good boy with bad bike

i am living in the heights of Seyssins.
What is the probability to have a flat tyre on the bike in the bottom of the mountain while going to work?

HUGE!

Les sources du guiers vif (24 june 07)

with Susy, Ric., Sarah, Trailz (better known as Angela or the other way around...) and the crazy driver...Max.

finally we went there! Susy and ric were talking about it for so long :)

one of the cascades:

A friend of Sarah came to visit her that week, she joined us

Susy a bit dubitative in front of the wall to climb... was a good idea to avoid this path :) see below...

the nice story: we arrived to the place by the top and realised that to go more down, it was mandatory to get the feet wet... so we were all standing there watching at the landscape when some tourists arrived in the bottow and i suddenly screamed at them : "nous on l'a fait" meaning that we were courrageous enaugh to jump over the water (which was false of course)... we laughed a lot seeing the face of these people that did not dare to jump... and they just looked at us as if we came from another planet but we had fun and they are chickens, not wet, but chickens anyway :)

finally we were caugh by the rain... one of us had a trick against it... the trash bag of trailz...

the birthday of Maman

My parents are in vizille for holidays and i decided to spend a bit of time with them during the week end. Also friday way a special event. Happy birthday Maman.

Since the candels are home, total improvisation needed... and sometimes i take the risk to handle the "candles" ... maman was talking and i almost had my fingers burning before she blows on it... but i told "GROUILLES TOI" on time before my immolation... outcha!

MIAM!!

PS: some good friends had also their birthdays recently, i do not forget about you !!
i hope it was nice moments for you too ;)

Free museums week-end in Grenoble...

Yesterday was the day of the free museums representations in Grenoble, Susy, Ric, Zé and i (Sar joined only the evening) tried to assist to some of the violoncel and dance stuffs... well we were not that sucessfull! Seen the limited number of places available for these spectacles and the usual application of Murphy's law, we were queuing for nothing twice the same day... :-/ That was nice to see the city while it is not too warm. During the afternoon, Ric and Zé choose to drink a beer in the terrasse of a café in Notre-Dame while Susy and i were hunting for an ice cream. What they did not really remember is that the waiter was already very susceptible with us a year ago. Well i could say that the guy did not change too much... he complained that my friends paid with a few little coins among bigger ones... that is totally amazing... anyway he just lost his tip 10 minutes before that!

super supermarket?

The record of time to wait for the belgian credit card to be accepted at the caisse has been blown out: yesteday we waited for 20 minutes to get it working... the people from G.... are so incompetant that it is amazing!

13-5-07 cascades de la Froide Pisse et de la Mariande-oisans - mx-ric-susy-jose

Refuge de l'Alpe du Pin (1805 m) - en boucle par les cascades de la Froide Pisse et de la Mariande http://www.grenoble-montagne.com/modules/smartsection4/print.php?itemid=119
1h20 from Grenoble

some technical details: beginning at 1300m and climbing up to 1800m. We did the climbing in 1h30 ... too much easy pfff
the only thing a bit annying is that most of the time we were looking where to place our feet not to fall or step on a snake...

The black back tired tyre

Imagine you are riding a bike along a river on a flat cyclepath by a beautiful monday at the end of the afternoon. You realise suddenly that you go slightly up and down with a frequency that seems to match each rotation of the wheels of the bike.

1- You are sick and imagine things, maybe the moussaka at lunch contained strange spices and you have hallucinations...
2- Too much affective problems give you the hiccups...
3- a tyre is not a perfect circle anymore... ay! another hallucination

I stopped and checked what was up. Nothing looking strange at first sight... but what is that crack there?
the nylon fibers appeard visible where it should not have... the sceptics would say :"again a stupid young guy that blocked the wheel while braking" but no, the rubber is just swollen.

This must be another curiosity that only happens to me. Well that tyre must be 10 years old +/- and still not smooth. Ach! things are not as good as before ;) (C'était mieux aaaavant!)

i just imagine myself going down the hill at full speed and the nylon cracking all at once with the inner tube protruding and exploding like a chewing gum with me sliding on the ground a bit further...

KaMiKaZzZzZe

The brake full of oil... why wasn 't it stopping me? maybe i overfilled the gear box with oil... and the holes in the tyre (my finger could pass through it ;) the amount of broken nylon fibers was quite huge... how didn't it break earlier!!!!

Visiting the tourtoises of Suxi and Ric.

There was a day of sun in Grenoble, so lets forget a bit about fixing the bike and work...

We could not resist to our wild instinct. We had to try to tame the terrific animals of the jungle park...

it is written on the red panel hung over the water: "Danger, ne pas marcher sur la glace" ... for sure we won't on a 29 th april... It is better not disturb the turtles and huge fishes in there ;)

Randonnée to the Cascade de L'oursiere - Uriage (Suxi-Ric-Trevor-Rachel-Max)

The idea:
http://www.grenoble-montagne.com/modules/smartsection4/item.php?itemid=23
http://bdmlphoto1.free.fr/DImage5/Oursiere/index.html

The start:

the "traversée" of the little rivers went quite easily

The third river was actually a glacier and crossing it was a bit more tough...

The second Glacier was a bit more difficult, i went first because i have this gene of the "kamikazomaxupilamissime". I though just after : "waw i was lucky it did not collapse!" Actually the part of the ice i sat on to jump was an extension of ice of 1.5 m without support on the ground on the bottom. When this edge will break, it will be better that nobody is below! the others did not want to try the same path after i warned them. so they chose to pass above the danger zone. But we forgot a bit Rachel... (oups Sorry!) Ric. went back to break parts of the dangerous edge to facilitate the passage.

Ric. is going down contrary to the apparences ! ;)

the cascade the afternoon ;)

the indications given by the GPS are quite funny... we knew at that stage we had climbed 300m (start at 1100m.. second cascade at 1400 +/-50m)

left: altitude and position; on the right, GPS says: you are in the snow.... (no roads, a bit lost the machine...)


WAW the cascade is very impressive!


i tried to come closed to the water to test the existence of a temperature gradient close to the cascade. it does!

i saw some rainbows in different positions around the bottom of the cascade where water projections are so fine... i could not resist to picturise it :) yes yes look well there is a rainbow ;)

A bit further i found the most unexpected and nicest place possible to find in such a raugh mountain! Like Suxi says, it gives the mood to start running and jumping all over like the childrens we still are :)

PLOUF!

We found beautiful white flowers all spread almost everywhere on gound. Why in this ocean of white are there some that revolt and are violet?

We wanted to reac the lakes.. but half the way our legs decided it was not for today... at this stage, the GPS said we did 8.2 km (but wether or not it is by bird flight or not, i am not sure.)

on the way back i took some pictures of the paths to the cascades... it did not look that hard while climbing!

For those that do not know what phototropism is, here is a striking example. Small, the trees were put on the ground due to an event. It grew up then following the light (trees grow by its apex) the bent of all the trees in that area was pointing to the highest slope gradient. the best hypothesis is that the trees were aligned by an avalanche while small. One could also think about "repatation" or "fauchage" but the ground is rocks there...no differential ground slidings on the different layers allowed.

They will become little frogs..


i will not forget :)

On the way back we tested the GPS to go home... funny thing is my GPS maps do not implement the restrictions due to one way streets also in Grenoble...