10- and 25-mile time trials are the bread and butter of British amateur competitive cycling. Every week, events are held on mysteriously coded courses scattered around the country.

It's been a decade since I climbed Montaud from St Quentin. Partly because it is a long way from home and partly because I'd been working a lot over the last 10 years and not found the time.

Watching some old videos of training rides around Lac du Bourget made me fancy riding around the lake again.

I had to go into Grenoble early today, so it seemed like the ideal opportunity to ride the north side of the Col de la Charmette, a rather secret route hidden away on the western side of the Chartreus

Based on my Strava analysis project: https://github.com/davidzof/Training-Analyzer and LLM coach  (Claude AI), I had a 4×8 interval session planned today.

Today’s objective was Brame-Farine, the long wooded mountain that rises almost 1,000 metres above the Grésivaudan and separates the main Isère valley from the smaller valley of Allevard.

Today’s ride was very much about pacing rather than testing myself.

A long, mostly Zone 2 ride today, in homage to Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset’s extraordinary breakaway across the Jura in yesterday’s Tour de France Femmes.

A quick ride up to the Col du Lauteret above Prabert, on the Belledonne side of the Grésivaudan valley. I had not ridden this route since 2015, when I climbed it from the south side in 47 minutes.

I started a little later than planned, after a morning walk and the usual bit of faffing around in Crolles.