Geoff Jones

Day 13 – Final day into Les Gets

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:

Day 11 Marnay to Hotel des Lacs

I think I’m going to need a pilot’s checklist before setting out each morning! Today I forgot to turn the Strava app on until I cycled over 6 miles 🙁 plus the cadence meter obviously was knocked out of alignment too, as Strava didn’t record my cadence.

A pleasant day for biking although it’s getting really quite cold in the mornings. The Hills soon warmed me up though. I loved the ultra smart cycleway that abruptly ended at the start of the Jura department. I admired the totally over the top Saline Royale gateway. Plus the rather gorgeous looking public benches in Ranchot. In Mouchard there was a lovely wooden telephone kiosk . I enjoyed a lovely lunch in Arbois. Then the climbing started…..

I gave up when the Hotel des Lacs hoved into view. The N5road was getting on my nerves plus the 1600 feet of almost continuous climbing was taking it’s toll.

The Strava data is here (shortened by 6.2 miles):

Strava_Ride___Bluegills._To_Le_Pont_de_la_Chaux

The pictures are here

Tomorrow will be the worst in many ways as it will mainly be up & down lots of BIG hills on very busy roads 🙁

Day 10 Chaumont to Marnay

An excellent days riding with the weather now a lot colder in the morning. Made error Numero Uno when setting off this morning by going down a steep hill to find out at the bottom I was 180 degrees out 🙁 so had to pedal all the way back up.

Varied scenery along the canals, long straight roads, lakes and charming villages. Tomorrow should see my first mountain stage in The Jura where last time I nearly froze to death.

The village names over here are pretty cool, went from Gray to Cult…. The tourist info lady in Gray booked me into the Au Balcon here in Marnay a bit basic but a very friendly landlady who spoke good Franglais 🙂 No WiFi or SFR reception in the hotel, so doing this sat out in the main square freezing to death.

Managed to do over 84 miles some of it over 25 mph in top gear, very cool although I suspect I had a good tail wind in places.

Here is the Strava data:

Strava_Ride___Chaumont_to_Marnay

Photos are here

Day 9 Vitry to Chaumont

After a mega snore last night I packed and went along to breakfast. Great spread and uber friendly folks. How can some folks make running a hotel look so easy? Whilst others make it seem so hard.

Todays elevation profile

The day seemed very tough, it was hot and ‘close’ so progress was slow. The villages are very pretty with half timbered houses and seemingly undiscovered, given the number of properties in desperate need of renovation. The lac du der was lovely and I’m sure my twitcher friends would be in heaven there. I now have another favourite French word – Quitéude

The harvesting is now in it’s closing days but I did stop to take some pics of this obviously new New Holland Combine CX8070 in action (Yours for £155,000).

In a moment of serendipity I took a wrong turn coming into Chaumont and stumbled upon the most magnificent railway viaduct ever, built in 1857. It’s twice the length of the Ribblesdale viaduct built in 1874 and 20 metres higher. And to cap it all a slow moving goods train was crossing 🙂 It also has a most gorgeous pedestrian crossing half way up.

Sally has been digging around in my archives and discovered that exactly 4 years ago I had ridden the 647 miles to Dole in only 8 days this time in the 9 days I’ve been riding I’ve only done 551 miles 🙁 The big difference is THE WRETCHED PANNIERS!

Here is the Strava for today.

Strava_Ride___Vitry_to_Chaumont And the pictures here.