 'blowing out' bright areas. When the shutter is pressed, the camera records the time, and retrieves the appropriate set of frames from the buffer. Because the data is being captured continually, there is no shutter lag at all. The challenge, of course, is that because no frames are over exposed, the data in the shadow areas is always noisy. It turns out, however, that better results can be obtained in the shadows by combining a time sequence of frames, than by boosting the exposure. In particular, colours can actually be captured more accurately in shadows. The whole process takes a lot of computation, of course, and has only become feasible with the latest processors. HDR + is an example of the new trend towards computational photography and software defined cameras, which use the basic data from the sensor in new ways. In many respects, its closer to what our own visual systems do, in post processing the data from our eyes, which are not the best visual sensors, to generate detailed representations of the world.

There are likely to be glitches, from time to time, but it definitely seems to be worth trying in anger.

Back to Bourg

It's official. Fat man will be back in the Alps this year! 

I'm going back to Bourg-d'Oisans for a couple of weeks this summer, to introduce eldest son, Andrew, to the joys of riding in the mountains.And there is the small matter of an attempt at a Marmotte.

Now that there is a route down the Col du Lauteret, bypassing the collapsed tunnel, above Lac du Chambon, the Marmotte ride is once again feasible.The Marmotte involves the Col du Glandon, the Col de Telegraph, Col du Galibier, and finally Alpe d'Huez. I've ridden them all individually. Riding them together, in one day, is definitely on my bucket list. The total distance is 174 kilometres.

On July 2nd, the official Marmotte will see thousands of riders attempt the route in a fully organised and supported event. Instead of that, by being in the area for a couple of weeks, I'm planning to build up to it, by riding combinations of climbs before going for the full trip.

Bring it on!

Reflections

It's become traditional, at the end of a cycling holiday, to review the experience. First, here are the summary statistics.

• I spent nearly 42 hours cycling
• I covered 717 kilometres. 
• I climbed nearly 18,000 meters vertically, which is over twice the height of Everest above sea level. Actually, that's very similar to last year's efforts, in the Alps
• The highest point on the trip was the Col du Tourmalet, at 2115 metres above sea level
• The ride with the largest height gain, of 2767 metres, was over the Aspin and the Tourmalet. That's quite a bit more than last year.
• I expended nearly 21,000 calories while riding, which is also rather more than last year
• My maximum speed while descending, naturally, was 66 kilometres per hour, a whole 1 more than last year.
• In total, I turned the pedals 138,108 times, again a significant increase over last year

All About the Bike

My Ribble Aero 883 performed faultlessly.  With no maintenance, other than pumping up the tyres and lubricating the chain, it tackled the climbs without complaint. Di2 provided consistently slick shifts. The stiff frame, sensitive steering and awesome Ultegra brakes all contributed to a huge sense of confidence on descents. The bike could be placed accurately. Any missed apexes were entirely my own fault. The bike went were I pointed it.

I typically had quite a bit of weight on the bike. I carried a compact camera, several CO2 cylinders, lights, pump, and up to 1.5 litres of water, together with an action camera.

I did expect the deep section rims to be affected by cross winds, and wasn't disappointed. However, the bike always remained controllable and the Mavic's did an excellent job of coping. Wind is something to bear in mind in the mountains. For anyone worried about it, a set of standard rims might be a good idea. I don't think I saw another rider on aero rims during the whole trip.

The Ribble attracted attention wherever it went. People often commented on how good it looked, and were interested in how it rode, who made it and how much it cost.

In summary, it's a brilliant bike. Thanks Ribble.

Where We Stayed

We stayed in two locations this year. Most of the time we were based at the Vélo Peloton Pyrénées Cycling Lodge, in Saint Savin near Lourdes. Paddy and Olive have a wonderful location for cycling in this part of the Pyrenees. Paddy used to race bikes, and has a vast knowledge of the entire area. He also has the distinction of managing to ride up the Hautacam 100 times in a single calendar year. Olive is a fabulous cook. There is secure bike storage, and spares and consumables available. The house is large and the rooms spacious. There is also a comprehensive satellite TV system, very important if you are staying during one of the grand tours!

Breakfast and dinner are communal and a great chance to get to know the other cyclists staying there, to swap experiences and to arrange rides. While we were there we met people from the USA, Canada, Ireland, and lots of folks from Melbourne. Everyone was pretty committed to cycling! 

Saint Savin is just outside Argelès-Gazost, a perfect location for the Hautacam, the Tourmalet, Luz Ardiden, and the Soulor and Aubisque. There are lots of superb, though less well known climbs nearby too, and a 40 kilometre flat ride to Lourdes and back. There is lots of information about the rides on their web site.

They have a super set up for cyclists.

In the Massif, we stayed at the Grand Hôtel, in Le Mont Dore. This is a traditional, small French hotel. It's in a great location near the centre of the town. Once again, there is an excellent French breakfast buffet. Bike storage is possible, but not especially secure. It's a good idea to be able to speak some French in this part of France.

There are a number of climbs that have been used in the Tour within easy reach of Le Mont Dore, and the Puy de Dome is well worth a visit if you have a day off.