travel blog Archives - Page 15 of 39

Biking from Les Gets to Yverdon les Bains

Posted on August 27, 2013August 26, 2021

A bright and earlyish start from Les Gets on my streamlined bike sans panniers so considerably lighter and better balanced, I think. According to Strava I did the 28 miles to Evian in 90 minutes so I easily made the 10.10 sailing to Lausanne. Interestingly the price at £20 was exactly the same as crossing the English Channel.

I managed to stop at a bricolage (DIY) and pick up a packet of colliers (Ty-Raps to us UK folk). As the one holding the GPS had broken. Plus I made an improvement to my bracket by taping a bungee onto it that pulls the bracket down & thus keeps the lid closed with the instruments facing me.

The miracle of the day was finding an Orange store in Lausanne where the guy supplied me, instantly with no fuss, a nano SIM for the iPhone allowing 300MB of data transfer plus additional data upto 500MB all for 10CHF. Apparently the 10CHF is also a credit for calls etc and additional data at 1CHF per day. It’s worked very well so far today although, according to the excellent My Data Mgr App I’ve got through 26MB so far today 🙁

The ride itself this afternoon was on the Swiss Route 5, infinitely better signed than the UK 1 with no obstacles provided by the authorities to slow you down. The route is a mixture of roads, forest tracks, limestone gravel, concrete etc etc. It takes you through suburbia, forest, vineyards, orchards, fields, industrial estates etc so is amazingly varied 🙂

The promised rain only happened in one heavy shower although I would have hated to be in The Jura today!!

Yverdon is a disappointment, still haven’t seen the lake & only found one expensive hotel The Hotel du Theatre . The most amazing thing for me is seeing so many people smoke, totally weird.

Two lots of Strava data today:

The morning and the afternoon

and pictures here

Spot the difference?

Posted on August 17, 2013August 17, 2013

Spot the difference?

I thought it would be interesting to compare my two rides to Les Gets. The first ride was in August 2009 where I rode the 767 miles and in the saddle for 72.6 hours over the 10 days it took. This time in August 2013 I travelled 774 miles with 76 hours in the saddle but over 13 days.

The biggest differences are: I’m now 6% older, 4% lighter but now carrying the tent and additional Danube guides etc in the two panniers making the bike weigh a total of 44 kg , in 2009 it was probably about 25kg .

So although my average moving speed has only dropped from 10.6mph to 10.1mph (5%) the actual ground covered each day has gone from 76.7 miles to 59.5 miles a 22% reduction 🙁

For the rest of the journey from here to Zurich and then down the Danube to The Black Sea I’m very tempted to dump the tent etc and revert back to the saddle bag. However we will see….

Here are the tables, click to enlarge:

Cambridge to Les Gets 2013 route

Posted on August 16, 2013August 16, 2013

Using the Adze programme I stitched together all the GPS trails for my ride to Les Gets. Each day is given a different colour. There are a total of 25,471 points over the 761 miles (about 53 yards apart)

Clicking on the map will download a file that you can open in Google Earth taking you through the route in minute detail.

Here is an example taken from Google Earth when I was in Gray, debating whether to stay or carry on.

Day 13 – Final day into Les Gets

Posted on August 16, 2013August 26, 2021

I finally made it to my apartment in Les Gets 13 days after leaving Cambridge & with 76 hours perched on my Brooks B17 saddle. Total distance covered this time 774 miles (1237km) which means when moving I was averaging about 10mph.

The day was very tough for me, as the profile shows:

Strava_Ride___Le_Pont_de_la_Chaux_to_Les_Gets

I’m not going to get any speed prizes though. For the Route des Gets climb I came 295th out of 295 on Strava 🙁

The most humiliating part of the day was when a guy on a Brompton steamed past on me on the climb out of Morez. I was going to ask him how many pedals he broke doing a 200 metre climb – but he was gone..

The most amazing part of the day is that there were NO trucks at all on the N5 mountain pass. Have they been banned? or don’t they like all the roadworks. Whatever the reason it’s a great benefit to we cyclists, the biggest danger was the cars lugging their wide camping trailers.

Here is the Strava for the day:

Strava_Ride___Le_Pont_de_la_Chaux_to_Les_Gets 2

The days pics are here.

And here is an overview of my spreadsheet: