June 16th: Napolean Refuge Vars to Jausiers

 We started the morning at breakfast eating as though we hadn’t had dinner the night before, an indication that the touring load had depleted what bodily reserves we had. The climb up to the col was unremarkable. There, we met Xiaoqin and Bowen and went for a very short hike to get some nice views that wouldn’t be available from the road.

From there, the descent down to Jausiers left no impression on me other than the ski resorts which were mostly closed except for the occasional hotel. While higher than Jausiers, we did not stay there because those places demanded extra climbing and did not offer the services we wanted (Barcelonnette was the major town in the area, and we needed resupply). It dawned on me that I had never ridden Col de Vars before either, having skipped it for one reason or another my previous visits to the area, mostly in favor of Col du Parpaillon, a dirt traverse that’s no longer feasible without a lot of hike/a/bike as they’ve sealed up the summit tunnel, forcing a bike carry for any intrepid cyclist that wanted to do the route.

Arriving in Jausiers, we turned left as though going up the Col de la Bonnette, passing the display indicating that the tour had last visited there in 2024. After that monument Boen said, “Wow, are we staying there?” Our apartments were said to be next to the castle, and indeed we soon turned off the road and headed up to the apartment. Once there we saw that while the apartments were next to the castle, they weren’t actually part of the castle, which was strictly off limits.

Getting off the bike, we exchanged messages with the apartment managers and got instructions that we were not to checkin but we could use the swimming pool. Once again, there was that rigamarole about having to get linens, but at least we got access to the garage and the swimming pool worked and we could swim!

By the time we were allowed to move in, it was after lunch. Xiaoqin got out her bike to go for a ride, while Arturo, Mark, Bowen, Boen and I headed to Barcelonnette to grab lunch, get the car charged, and buy more cycling food. The fast charger was next to a supermarket, and indeed, by the time we bought food, ate them in the parking lot, and then bought breakfast for the next day, the car was 80% charged.

We then went to the bike shop to buy more cycling food. None of the usual American brands were available, and the substitutes were expensive. We experimented with various SIS energy chews and bars. Of those, the Beta Fuel gels were the best, but were extremely expensive. The bars were simply not as good as the American equivalents. Boen bought a new helmet, Mark bought a new electric pump after having seen mine in action. His new one had a gauge and an auto-shutoff at the correct pressure. I bought new spare batteries for the Garmin power meters, and would later discover to my sorrow that I’d actually stripped the hex socket on the power meter battery on the right side so I couldn’t even change the battery either. Garmin would replace both pedals (out of warranty) for $200 after I returned from the trip, but when the right side battery ran out my Garmin turned into a single sided power meter, which wasn’t the end of the world.

We returned to Barcelonnette’s downtown parking lot and proceeded to walk around downtown Barcelonnette after buying much needed shave ice to cool ourselves down from the heat. After showing Bowen where his mom and I stayed, we visited one of the central churches (a habit that Arturo has from his Catholic upbringing), and then went back to our apartment where we did laundry, relaxed, and I got in a second swim. Arturo made a reservation at La Sonnaille, a casual dining place with decent reviews. The fancy place wasn’t just more expensive, it had worse reviews and a later start time.

We walked down to the Ubaye river and crossed it, and it wasn’t a very long walk at all. The place turned out to be run by a middle-eastern immigrant, so the menu was eclectic and had lots of different items to choose from. The service was fast though the restaurant was very busy. We were also motivated to eat fast as other customers started smoking.

When all was done, we paid and walked out. Out in the fields, we saw a couple of crows harassing a cat! We walked back to the apartments and looked up when the last water was on Col de la Bonnette in case we needed water to be dropped off.

It turned out that the last water fountain was halfway up the pass at 12km, which meant we didn’t need any water bottle drop off. We also had to choose where to stay the next day. The choices were Isola village or St Etienne de Tinee. Isola Village was much lower, but the only lodging in St Etienne was Le Rabuons. The reviews were mediocre, but the price was cheap. Arturo noted that the half pension option looked particularly cheap. “Book it!” he said. And so I did.

Review: Nor Crystal Tears

 Nor Crystal Tears is Alan Dean Foster's first contact novel between the Humans and Thranx. Apparently its a universe (called the Humanx Commonwealth) that other novels are set in but since I hadn't read any other novels in the universe, I'm not sure there's any context I should have had prior to this novel.

The novel starts from the perspective of a Thranx child, an insect-like race of sentient beings that start out as larva and then metamorphize through a cocoon phase and become full-fledged adults. There's not a lot of background about this we never get an exposition about how the race evolved or how the physiology overcomes the limits that diffusion-based life on Earth from growing to becoming huge. The plot revolves around a spaceship for the Thranx encountering the disabled ship of the humans who had just been attacked by the Aan, enemies of the Thranx.

They capture the human, but despite the presence of experts seem unable to make headway in speaking the humans' language or understanding their culture and way of thinking. The protagonist of the novel (Ryo) shows up, and in a matter of weeks manages to learn the human's languages and also brank then tree and accompanies them home.

You can see plot holes all over. Why was the exploration ship unaccompanied by military vessels and why did the humans not send someone to investigate after the ship went missing?

Anyway, the rest f the novel depicts Ayo's attempts to convince the humans that an alliance is desirable despite instinctual mutual antagonism. Ryo then comes up with a harebrained scheme that works to tie the races together. I finished the novel but am pretty sure if this is the typical standard of an Alan Dean Foster book I will not read any more stories with his name as the author.

July 15th: Arvieux to Napoleon Refuge Vars

 To my dismay, the low battery warning on my power meter pedals did not go away! An examination of the details on the head unit indicated that while the left battery was fine, the right was low. My spare must have been defective! I had no more spares, so I made a note to get a replacement at the next bike shop we encountered on a weekday.

We started the morning with a swift descent down to the intersection where we had taken a left turn the day before in the car, and turned right instead. The moment I turned right I knew it was the right decision, as the descent followed the riverbed into a beautiful series of Canyons. Not for the first time on this trip did I think that I should have gotten an Insta 360 camera on the tandem and tried my hand at making videos even though I knew I did not have the patience for it.

At the bottom of the canyon we turned right and headed up towards Gulliestere, where a bottleneck in the road happened because some truck drivers had decided to take container trucks along these sharp corners and low tunnels that had a good chance of opening up the tops of their containers like a can opener.

I decided to go a little more aggressively and squeeze through the bottleneck along with some motorcycles and then stayed ahead down into Gulliestere where we took off our clothing to start the Vars climb.

Vars started steeply and was fully exposed without a lick of shade until we exited the farming areas and started up towards the ski resort. At that point, the long straightaways gave way to slightly tighter switchbacks that would stair step their way up various villages, each of which granted us an opportunity to refill water bottles or drench our cycling caps in water (or both). The latter provided much less relief than expected. I remember at one point in between my dipping my cap in water and Boen refilling his water bottle, my cap had dried to the point where there was no longer much cooling from evaporation.

The Napoleon Vars refuge was 100m from the summit in vertical elevation, and you could see the summit from the refuge. Mark had gone ahead, deciding he would make the summit that day before doubling back to the refuge. Boen and I made the refuge, where the owner told us the rooms would be ready after we’d had time to have lunch. Boen ordered the fish and chips, and ate it all, indicating how hungry he was. The car was already at the refuge, and Xiaoqin and Bowen were out hiking.

The nice thing about the Volvo EX30 is that the app enables you to unlock the car, so effectively those of us with the app could unlock the car (though the app obviously needed an internet connection to talk to the car), so we grabbed our luggage into our rooms and then took a shower and did laundry. After that we went for a short hike. There weren’t a lot of choices, either the lake loop that Xiaoqin and Bowen had done, but Arturo constructed an out and back that had the potential to be a loop if the lines on the map turned out to be connectors. That didn’t work, and despite being at 2000m, it was still quite hot. This was proving to be a record breaking heat wave, and I wasn’t looking forward to sleeping at a relatively low 1200m in Jausiers the next day. I remembered that Barcelonnette was even warmer so that was out of the question. With this kind of heat, a hiking break was out of the question if it was positioned as low as Barcelonnette.

Arturo, Mark and I did a hike that wasn't a duplicate of Xiaoqin and Bowen's. It didn't really lead anywhere but did lend us nice views of the surrounding mountains.

The evening’s dinner was outstanding. We would later compare it against the Rosenlaui meals as contending for the best meal of the trip. The half pension gave us a hearty beef stew that was both delicious and satisfying at the same time, making us the envy of cyclists who had arrived later without reservations (and therefore the option of the half pension). They pointed to what we had and we told them it was the half pension. They had started in Thonon-Les-Bains, the official start of the Route des Grandes Alpes, and were on a schedule and pace but the official route would do Col de la Cayolle instead of going over Col Lombarde. As usual, I’m quite constitutionally unable to follow any sort of “official route” written down by other people, preferring to customize my route to the weather, whims, and condition of people with me. 

We went to bed happy that we didn’t have to get an early start the next day. We examined options in Jausiers and found apartments in the same complex within walking distance of restaurants. It was a short day to give us a break before tackling the highest pass of the entire trip, the Col de la Bonnette. In addition, the highest paved road in the French Alps, the Cime de la Bonnette was only an additional 200m of climbing, and we were going to need all the rest we could get.

Review: Titanium Noir

 Titanium Noir is another novel recommended to me by ChatGPT. This is an unusual book in that it was good enough for me to read to the end, but even during the read I thought it was majorly flawed.

The book is sold as being Raymond Chandler-like in a science fiction universe. It fails at both. The author tries too hard to write like Chandler, but cannot match his style, sense of humor, verve, and the protagonist simply isn't as smart as Philip Marlowe. In particular near the end he lets the villain goes knowing that the villain will come back for him. That's insanely dumb. It was clearly a case of "turn off the intelligence of the protagonist so that I can get a payoff at the end with a cinematic ending."

The science fiction fails too. The premise of the book is the existence of a treatment (Titan 7), that basically cures all diseases and conditions by bringing you back to childhood and then regrowing your body through puberty. The side effect is that you end up much bigger and taller, etc. This obviously fails the physics test. A human body cannot scale up to those proportions without looking completely inhuman and different.

Read Richard K Morgan's Altered Carbon instead. That's the closest thing to Raymond Chandler. (Rest assured the novel is much better than the Netflix TV show of the same name)

June 14th: Briancon to Arvieux

 I always remembered Col L’Izoard started right from town quickly and steeply, and I wasn’t wrong. It didn’t take a single kilometer before I was exchanging my helmet for a cycling cap, and so had Mark, who had found a cap that fit him earlier on the trip. Arturo had foolishly promised some non-bicycle-touring friends that he would always wear his helmet, so he kept his helmet on for the entire trip despite the cycling in a heat wave.

Col L’Izoard isn’t notable for being pretty or long, but what it does do is to take you from the northern French Alps into the southern French Alps as the terrain changes completely, from pine forests to Colorado like desert scenery with dry dusty looking terrain everywhere that wasn’t immediately next to a stream.

We rode past the Napoleon Refuge 100m of vertical distance from the top, where once again there was a summit monument and a café that didn’t serve anything more substantial than ice cream. Just looking at the desert scenery was enough to make me hot, so Boen and I ate an ice cream each before starting the descent.

Xiaoqin had started the climb up the L’Izoard from across the street from the Logis de France hotel. When we saw her she said the hotel we had hoped to stay at said they were full! Arturo and I kept going down until we had cell signal, and then started calling. Through some confusion, Arturo called that very same hotel who had told Bowen and Xiaoqin that they had no room and this time they said they had room!

When we got there the manager explained that we were very lucky as someone had called in a cancellation just before Arturo called. It turned out that the confusion meant that we had a chance to stay at another Logis de France hotel. We ordered the half pension, and after eating an excellent lunch, found that they had a working swimming pool, our first of the trip!

So quickly used the swimming pool and the hot tub. While discussing things, I laid out the options for exiting France. We could ride up to Saint Verans off the Col Agnel highway. Saint Verans is the tallest village in France at 2000m, and it could serve as a base for hiking if we took an extra rest day then. The alternative was to ride Col du Vars, then ride over Col de la Bonnette and then Col Lombarde for the exit from France. My original plan for riding over the Col Tende had long been shattered by construction on the French side blocking transit and was no longer feasible given the pace we were moving.

Well, the car was fully charged from the day before, and it wasn’t a long drive, I suggested. Why don’t we drive to Saint Verans and scout it out? With that, we were out of the swimming pool into civilian clothes and Arturo and I drove to Saint Verans. The road was indeed exciting but looked very exposed, and the climb up to Saint Verans looked painful, with several sections exceeding 10% grade.

What broke against Saint Verans, however, was that it looked like there was only one out and back hike, and it involved a lot of time on a fire road. Col du Vars, Col de la Bonette and Lombarde started to look better as a plan. We were still in need of a rest day, however. We noticed that Col du Vars had a Napoleon refuge with a good reputation as well, so we called them and asked for two nights. “No. We can do just one night.” Was the reply. We booked the half pension for one night, and decided we could transit down the mountain the next day to Jausiers so we could attack the Col de la Bonnette with fresh legs instead.

Dinner at a Logis de France hotel is always excellent, and this one did not break the mold. To my surprise, the service was very fast as well! I had set expectations with every one that French dinners could take 3 hours, but so far we had not had that happen to us!

My Garmin XC200 pedals complained that they were running low on battery, so I took the opportunity to add wax to the drivetrain and replace the batteries on both sides.

Our after dinner walk was pleasantly cool at 8pm, as we took a small loop. The hotel was near a stream which made the place looked a lot less like the American West.

June 13th: Valloire to Briancon

 We had bought breakfast the evening before from the supermarket down the street. One problem with renting an apartment is that you have to clean up yourself according to pretty strict standards so we couldn’t make a big mess by cooking anything complicated. About the most ambitious thing we could make was fried egg, but between that, some instant ramen (which Boen loved) bread, meat, and cheese, we got plenty of fuel for the ride.

The climb up the Galibiere from town isn’t fearsome at first. The initial grades were gentle, though high enough to grant us views of side valleys that contained hiking passes. Trees disappeared rather quickly, since Valloire was already at 1400m. Because Galibiere was so tall, even at 2000m, we still had half the climbing left.

At that point, the climb began in earnest, earning Galibiere’s fearsome reputation. Switchback after switchback began to have names of famous professional cyclists written on them. We started to see waterfalls. As we rose, I realized that I had never seen Galibiere in good weather before, and it was indeed beautiful, with plenty of waterfalls. We filled up with water at the last restaurant before the summit at around 2000m, and climbed the rest in oxygen deficit, which forced us a stop and rest at every waterfall intersection every 200m of climbing or so.

The summit surprisingly had no restaurants or café, but was instead a massive zoo, with cars, motorcycles, and cyclists all bidding for parking as well as pictures at the summit signs. Mark and Stephan had gotten to the top well ahead of us. We got our summit pictures (some of which were taken by Californians who’d identified the tandem, having seen that unmistakable bike from when we climbed Mt Tam with the Western Wheelers), and then said goodbye to Stephan.

The descent to Lauteraut from Galibiere is a delight—the long straight runs were perfect for the tandem. In fact, I even overtook a beginner motorcyclist down the road! At Lauterat we found Xiaoqin and Bowen eating lunch and joined them. When we were finished, I saw the bus coming and decided that there was no chance I wanted to be stuck behind a silly bus on this fast descent. Boen and I stomped hard on the pedals and cleared a traffic light as the last vehicle through. Since this was an “alternee circulation” traffic light we knew we had a long interval before the next cars could come down, and rather than wait for Mark or Arturo we went ahead.

The first 8km of Col du Lauteraut on the Briancon side do not require braking at all, as you were capable of achieving terminal velocity the whole time. Back in 2005, Mike Samuel and I found ourselves drafting busses and car transporters while descending, spinning out our high gears furiously.

At 1200m Briancon was the highest cathedral town in France, but that was still low enough that when we got to 1400m it was so warm we had to stop and take off our jackets. At that point, the bus that we’d worked so hard to stay ahead of passed us, followed by a stream of cars. The last 200m of descent was punctuated by hills which marked ski towns (as identified by fancy hotels and ski lifts), but we had reservations waiting for us, so we kept pedaling until we got to the Logis de France hotel.

The owner greeted us, showed us the garage and the bike parking space and the apartments which were generously sized and well shielded from the heat. Once the car got to the hotel, we unloaded It and took showers. It had been a few days since the EV got charged, so Arturo and I took the car to the local city parking garage which had an EV charger. On the way back to the hotel we passed a carrefour and I noticed it had laundry machines sitting outside which dispensed detergent as part of a wash, so once I got back I got everyone in the family to give me the dirty laundry after I took a shower and I went and did a load as well as buying cold drinks and breakfast.

It was warm outside, so it was very nice relaxing in our cool hotel apartments. At 6:15 or so we hiked up to old town to explore it prior to dinner, and the walk was exposed and hot. The old town provoked memories as the last time we were here there was  Renaissance fair, which in the surroundings were much more appropriate. The town had lots of nooks and corners, prompting memories of Carcassonne, both the Languedoc city and the board game of the name.  Inside, it was quite steep, with water continually running down channels of many streets.

At 7:00pm, we stood in front of the restaurant which were already seating guests. This was a popular place, since they had sent me a continuous stream of e-mail asking me to confirm I was coming. We were seated quickly, and there were two fixed priced menus that we separated by only 2 euros, the choice between Duck Confit and Duck Breast. Both dishes were very good and being cyclists we put away all the food including dessert with no issues.

We debated choices on the Col L’Izoard tomorrow. We had been riding for 3 days without a rest day at this point. The Col L’Izoard Napoleon refuge had a good reputation, but we would hit it prior to the summit. I noticed there was another Logis de France hotel with a good reputation at around 1400m down the other side. It was a Sunday so I didn’t expect much competition for lodging, plus there were places all the way down the valley. This Logis de France hotel even had a swimming pool!

Walking back to our hotel in the evening, I still felt the need to take another shower to cool down before going to bed.

Review: Spin

Spin was another recommendation by ChatGPT. This one was an absolute miss. The premise is that one day, the Earth is wrapped in a permeable membrane that slows down time by multiple orders of magnitude. Each day that now passes on Earth now goes for millions of years, ensuring that the sun will expand and wipe out the planet within a single lifetime.

The book describes various efforts of humanity to understand what's going on through the eyes of Tyler Dupree, a doctor who grew up with Jason Lawton, a STEM genius who becomes the scientist-administrator of a successor to NASA. He's also in unrequited love with Jason's sister Diane, who pushes him away because she's under the oppressive thumb of her father, E.D. Lawton and decides to marry an oppressive religious maniac instead.

What bugs me about the book is that despite all of humanities' attempts, Jason makes relatively little progress in understanding how this membrane works. There's really no science in this science fiction novel--all scientific progress is basically speculative and made up with only a few diseases that are based in any form at all on reality.

When the big reveal happens I wanted to groan. It's one big Deus Ex Machina (in some cases literally!). I have no idea how this book won the Hugo award. Accelerando should have won the Hugo award that year instead. Even Old Man's War was a better novel --- at least it didn't waste my time.

June 12th: San Francois Longchamp to Valloire

 Breakfast was generous, but as we were eating I received a text saying that to get linens we’d have to pay extra. We would learn that apartment rentals from booking.com weren’t the same as from AirBnB, where the norm was a hotel-like experience. On booking the expectation was that you would arrive with your own linens, towels, and shampoo. Valloire had an open supermarket so we agreed to pay the linen fee, since the apartment rental was non refundable anyway.

The descent from Saint Francois Longchamp was a high speed delight that went on and on, for the Maurienne Valley sat at a mere 500m in elevation. The descents were sweeping and in the morning there was no traffic to impede us. At the bottom, we shed our jackets and put on sunscreen for the valley traverse, which started on a beautiful valley bike path that was shaded.

At Saint Jean Maurienne, however, the bike path transmogrified into a bike lane along a busy highway that was completely unshaded and full of traffic. The highway rose above the limited access freeway and we could see that the highway had much more traffic than the freeway because the freeway required paying a toll but the highway was free. While that made the freeway much faster (it was never clogged up), when both roads were running freely the highway was much more unpleasant to ride on. That 10km stretch between Saint Jean Mauriene and Saint Michel Maurienne was so unpleasant that I would avoid Col de la Madeline in the future in favor of Col D’Iseran in the future.

Saint Michel Maurienne was the site of some major construction, but it had an open supermarket where we could eat lunch in the street before riding through the dusty town center to begin our climb up Col du Telegraf, another pass that was new to me. Col du Telegraf is named after the telegraph tower that’s its name sake. It’s not a difficult climb, and I chose to stay in Valloire because I’d hoped to do some hiking in Valloire if we’d got there early.

It being Friday afternoon, however, the traffic was substantial and unrelenting. “Every time I visit Europe, I relearn my hatred of motorcycles”, remarked Boen as yet another round of noisy Harley Davidsons (many probably modified to make them even louder!) passed us for the umpteenth time. While the ride was shaded sufficiently that we were occasionally spared the worst of the afternoon heat, the initial climb was both low and unshaded that we had sweat rolling off our chins as we climbed.

The summit was commemorated by a pass sign but no restaurants or cafes. We took pass pictures and immediately descended in search of our lodging. Somehow, my route took us past the lodging to the center of town, and when we identified our error we had to climb back up part way to find our lodging. There was no indoor parking for our bikes, but since it wasn’t forecast to rain, I locked up the tandem outside and took the opportunity to re-wax the chain.

We met the linen delivery and then had to make our beds, take showers, and do laundry. By the time all was said and done there wasn’t really time for a hike, but Xiaoqin and I decided to walk to town in search of a restaurant that was opened earlier than the customary French 7pm.

Xiaoqin found a beautiful if challenging adventure path to town that was mostly shaded. Despite it being only mid-June, however, flies and mosquitoes were out in force and we got bitten a couple of times. Once in town, we found a bike shop selling overpriced Col du Galibiere jerseys, and one restaurant that listed their opening hours as 6:00pm! We told everyone and Arturo cancelled his 7pm dinner reservation elsewhere. I always wonder why a country that services so many bicycle tourists don’t have cyclist-specific restaurants that open earlier!

When everyone arrived the restaurant opened but then told us the kitchen wouldn’t open until 6:30pm. Well, 6:30pm was still better than 7:00pm, so we stayed for what turned out to be an excellent selection of food.

Stephan had to leave our tour the next day, so he had to plot his exit. While the opt
ion that gave him the most new roads would be Galibiere, Col du Sarennes, and Alp D’Huez, that would put him in a bad position to return to Munich. After much research, he managed to come up with a combination of bus and trains from Saint Michel Maurienne that would get him back to Geneva by the end of the day while still giving him time to climb the Galibiere with us.

We had our own decisions to make, as one possibility was to visit Le Grave for a couple of days to do that above loop and maybe some additional hiking in what was said to be one of the most beautiful villages in France. But first, the lodging wasn’t cheap, and secondly, I discovered that one of the hikes would have been a very long day, so it wouldn’t have ended up being a rest day.

Briancon, however, had a Logis de France hotel that had a very good price. It would involve no backtracking, and I had great memories of having duck confit in the old town. Arturo and I called both the Auberg de la Paix in the old town and the Logis de France hotel before deciding that the Logis de France hotel was both better positioned (no driving the car into old town) and cheaper.

I looked up restaurants menus and made reservations all of us at La Gravotte in Briancon at the earliest possible moment. I would discover later that indeed Xiaoqin, Phil and I had had dinner precisely at the same restaurant 15 years ago.