A lesson learned (maybe)

At the end of my last post I mentioned that I had a little adventure on my way back down the col du Lautaret and I learned a bit of a lesson (I hope that I learned it) that I would like to share with you now.

Here is the lesson:  Even if you develop a great plan to deal with an unforeseen crisis situation be sure to reevaluate and, perhaps, reformulate the plan when faced with an immediate change in that same unforeseen crisis situation.

This is what happened:  Aside from getting stung by a bee or a wasp on my left shin just below the top of the Col du Lautaret during my descent from the Galibier (I get stung once or twice a summer.  If you ride enough it happens - you hit a bee or a wasp and it panics and reflexively stings you.) the descent was going well.  But when I got below Le Grave I could feel that my rear tire had a very slow leak and that it was going flat very slowly.  I road it that way for several miles and then realized I needed to do something about it.  I had two spare tubes with me and two 16 gram CO2 cartridges - each one capable of inflating a tube.  So I thought that I would stop and just re-inflate the tire with one of my two CO2 cartridges and just nurse the bike home.  I got the first cartridge out and it was dead.  I had been given a spent cartridge.  Here is where I should have reassessed the plan, but no, I was so in love with the my plan that I got out the other cartridge and re-inflated the tire.  This worked great for about half of a mile then the tube blew completely.  Now I had two spare tubes and a half charged CO2 cartridge.  I thought I might be thumbing home from there, about seven miles from Bourg d'Oisans, but I thought what the hell, I'll stick in a new tube and see how much CO2 I have left.  The tire inflated to about 60 psi (I typically ride them at about 110 psi.)  It felt super soft and unstable, but I rode it very slowly all the was into Bourg d'Oisans like that.  There I borrowed a pump and pumped the tire all the way up to 110 psi.

What I should have done was reassess the plan as soon as I realized I only had one CO2 cartridge.  I should have immediately put a new tube in and then inflated it.  So the lesson for the day was when the circumstances change reassess and do not be overly attached to your original plan.

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post is the elevation of the Col du Galibier.  It is one of the highest in the French Alps at 2,645 meters or 8,677 feet.  It is a big climb, but the elevation at the top is lower than the top of a lot of the rides I do in Boulder, and nowhere near as high as the elevation of the high Colorado passes.  Independence Pass, for example, is at 3,687 meters or 12,095 feet.  It is a lot more fun to climb with all that extra oxygen.

Today was day nine in France and I made it a bit of a rest day.  I wrote some postcards then rode into town to mail them.  Even though it was a rest day I wanted to get out and spin a bit.  Here is the view down the street I spin down when I leave the King of the Mountain Lodge in Le Rivier d'Ornon.

And here is a view of Rivier d'Ornan from just below town.

About a kilometer down the road this is the view down to the Romanche River Valley.

I rode into town where I mailed my postcards, visited the bicycle shop, and had some lunch.  Then I spun back up the col to Rivier d'Ornan.  It is about a five mile climb, but it is not terribly steep, a bit steeper than the ride up to Jamestown for my Boulder friends.

There is some traffic, but it is a pretty col, and I look forward to riding back up it at the end of each day.

For my rest day I had an easy spin: 14 miles and 1,450 feet of climbing.