If you own an XBee, you likely already know that the official configuration tool, X-CTU, only runs on Windows. As result, if you need to configure an XBee on a different operating system, a Google search brings up repeated suggestions to install a Windows emulator, install X-CTU, then manually update some drivers.

Now this is fine if you already have or want an emulator but really…there is no need for such a heavy-weight solution. You can fully configure your XBee via the serial port and a terminal program.

Windows comes with Hyperterminal pre-installed, but for Linux I downloaded the free minicom program. (Mac…you are on your own.) Before starting, you need to know the port the XBee is attached to and the communication settings, just as you would with X-CTU. For a factory-fresh XBee, the communication settings will be:

• baud rate: 960
• data bits: 8
• parity: None
• stop bits: 1
• hardware flow control: None

To find the port the XBee is using, follow the directions for your operating system: for Linux udevadm, or on Windows it is Device Manager.

For Linux minicom, I recommend the terminal options of turning on local echo and adding linefeeds.

Once your terminal program is up and running, open the connection to your XBee port. Type the string +++ quickly without pressing the Enter key. You should get back a reply of “OK” from the XBee. If it doesn’t work, wait 10 seconds and try again. If it fails repeatedly, you may be at the wrong communication settings. Usually it is a matter of mismatched baud rate. But if you’ve totally forgotten the XBee settings, you can use this simple method to do a hardware XBee factory reset.

After you’ve gotten the OK, type

AT

You should get another OK back. +++ and AT put the XBee into command mode. This is a temporary state! For the next few seconds any information sent to the serial port will be used to command the XBee, and the XBee will not forward it on to any listeners.

The most common change is that of baud rate. Type

ATBD

The XBee will reply back with 3, which equates to a baud rate of 9600. Let’s say that we want to increase this to 57600. We type in

ATBD 6

and get back OK. To write the change to the XBee’s memory, type

ATWR

At this point, the XBee will be communicating at 57600 baud, so you must change the communication settings in your terminal program in order to continue.

If you ever have to pause and figure out what you are doing, just type +++ again to put the XBee back into command mode.

Another common change is PAN ID. XBees ship with a default PAN ID and you will want to avoid crosstalk with other people’s networks. The command for this is ATID. As before, issuing a plain ATID tells you the current value (probably 1332) and sending a command like ATID 1414 will change the PAN ID to 1414.

There is a full list of XBee configuration commands in the XBee User’s Guide, Chapter 10.

In writing this post I learned about the moltosenso IRON, a free cross-platform alternative to X-CTU. I have not tried it, but it might be useful for those who need to do more complicated configurations.

The objective of the fire-fighting robot contest is to design a computer-controlled robot to navigate a maze (8 ft. by 8 ft.) that consists of 4 rooms. Rooms are surrounded by walls except for a 18″ entrance. A single candle is randomly placed in one of the 4 rooms. The goal is for the mobile robot to explore the maze, locate the candle, and extinguish the candle in the minimum time. Robots must be within 12″ of candle before extinguishing candle. The layout and dimensions of the maze and rooms are fully known to all contestants prior to the contest. For the advanced divisions, the hallways and room may be covered with carpeting, and there is a small staircase located within the maze. Bonuses are earned for returning to the start position after extinguishing the candle, and allowing obstacles to be placed in the rooms. Participants are permitted to use any combination of building materials and computer technology. All robots must operate autonomously except for the K-5th grade remote control division.

This is not a simple task, but I was particularly excited to see the K-5th grade remote control division. This allows us to participate as a family; my kids can drive the robot to the candle and extinguish it, while my entry must be autonomous. Robots cannot be larger than 12.25″ in any dimension.

At this point, I’ve figured out the basic design. I believe the most difficult task will be navigation, especially as the robot will have limited sensor capability. The robot may start from a known position in the maze, and I will take this option. I would like to use existing software; many brilliant people have worked on this problem. A few months ago I took a great course on the Robot Operating System (ROS), taught at HacDC by Andrew Harris.* ROS has the firepower to do the job, but there is a steep learning curve, it must run on a full PC, and I will have to use Ubuntu and Python, two environments I’m not familiar with. In doing the course assignments, figuring out Ubuntu and Python slowed me up more than anything else. However, I already have a working setup from the class, and with Google all things are possible. So my plan is as follows:

I will run ROS on my laptop. The robot will have an Arduino microcontroller as its brain. The laptop and the robot will communicate wirelessly using a pair of XBees. ROS has a package, rosserial_arduino, which allows the Arduino to run little ROS nodes that can send sensor and odometry data over the serial port to the ROS nodes on the laptop. The laptop nodes will do the heavy computation and reply back with navigation directives. The XBees make the serial port communication wireless.

Although the ROS site has some good tutorials, setting up the XBees on Ubuntu to run the demo Arduino programs was not obvious. Their rosserial_xbee package is designed for a mesh rather than point to point, and the two modes are not compatible. And the XBee configuration tool is Windows only. I got it working — if I have time, I will write up a post on how to do all of this — and was quite impressed with the performance of the XBees. I walked outside my house for a few hundred feet and was still able to communicate with the XBee in the upstairs office. The big risk with this design is that if the wireless communication fails, the robot is dead in the water. My XBee series 1 802.15.4s have a range of 90m and operate at 2.4 GHz, so they should work well. I did of course change the default PAN ID to avoid interference from any other competitors with the same device.

One nice thing about the wireless design, the kids can use the same robot for their entry. I will just hook up a joystick to the PC and it will send commands via ROS. Even if my autonomous design fails, and I give it a 50% chance given the total novelty of all this, theirs should have a better chance.

I purchased 10 ultrasonic sensors (HRC SR04) from China for the price of 1 PING))) — $3 each on eBay, free shipping, and they arrived quickly. Currently waiting for the chassis, gearmotors, wheels, and encoders to arrive. I opted for a mostly circular ABS chassis that is 7″ in diameter. The wheel encoders were more expensive than anything else, so it will be interesting to see how well they work. I already have Arduinos and servo motors from other projects.

In the meantime, there is a lot of software work to be done. The ROS navigation stack is not at all simple to understand, nor are the simulation tools. But I am making progress. I already have a simple robot model URDF file, and understand how to translate frames of reference using tf. I should be able load a 2D map of the maze using a properly dimensioned image, so the next step is to generate that.

The contest is April 21st — not far away!

*The HacDC ROS class wiki is publicly available and is complete enough to learn from on your own.

So I was delighted to see that new courses are being offered for the spring semester. An excellent summary of them can be found here. (Be sure to scroll all the way down, as there are some important updates at the bottom.) The list includes computer science, entrepreneurship, robotics, and many other topics that all look incredibly interesting. As mentioned in my previous post there are also archived courses available through Stanford Engineering Everywhere, though there would not be any grading for those.

An interesting note here is that Sebastian Thrun is offering his courses through his new online education venture, Udacity, rather than Stanford. Apparently he has chosen his Google position over his professorship at Stanford, and given up his tenure. It appears to have been an amicable split. The AI class attracted over 100,000 students. Thrun discovered that even the Stanford attendees preferred to watch online, rather than live; his lectures dwindled from 200 to 50 over the course of the semester. I don’t blame them. As with the Stanford classes, Udacity’s courses are free, but without any sort of accreditation. Starting February 20 they will begin “Building a Search Engine” (for programming novices) and “Programming a Robotic Car” (programming experience required).

I would very much like to take the robotic car course, and Stanford’s Machine Learning. However, I recently committed to a robotics competition in April, developments are happening at work, and in short this is not the perfect time. But good news: the Udacity courses will be offered again, starting April 16. Now that is flexibility! Thrilling. Udacity has 8 more courses listed as “coming soon” and I fervently hope they do. Democratization of scientific education is something I feel passionate about.

The Stanford courses are tied to their academic schedule and only offered “live” once or twice a year, so if you are interested in those I recommend checking them out now — they start soon.

However, the gift item my husband chose was the Sous Vide Supreme. And sous vide cooking is both new enough and geeky enough that I thought it might be of interest. I first learned of it in “Cooking for Geeks” by Jeff Potter. Basically, it is a precision temperature-controlled fluid bath. Foods are (generally) placed in a plastic bag, then the air is removed and the bag vacuum-sealed. The food bag is placed in the bath, and sits at the desired internal temperature for a long time. This is different than oven roasting where the cooking temperature is often hundreds of degrees higher than the desired final internal temperature. Thus roasting can often result in an overdone exterior and underdone interior. The high heat is required due to the inefficient heat transfer of air. But with the sous vide fluid the heat transfer is much faster. It is possible to get your fish or meat to the right temperature in a reasonable amount of time, depending on the thickness of the meat. The entire piece will be cooked evenly, and exact timing is usually not required; you can leave the food item in there quite a bit longer and it will not overcook.

The classic item to start with is an egg, because being in a shell it doesn’t need the vacuum-sealed bag. As suggested in Jeff’s book, I put the egg in at 146F for 1 hour. Near the end of the hour, I sauteed some asparagus. After that, I took the egg out and did the optional step of cracking the egg into a cup of very hot water (to set the whites more) then took it out immediately with a slotted spoon and put it over the asparagus. The egg was amazing. The yolk was like a custard, ever so slightly runny, and the whites were soft. The look of it was very unique too. It’s easy to play with the temperature to get the egg the way you like, and for slow-cooked eggs the results will be very consistent. Again, exact timing is not required. Here is a picture of the result.

Sous vide egg over asparagus

It is possible to cook eggs quickly as well; I’ve done them at 167F for 15 minutes the last few mornings, and since that is much higher than the desired internal temperature, precise timing becomes important. That said, the eggs are far more consistent this way than using boiling water or the microwave!

Having had success with the egg, my next test was salmon. I had heard this was a classic sous vide dish. I bought 3 8oz filets, and put 3 tablespoons of olive oil in small cups into the freezer briefly to set them into a gel. I then bagged each salmon with the olive oil gel and cooked it for 40 minutes at 122F.

The results were outstanding. I’ve never had such good fish, and the edges were as moist as the interior. Coming out of the bag, it looked raw, which is normal for sous vide. I used a pan to sear each side for 30 seconds, then we all ate. Everyone loved it, especially the kids, who have begged me to make it again.

Sous vide salmon, finished with a pan sear

Next up, chicken breasts. These are healthy and very filling, but let’s face it, they can be dry and boring as well. I’ve figured out some good recipes by now, but I always prefer the fattier dark meat. I tried out a butter poached chicken breast with fennel recipe. Once again, the meat was extremely moist. But the sauce was not interesting enough. Chicken breasts as an entrée still require a strong flavor, whether a sauce, marinade, or dry rub.

Butter poached chicken with fennel and onion

I had better success with cooking a large batch of chicken breasts for my lunch salads. I’ve avoided making these in bulk in the oven because it is too hard to guarantee uniformity, and the last thing I wanted was a large amount of dry or underdone chicken on hand. I rely on leftovers from dinner instead which is a bit hit or miss. In the sous vide making the breasts was very easy, throw the bag in for a few hours and that was it — and the results were excellent.

The concept of cooking decoupled from time (mostly) is a fascinating one. I usually focus on cooking the protein perfectly and keep the side as simple as possible because the timing issues are such a pain. But the sous vide frees me up to make a more interesting side dish. The butter poached chicken may have been a bit bland, but the roasted fennel, carrot, and onion side I served with it was a hit. And I would never had made that under normal circumstances. One can go a lot further than this. Make your dish ahead of time, keep it in the vacuum sealed bag, then chill or freeze it. Just warm it up again when you are ready to eat. Or, cook multiple items at the same time. If the higher temperature ones go in first, they can stay in while the lower temperature ones are there too — they won’t overcook. And everything is all warm and ready to go when you want to eat. No doubt this utility is why the sous vide became popular in the restaurant world.

This situation has some similarities to a slow cooker, where you also have the luxury of putting something together and letting it sit for hours. In the slow cooker you must use a sauce, the meat will shrink, there are some practical limitations in terms of how long it can stay in, and the cook/chill option is not generally available. Nevertheless the slow cooker is a wonderful tool.

Because sous vide is fairly new to home chefs, creativity is required in figuring out how to apply recipes to it. One idea that occurred to me for tonight was mashed potatoes. To get the richest flavor from the potatoes, it’s best to boil them with the skins on. But you then have the problem of getting the skins off afterwards without letting the potatoes cool down too much. And generally, it all must be precisely timed: if your guests aren’t there on time, you will be stuck with cold potatoes. For Thanksgiving, I found a make ahead recipe which got around the timing problem. The sous vide seemed to have the potential to solve both skin and timing. I peeled the potatoes, sealed them up, and put them in at 184F. When the rest of the meal — stout-braised beef short ribs — was ready, I mashed the potatoes with butter, milk, and sour cream. They were exactly the right consistency and, again, delicious. Bonus: I bagged some peeled, halved pears and cooked them along with the potatoes. When dinner was over I unsealed the poached pears and drizzled on some honey and blue cheese crumbles. A nice hot dessert, yum.

Similar to a slow cooker, the sous vide will not brown the outside of the meat. Browning is desirable from an aesthetic and taste point of view, even if it is not the healthiest option. The easiest way to brown meat is to quickly pan sear the meat before or after cooking. The fun way, is to use a blow torch when the dish is completed! I’ve ordered a culinary blow torch, and am looking forward to trying it out.

Finally, there are some neat things that can be done with a hot water bath. I suspect I could use this to make yogurt, or culture biological samples. I have some herbal tea which needs to steep for 10 minutes, but can’t be brought to a boil again after steeping. To keep the tea warm, just sit the mug in the sous vide. Etc. There are many more uses I’m sure, and I’m looking forward to exploring them.

I just watched the first unit. I was afraid the videos would be dry, but they were fairly pleasant to watch. It is not quite the same as having a live person there; but there are the advantages of attending on your own schedule, and being able to rewind. Breaking the lecture up into chunks is nice as well. The quizzes in the middle of various sections keep things lively, they don’t contribute to your “grade” but are a nice way to keep you on your toes. I am looking forward to the next unit. There will be a new one each week, for a total of 10 weeks.

There is also a weekly study group meeting at HacDC. That will be an opportunity to meet with fellow humans in person.

Although the AI course has received unprecedented publicity, I’ve discovered that Stanford offers many other courses for free. They have the Stanford Engineering Everywhere initiative, which in their words includes:

• Anytime and anywhere access to complete lecture videos via streaming or downloaded media.
• Full course materials including syllabi, handouts, homework, and exams.
• Online social networking with fellow SEE students.
• Support for PCs, Macs and mobile computing devices.

I saw 13 courses on there, which include: “the three-course Introduction to Computer Science taken by the majority of Stanford’s undergraduates and seven more advanced courses in artificial intelligence and electrical engineering.” Many of these look very good.

It is very encouraging to see all of this wonderful information being made freely available. A few years ago I looked for robotics courses and could find nothing. And now, world class material is here for everyone. It makes me very hopeful for the world. Many scientific research papers, too, are being made publicly available now and not being walled off behind private journals — indeed, government grants pay for much of that research, shouldn’t a citizen be able to see it? I have missed my university membership for a long time, but I think it will become somewhat less relevant in the future.

Back to Stanford: the SEE courses are mostly archived, but in addition to the AI class there are a few others that are live this fall. They include Machine Learning and Introduction to Databases.

For more information and to sign up for AI, see http://www.ai-class.org.

Maker Faire featured some beautiful sewing projects. Inspired by that, I signed up for a sewing course at G Street Fabrics. I wanted to learn enough to justify getting a sewing machine, and not take too long to do it. So I signed up for the intensive version of Beginning Sewing I, only two days, but 6 hours per day. Our goal was to finish two projects: a tote bag, and pajama bottoms. This went start to finish. We learned how to select fabric and interfacing, purchased a beginner’s kit, selected and understood a pattern, pinned, steamed, and operated the sewing machine.

I finished in less than 12 hours, but it was a challenging experience both mentally and physically. The sewing part was relatively quick, thanks to the machine. The bulk of our time was spent ironing, pinning, and cutting, all of which needed to be done with a certain amount of precision to ensure good results. Six hours was a long time to be doing this each day, and I began to appreciate (in a very small way) what working in a sweatshop must be like. The results, though, were extremely satisfying. The first project was a tote bag. Since it was custom made, I could choose exactly the fabrics I wanted and the precise length of the straps:

Tote bag made in sewing class

The pajama bottoms took things to a new level. They were part of a complete pattern that included an entire outfit, with a top, two types of pants, and other items. It was necessary to decode the pattern to figure how much fabric to buy, lay out shapes with the proper orientation relative to the grain of the cloth, to use different stitches for inner and outer seams, measure and create a hem. Much of the time one operates in a weird reverse geometry world. I have fairly good spatial abilities, but until the end I could not see how on earth these were going to turn into pants.

My primary interest in sewing is for crafts, but I quickly saw the advantage of made-to-measure clothing. These bottoms fit me like a glove, and in exactly the fabric I wanted. They are the best pj bottoms I’ve owned, and considering this was a beginning project that is saying a lot. I now understand why people make their own clothes. Financially, it is not a bargain in terms of time or materials — good cloth is priced accordingly, unless you are clever about sales. But the results can be stunning and I will probably go back for further courses on clothing.

Made-to-measure pajama bottoms

In the meantime, I have purchased a sewing machine: the Brother PC-210 PRW Limited Edition Project Runway Sewing Machine. That should arrive tomorrow. I have a few outfits where seams are coming loose…and Halloween is coming up. I suspect the kids and I will find some fun things to do!

The Faire has gotten a lot of coverage so I won’t even try to be comprehensive here. This year I felt much better organized. The Android Maker Faire app was a big help, though a bit incomplete, and crowd control was better. We successfully hit some of the classic shows like Arc Attack and the Life-size Mousetrap. As always though, the true finds came from just wandering around.

Things that caught my eye:

• An Arduino-controlled sous-vide kit for only $80
• Shapeways, a 3-D printing service. Send them a file, and they’ll print it for you. Or, buy objects from other designers. You can skip this and buy your own 3-D printer of course, but they are finicky and most end-products still look like cheap plastic to me. Shapeways allows for metal and high-end effects.
• Scratch, a programming language for kids developed at MIT. Laurel really wants to learn how to program. I brought her to a demo of this and could hardly tear her away later. It is a graphical programming environment and easy to use.
• New Arduino developments presented by Massimo Banzi, head of the Arduino team. He outlined future boards, the release of Arduino 1.0, and new IDEs in progress.
• Crowdsourcing UAVs. DARPA wants you to design a drone, and win $100k in the process. There’s a lot more to this and if I had any experience at all in this area, I’d be doing it — it looks like a blast.
• Hacking autism, a community project to make software that allows autistic children to communicate better and have an improved quality of life. Anyone can participate, either with ideas or apps. See their site for more details. They are holding a hackathon in Cupertino on October 10 (I think).
• Kinect hacking. Microsoft uses this controller to detect body position for games without joysticks. Hackers have found many, many other uses for this powerful and relatively inexpensive tool. At first Microsoft opposed the idea, but after many open source kits were released Microsoft even put out their own SDK (though I recommend you don’t use it, their legal restrictions are severe; use the other options). The Turtlebot, which I’ve been thinking about getting, has a Kinect as its main sensor.

No chariot races, nearly naked people, or Martha Stewart this year. I missed them.

I was inspired enough by all this to sign up for some things at home. There is a fabrication lab about an hour from my home, which has a ShopBot router, a CNC milling machine, a UPrint 3-D printer, Roland Vinyl cutter, Epilog laser cutter and a variety of design software. After taking a class, anyone can use the machines. I’m signed up for it next Monday. On Thursday and Friday, I’ll be learning another type of craft: sewing. It’s 12 hours worth of instruction, so I assume we will get a fairly thorough grounding. I’ve used needle and thread before many times, but never a sewing machine. If this goes well I’ll get one for me and the kids.

Our pictures from the Faire: Maker Faire NY 2011 photo album.

For many of us, the highlight of the 5-day trip was the promise of a climb up Alpe d’Huez. This legendary climb with 21 switchbacks has long been associated with drama and skill at the Tour, and is often a definitive stage in determining the winner. We had all seen the mountain on TV, lined with spectators cheering on the racers. Today it would be our turn.

We would be riding a few hours ahead of the peloton. Stages in the Tour generally begin in the afternoon, a surprising discovery for those of us used to doing summer events early in the morning to beat the heat. We had been warned that the police would start pulling cyclists from the road at 11am. An “average cyclist” should be able to make it up in less than two hours. Therefore, our goal was to reach the base of Alpe d’Huez by 9am. This meant a 7am departure, and a cold start. As usual it was necessary to use layers to balance out the chilly descents and the warm climbs. Today I used the old trick of putting a newspaper under my jersey for the downhill to block the wind. It worked rather well.

The ride began with a 24 mile descent. I don’t think I have ever experienced such a long downhill on a ride, and that was an event in itself. We went from our hotel on the top of Col du Lauteret down through La Grave, joining the route that the peloton would take later. As always, magnificent mountain views were on display as we went down. We also saw rivers and stone bridges. As descents go this was fun and easy, but one tunnel was very unnerving. The guides warned us that a section of it was unlit; our blinky lights would keep us visible but without traffic we wouldn’t be able to see. This was true. For a short section it was completely dark. I could not see anything, including the ground. Nothing to do but keep going. It’s hard to imagine 50 riders coming through here at once, yet that’s what the pros do.

Soon enough, we were at the base of Alpe d’Huez. The steepest section is at the bottom. There were a large number of cyclists, and some of them got into trouble early. Unlike the country roads we’d been on, which were populated with lean and fast riders, this event had clearly attracted a number of amateurs. One of the challenges was avoiding collisions with other riders who showed little hesitation in stopping, or passing on either side without warning.

Lower slope of Alpe d'Huez.

Spectators had come to stake out their spots early. Alpe d’Huez has 21 switchbacks, and each one was decorated. The road was painted with names of racers and flags from different countries. Some of the artwork was quite elaborate. Other groups had set up barbecues, stands, and loud music.

A hairpin dedicated to Robert Gesink.

The Dutch are famous for their Alpe d’Huez parties, wearing orange and having a good time. Had I not been riding, it would have been tempting to stop and get a beer. As it was, I just took a picture:

Dutch corner at Alpe d'Huez.

I’d been warned that people would “help” get me up the mountain, but in truth no one bothered me — just got some cheers and thumbs up. When I went by the Rapha van, the fellow there gave me a good solid push up the hill. (I always did like their clothing.)

Near the top of the mountain it got more crowded. The course was lined with metal barriers for the last few kilometers. There were also some trucks and buses moving around. Several times I had to get off the bike to move through. At the end I turned off and reached the Trek viewing area.

Trek viewing area, bottom level.

Alpe d’Huez is 13.8km (8.6 miles) long, with an average grade of 8%. It may disappoint everyone for me to say this, but it isn’t all that hard. Of course, I did not come anywhere near Lance’s time of 37 minutes, nor was I forced to race up it after biking 100 miles against the pros. Yet it is certainly possible for an amateur to complete the course with reasonable training and body size.

We all came in well before the 11am cutoff. Our day bags had been sent up the day before, so we were able to change into fresh clothes. Some snacks and drinks were available right away. At noon, we sat down at the hotel terrace for a great lunch.

Lunch on top of Alpe d'Huez.

The stage had not yet started, and we had a few more hours before the first riders were due to appear. After lunch in the warm sun, I suddenly felt tired, and plopped down for a nap in a nearby chaise. Trek had set up TVs inside and outside for us to watch the stage and it was very comfortable. There was more food from the lunch available, and free (non-alcoholic) drinks. There were some celebrities around our area too; racers and high-powered executives.

Watching the stage on TV.

The TV coverage was from a French station, and as such, was very focused on Thomas Voeckler, destined to lose the yellow jersey today. You might not know anything else about the stage, but you always knew where Voeckler was.

As nice as it was, the viewing area had one drawback compared to yesterday’s. It was not on the course. It made little sense for me to watch the race on TV when I was on the mountain, so as the racers neared the finish, I wandered down to the town to see what I could. Most of the others didn’t bother. I was not very optimistic; I figured the good spots would all be taken. However, I was able to squeeze in right next to the news photographers a few dozen feet past the finish line. I had to contort myself a fair bit but it was an outstanding view.

Crowds near the finish at Alpe d'Huez.

There was a jumbotron for us to watch, with live, loud commentary by a local announcer. It was all in French and impossible to understand. The camera spent a lot of time on Alberto Contador and I thought he was in the lead. So I was surprised to see a fellow in green come across the finish first. I had no idea who this was. I had to ask the fellow next to me who had won; with a look of disbelief, he answered: “Pierre Rolland.” His next comment: “Francais.” (French.) Even a fool like me needed to made aware that a Frenchman had won the stage! Sammy Sanchez followed, then Alberto Contador. Cadel Evans and Andy Schleck were in the front of the next group. They treated it like a sprint — thrusting their bikes forward over the finish line, trying to gain any advantage.

I was perfectly positioned to see the handlers come up and grab the bikes as each man finished. Generally they looked exhausted, unable to unclip from their bikes. One man who was close to the front and looked surprisingly fresh was Levi Leipheimer. Radio Shack had no chance for glory this time, so I guess he figured he could relax.

I am embarrassed to say I didn’t take any pictures of the celebrities. I just enjoyed the experience. I was next to the news cameras so they captured everything on far better equipment. This one shot shows how close I was.

At the finish of Alpe d'Huez.

This would be a good place to end the story. But, we still had to get back to the hotel. For those of us who had ridden up, that meant riding our bikes back down. One other woman had ridden up Alpe d’Huez, but she pleaded for a spot on the helicopter on the way back because she was afraid of the descent. The rest of us changed into fresh kit from our day bags and started out. It was 6:30pm by the time we began. The guides told us that there would be “a bit of a climb” with “rollers”.

The mountain was completely jammed with party goers. I spent 10 minutes fighting my way through the crowd on this Luxembourg celebration (the Schleck brothers are from Luxembourg):

Luxembourg party goers.

We went down to turn 15. The crowds made this a bit tricky, as did the hairpins. I went into the drops, pumped my brakes and didn’t run into too many problems. I learned later that some folks managed to melt part of their rims or had trouble squeezing the brakes for so long. Trek didn’t ensure that people knew what they were doing on these descents. Fortunately no one was hurt.

The turnoff on turn 15 was well hidden. There is a church there with some shops, but I would never have spotted the road without prompting. At first, this was rather beautiful, a hidden wooded route. Then it opened up into an even better view of the valley below. However, the climb had begun. We quickly discovered that it had been undersold. I couldn’t believe how slowly we were moving, and grabbed the Garmin. The grade was 9%, and getting steeper. We hadn’t eaten for 7 hours, and didn’t know how long this would be. Grumbling began. In the event, it was 6 miles of steady climbing, not a roller. I always have a squeeze bottle of Hammer gel with me, so I used that and didn’t bonk. Not in the mood to eat gel but it worked. Dinner was looking pretty attractive right now.

After the climb we did get to enjoy more miles of descent. We went to the pickup point, then had a 40-minute van ride back. By the time we had dinner, it was 10pm. This was a foolish failure on Trek’s part; we could easily have eaten more food before leaving the mountain.

Overall, it was a fantastic day and a great experience. The energy of the race and the challenge of the mountain came through loud and clear.

Today we had our first encounter with the Tour de France. Stage 18 came right by our hotel, which sits at the top of Col du Lauteret and at the base of Col du Galibier. As a result, we needed to finish our ride before noon, when the roads were due to close. The route, therefore, was shorter and steeper than yesterday.

The morning was cold, 30s or 40s. We are in the mountains and the weather can shift quite a bit. Knowing the uncertainty involved, I had packed a variety of clothing including a base layer and my Castelli wool jersey. Only one wool jersey, unfortunately, and I think I will be wearing it every day. The descents can be extremely chilly and last for many miles. Even the climbs are subject to some cold winds, though overheating is a more usual problem. I have brought along my saddlebag, which is large enough to hold my windbreaker, and switched between windbreaker on/off and long finger gloves on/off, it is not perfect but works fairly well.

Our mountain was already crowded by 9am. People and cars were all over the road and getting through them was a challenge. The pedestrians were the worst, they would meander around the roads without even looking. Eventually we got through and began the descent to La Grave. I wish I’d had a helmet camera. It was an amazing scene with RVs from every country lining the road.

Descending to La Grave.

After reaching La Grave, we made a left turn and began the climb to Le Chazelet. This went along a balcony road, the ones that zig zag up along the side of the mountain. Once again, stunning views, and I took a large number of photos. The gradients were steeper than yesterday, getting into 10-11% for large amounts of time. That is fairly similar to Alpe d’Huez (I think) so it was good to get some practice. Overall very manageable, though I did not set any speed records.

View from Le Chazelet balcony road.

Once again, most of the group turned around early — not sure why they keep doing this! — but I pushed on to Le Chazelet and met up with a few others. Had an enjoyable cup of tea with Jenny and Gerald at an outdoor cafe.

At Le Chazelet with Jenny and Gerald.

We came back by reversing our route. This meant that we did the same climb from La Grave that we did yesterday. It felt much easier today. I had finally gotten some good sleep last night and the jet lag is over. By this time people were walking up the mountain to find a place to view the peloton, and many bikers were heading up as well. Thankfully the road was now closed to cars, though some would still come through now and then, plus the occasional bus would lurch into view and force everyone off to the side. Near the end I found a vendor with children’s bike shirts and I was able to buy two of them with team designs for my girls.

After taking a shower it was time for lunch. This was a buffet provided by the hotel, which did an outstanding job here and for today’s breakfast. Hotel Bonnabel was also the best location to see this stage of the tour. My room faces a field behind the hotel and helicopters were landing a few dozen feet in front of my window all day. Most of them were marked official “Tour de France” and one was labelled “VIP 1″ but I never saw the celebrities they carried.

VIP helicopters at Tour de France landing at our hotel.

Stage 18 was a decisive one in the Tour this year. Andy Schleck broke away from the pack and gained a large lead over his rivals. The route they took included the climb from Briancon to Col du Lauteret that we had done yesterday. Unlike us, they then continued up Galibier (which we will tackle on Saturday). There were several options for watching the riders go by. There was a large teleprompter set up outside, so it was possible to watch the television coverage of the Tour (in French) while waiting out there. There were drummers, flags, people in funny costumes, and a general party atmosphere. At first I found a spot right on the road, behind one of the metal barricades. Something I had not appreciated from the television coverage at home, this event is a big advertising opportunity for French companies. They had cars drive by us with floats and people throwing swag into the crowd.

Waiting for the Stage 18 climb of Col du Galibier.

I stayed out here for an hour, but decided that the Trek viewing site would be better. It was a few feet back from the road but high up, so no one could block the view. And that is where I saw Andy Schleck fly by to begin his triumphant solo climb up Galibier. (If you can’t see the video below, click here.)

I also saw Cadel Evans, a few minutes later. Alas. I had hoped that Cadel might win this year. (Which is exactly what he went on to do. But at the time, with such a large gap and Alpe d’Huez seeming likely to increase it, I thought he was doomed.)

After the first sets of riders had come by, I went into the Trek tent to watch the TV coverage in slightly warmer air. The president of Trek, John Burke, was there. He was cheering on Andy Schleck quite heartily, as Andy is a member of the Leopard Trek team. Frank Schleck also had a memorable performance.

Inside the Trek viewing tent.

Trek Travel certainly came through on their promise to get us to the heart of the action for the Tour.

Bonus: After dinner, John Burke and Ben Coates (the head mechanic at Trek) stopped by to answer questions. This was pretty interesting. Among the topics: DI2 electronic shifting will get more affordable, major changes in road bike tech are coming in the next 3 years, aero road bikes are not worth it, best power to weight numbers are/were Cancellara and Armstrong. Tom Boonen has one of the highest power numbers overall but he weighs a lot. Tour winners need to be able to do 6.5-7 watts/kg for 30 minutes.

Tomorrow we get up bright and early for Alpe d’Huez, which we will be riding ahead of the peloton. Now that will be a crazy scene. I can’t wait.

Today we met our guides and fellow riders in Grenoble. There are roughly 15 people in our group. There are 5 women, 3 of whom are riding, and except for me they are all with their husbands. Thanks to that fortunate circumstance, I have no roommate. Our guides are all women, roughly my age, and beautiful.

Grenoble was raining and cold when we awoke. Our first step was a 90-minute bus ride to La Grave. As soon as we left the city, the sun broke through and the French Alps came into view. They did not disappoint. It is hard to describe them without using cliches. They remind me of the Swiss mountains, but much closer, and daunting when you know that you will be climbing them soon. The images on Versus do not do them justice.

We had lunch in a creperie in La Grave; I had a galette (non-sweet crepe) with ham, cheese, mushrooms, and egg. It was a tasty meal. Then we went to get our bikes fit. I am pleased with the bike they gave me. I ride a 6.5 Madone at home, and having access to one here was a motivation for choosing this tour company. It had a compact double, the same as mine.

My tour bike, a Trek Madone 6.5 with compact double.

The ride started immediately with a 10-mile climb up Col du Lautaret, at grades that were generally between 7-9%. The guides warned us not to get distracted by the view; it was easy to do! The mountains surrounded us, and there were stunning vistas at every turn. Not just at the top of a hill or at certain moments…the views were there throughout the ride. If America looked like this everyone would ride a bike.

Cimbing Col du Lauteret.

We reached our hotel at the top of Col du Lautaret, but continued past it down the other side. This was a glorious descent. The roads are fairly well maintained here, although guardrails are missing and one had better enjoy heights! You could ride down as far as you wanted, then turn around and go back to the hotel. I took the longest cued route, for a total of 30 miles, because it was just too much fun. I later learned that almost everyone else had turned around early, at Le Monetier-les-Bains. It was rather a long way back! But my legs were fresh and the view inspirational, I enjoyed it tremendously.

The Tour de France will come through here tomorrow, and the RVs are already lining the roads. There were also a great number of cyclists on the road, though not so many women. Cars were accomodating and I received various words of encouragement and calls of “allez, allez”. I’m told that Alpe d’Huez will be a real experience with crowds, with people spontaneously pushing you up the hill as you ride.

The view from my hotel window: RVs ready for Tour de France

The police have closed various roads in preparation for the Tour and they are rather capricious in their decision making at times. This has forced some changes to our itinerary. Tomorrow we were supposed to do 50 miles. However, we must get back to the hotel by noon before the road closes. So our route will be a different one, and only 20 miles long. It must be said that the profile looks quite steep, but still, that seems awfully short. The following two days will be much longer, though, so taking it easy before climbing Alpe d’Huez may be a good idea. The focus of tomorrow will be the passage of the Tour through here on their way up Galibier.

We had dinner at a brasserie next to the hotel, with fondue, mushroom soup, cold cuts, chicken, and blueberry pie. It’s almost impossible to mess up fondue and the cold cuts were decent, but the rest of the meal was very disappointing. The hotel has its quirks, with no chest of drawers and no internet access. This is minor though if the riding is good. I’m looking forward to the next two days.