After summer holiday plans to go to Norway or Poland fell through, I still felt like I needed some time off. I don’t like sitting at home and ‘wasting’ my holidays, so I decided to drive over to France and do a few days of cycling.
On the way (kind of), I went to Mainz, I hadn’t been back for a couple of years now and I thought it’d be nice to see the pals. It was good to be back, with a fairly packed schedule of eating, eating and playing games, but it was good fun. My exercise part that fits more to this blog, was running my old running route in Hechtsheim. It was going to be boiling (a recurring theme over the next week) and Roland had booked breakfast for 10:30am, so I had to get up and out early to get the tram to Hechtsheim. There was a tram replacement bus and all the ticket machines were broken, but I got to Mühldreieck and started my run. I wasn’t even nearly on form, but I tried to ignore that and just enjoy the run. I’d forgotten the draggy uphills on the way out and overstated the steeper parts in my mind! I also underestimated the distance getting back into town to get to my hotel, so all in all it was 17km, which was more than enough for me!
After a massive and lovely breakfast and winning all the board games (that’s how I choose to remember it) I drove to Sierentz to meet Alex and Justine for dinner. I got the pigeon salad and beef tartare, I was trying to be adventurous and French! After a nice meal there I set off to Belfort, where my cycling adventure would begin.
The weather was going to be a problem, it was forecast to be 33-38°C all week, so riding in the heat of the day was out. In Best Western Belfort breakfast started at 6am, so my plan was to eat ASAP and head off.
The first day I planned to do Planche des Belles Filles, Ballon de Servance and Ballon D’Alsace, about 110km and 2000m climbing. My Garmin decided not to connect to anything and be incredibly slow all day, which made navigation a bit difficult at times. What was nice was that there were basically no cars on the roads! There were also no other riders, so it was all very relaxed.
My 10km autolap was showing me that I wasn’t flying on the ‘flat’ bit at the start, but it didn’t matter too much. Soon I got to the base of the Planche and it immediately kicked up to 12% gradient. I won’t lie, there was a part of me that thought – fuck this – after about 300m, but I started getting into a rhythm, or as much as is possible on an inconsistent and often steep climb.
I ordered a new bike 4 weeks ago, largely for this trip, but it didn’t arrive in time. My old Merida Reacto has a low gear of 36:28, instead of 34:34 on the new one. There were many many times when I would have like the extra 2 gears!
I got to the top, saw another person(!) and asked if the top was closed as there were barriers across the road. Apparently he’d just been up, so I rode until the end of the tarmac, saw that the gravel looked a bit dodgy for me and incredibly steep, so binned off the super planche and descended
After a quick descent, the next climb started immediately. I always forget the name of the other Ballon, it’s not D’Alsace or Grand, oh yeah Servance. It was fairly unspectacular, a very narrow road, also punchy and inconsistent, but generally easier than the Planche.
Then another descent and I was on a lovely cycle path for a while, except they keep blocking the path so that you have to nearly stop – I guess for safety – it’s annoying though. I found a great bakery right at the base of the Ballon D’Alsace and had an eclair and drank lots. Then I set off on the last climb of the day. This one was more consistent at 7% and if it wasn’t for my tired legs and the heat, it would have been the most enjoyable. I don’t remember too much about it, the Tour had been up there so the road had lots of names on it.
So that was basically day 1 done, it turned out that the start had all been slightly uphill, so I could cruise back to the hotel nice and easy.
Day 2 – Col du Hundsruck and Le Grand Ballon
As I was struggling a bit in the heat on day 1, I decided to drive to nearer the start of the first climb on day 2. I set off and had maybe 10km to get the legs moving before starting on the Col du Hundsruck. It wasn’t too tough and only little compared to the others, my legs felt surprisingly good too. Then came the Grand Ballon. I knew that it was higher and longer than the others, but other than that I had no idea. It turns out that I rode the Col du Haag, which is largely a cycle path which ends about 1.5km from the top of the Grand Ballon.
I don’t remember too much, but I do know that with about 5km to go I had 300m to climb, all good. Then there was a long flat to downhill part leaving a 9%+ climb for the last few km. The road then kicked up to 13% for a while until the top of the Haag, then it got much easier for the last bit up the Grand Ballon. It seemed to take forever to climb and there were several really steep pitches. I don’t know if it counts as climbing le Grand Ballon either!
At the top, there was a nice Cafe where the server basically told me what I wanted – oh you probably want a coke and a coffee, take a chocolate bun too! The work of the day was done and I could descend and enjoy the last 30km along cycle paths and not at all busy roads. Vosges done!
My hotel in Belfort was right next to the train station, and my first impression of the town was – shithole. After walking around the town centre a bit and seeing the lion, I thought it was a quite nice little french town, but near the station is pretty shitholey. I watched ‘The Odyssey’ in the cinema whilst in Belfort – it was brilliant.
Day 3 was just a little flat spin along the canals and then driving to Aix les Bains – pronounced X les Bains, not eh les Bains as I’d been calling it. It looked a lot busier and prettier than Belfort, it was surrounded by mountains, so finding good climbs wouldn’t be difficult.
Day 4 – Mont Revard
Almost straight out of the door the road goes uphill. It’s still in town, but the 21km long 6% average climb to Mt Revard started about 1km into my ride. It was never steep and almost always 5-8% so I could keep my cadence at a more reasonable level than on 10%+ climbs. I always do a lot of mental maths on these long climbs, first get to 1000m climbing left, then down below 10km to go, then 500m left to climb whilst always working out the average gradient left. Mt Revard seemed like it should be getting easier at the top, but it didn’t really, it just stayed at 6-7% all the way. Someone flew past me at 25km/h on an e-bike and their ‘bonjour’ was ignored by me!
The top of Revard is one of the most spectacular things I’ve ever seen. There are glass bottomed viewing areas which I was a bit cautious of. The view though, crazy. Unfortunately the other facilities were lacking, nowhere to eat, drink and the toilets were violently blocked, so I just headed down to find water somewhere else. That was less easy than expected and I ended up drinking from a fountain that looked a bit sketchy, but now 3 days later I’m still fine, so I guess I got away with it.
After the descent there were signs for Col des Pres and I thought I’d give it a go on the way back – little did I know that that wouldn’t be an option, my way back to Aix (as we locals call it) went over Col des Pres. It was a bit of a bugger, but thankfully quite short too, then it was pretty much all downhill back to town. I’d never heard of Mt Revard before planning this route, but I recommend it for the views at the top.
Day 5 – Col du Granier and Col du Cucheron
This one had a lot more flat before the first climb than day 4. The cycling infrastructure was excellent, I was on cycling paths almost all the way to Chambery up until the Granier started. I knew that it was a pretty long climb 15km at 6% but I wasn’t expecting anything too tough, I mean it was like Revard but 6km shorter! And so it was, not too tough but importantly there wasn’t so much shade, even though I’d got out on time at 7am (as I had everyday, surprising myself more than anyone).
On the descent between the 2 main climbs of the day I was feeling the heat and looking for water again. There was nothing but parking spaces at the top of the Granier. I stopped at one fountain which was so slow that I reckon I was dripping faster than it was. So I carried on and found somewhere with a bit more flow a few km further on. The Cucheron probably wasn’t difficult, but I was struggling with the heat and decided that this was going to be my last ride of the holiday (I’d considered trying Col du Chat the next morning before checking out, but it looks like a beast and I was tired!)
There was a kicker (Col du Couz) on the way back to Chambery which started on a small cycle path and was really steep for a while, then it connected to a main road and settled down to a more reasonable gradient. Even though the descent was generally nice, I was in trouble with the heat. I felt like water was sloshing in my belly, but I was still too warm. I took it really easy back to Aix, some guy who I overtook on the bike path re-overtook me, so I just sat on his wheel for 10km. At the train station was a small hardly worth mentioning climb, but oh my god did I suffer. I wasn’t sure I’d make it!
Soon I say that I was on the straight road back to the hotel, but with 1.8km to go, there was a McDonalds. I made the quick decision to stop and get a massive coke and a McFlurry, good decision. That cooled me down enough for me to comfortably roll back to the hotel done for the day and for the holiday.
A round up of the climbs would be – Vosges are often steeper and more famous, but less beautiful. I didn’t know any of the climbs around Aix, but they were often very long and very scenic. If it wasn’t getting up to 38°C in Aix, it would have been nice to do more climbs, but really after about 10am it was too warm for me to do any big efforts.
I drove back on the Saturday pretty early, I decided to go to Interlaken as it was somewhere we stayed as children a few times and I had very fond memories of it. When I got there I noticed that we hadn’t actually been in Interlaken the town much (if at all), so my memories were more of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen, which I wouldn’t get to in my short visit. It was rammed with tourists, so after a little while I walked to Brienzersee and sat on the shore and enjoyed the view and just listening to the waves hit the shore.
We used to order Schnitzel and get them on a chopping board, so I looked for where to get schnitzel. I found somewhere on google maps and drove there. You had to walk the last 700m uphill, but the views were worth it. Unfortunately they didn’t have schnitzel and the focaccia was fairly meh, especially for 16 CHF!
I left Interlaken a bit disappointed and drove to Cham to my ‘hotel’ – yes I am too cheap to stay in Interlaken! The next morning I somehow didn’t see the column next to my car, so hit it when reversing out – that’s going to be expensive. Then when passing through Austria on the way home, I noticed too late that to get to the Ionity charging point I was being led onto a Mautstrasse. Apparently even if you buy the Vignette afterwards, it doesn’t matter (I did anyway) so I may be getting a 200€ fine for that too 🙁
So that was a shit end to a nice relaxing week of cycling. I’m still not the greatest solo traveller, I don’t like eating in restaurants alone and feel self-conscious – even though no one cares. It was still a good trip though, if only it was a little bit cooler!