Here comes the sun

The winter in Grenoble has not exactly been what I would call harsh. I've had to deal with very little snow, ice and generally cold weather compared to what I'm used to back home in Norway. At the same time, a sort of grey fog has seemed to lie over the city since November, as if had gone to sleep to wait for better times.

This weekend, it reawoke. And naturally, I celebrated the coming of verdant spring by riding my bike all weekend.

On Saturday, my German friend Sophie, her boyfriend Martin and I got our skinny-wheeled road bikes out and took them out for a sweltering 100 km and 2200 meters vertical.

Me and Sophie on the way up Col de Vence

Sophie enters Le Sappey en Chatreuse, with Chamchaude still snowdecked in the background

Church vs mountain in St Pierre en Chartreuse

Victory on Col Granier, our last big climb of the day

Martin alone on the road back to Grenoble, the Belledonnes glittering in to the left.
The next day, with the addition of Norwegian Andreas to our mix, got our trail bikes out and went trail hunting. This basically meant that there would be a nice trail that I knew somewhere, but that was slightly hidden in some way, involving detours and me stopping to go "Hmmm..." to find it. Rinse and repeat for a good ride!

First we went to the east side of Grenoble, above the area called Fontaine.
The gang on smooth singletrack 
Andreas goes for it 

The flowers are in bloom! 
Sophie below Les Trois Purcelles (The spiky thing in the background)
Then we went down town for some refreshments. And yes, the correct answer in 25 C and sun is ice cream.
Andreas has never seen anything so beautiful in his entire life. 
Neither have I!
And finally we hit up some trails in the south of Grenoble. Andreas and I had found a nice descent route there the weekend before, complete with jumps that someone had built. It was trail bikers' paradise. When I finished the descent, even though I knew my legs would take no more, I just wanted to continue flying free forever into the bright blue sky.

Martin shows us how it's done.
Who knows, maybe some day I will?

- The Wild Bazilchuk

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