The decent into St Pierre-de-Chartreuse was cold but the Sun could be seen. It looked like a nice day was on the way. At St Pierre the road mounted towards the col de Porte. My legs weren't co-operating and my right knee began to hurt. Once over the Col de Porte I started the long decent into Grenoble. I passed a couple of dozen cyclists on racing machines going the other direction. In Grenoble the Sun was nice and warm; soon the chill of the decent was gone.
From Grenoble I took a long climb up to the Vercors. It was a warm climb and on the way up I found my climbing legs, which was nice, but unfortunately my old 'friend' the nagging pain in my right knee. I changed cleat position a few times but it continued. I'm never sure when a change is good as the pain often continues after a good position is found. Anyway after a while I found what I thought I ought to stick with and went into pain management mode. After a while things seemed to improve, or at least with occasional massage be bearable. The climb up gave a wonderful view of the position of Grenoble, nestled between the Chartreuse and Vercors ranges to the North & South respectively and the Alps to the East.
From the climb from Grenoble I cycled to Lans-en-Vercors, then to Villard-de-Lans. At that point rather than taking the main road directly South, I went East along the Gorges de la Bourne and back to the main road by the way of Pont-en-Royans and the Petits and Grands Goulets. Seeing them in this order was the right thing to do, the valley went from wide to narrow as it went up. At a certain point the road was carved out of a sheer cliff. It was pretty spectacular and as both the weather and the condition of my knee had improved I felt pretty good.
On a high from the Goulets I rolled into la Chapelle-en-Vercors for the evening. I found a campsite where my hammock (first time doing so) could be pitched and had it up just before it started to rain. All in all it was a nice day.
Distance - 114km
Time - 7:32
Max Altitude - 1327m
Tot. Ascent - 2505m
Col de Porte – 1326m
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