The hills were alive, with the sound of mucus.

April 24, 2023

Lons-le-Saunier to Maubier

Lons-Le Saunier is one of those classic French towns with an old walled centre. We wandered around there for a while after breakfast and by the time we wrangled the bikes down from the 3rd floor it was past 11am.

Today is the first climbing day and it starts from kilometre zero. After leaving town there’s immediately a bike path heading towards the hills leading onto a quiet road rising into a forest. It’s perfect climbing temperature; cool and still.

After climbing a few hundred metres another trail on a disused railway line takes us over the first summit with a very comfortable 2%-3% gradient .

The tunnels have movement sensors and the lights come on miraculously.

We found a small bistro in a tiny village near Doucier with a gregarious American chef who waved us in and forced us to have an Alsatian variety of pizza with saucisson cherry tomatoes and a local cheese. It was so good we had another. There was more climbing post pizza again on really quiet roads until we hit a busier road for the finally push up and over our first genuine Col of the trip, the Col de la Savine.

John has had a head cold the last few days so the climb was punctuated with him expectorating voluminous quantities of you know what. I kept my distance preferring the sounds of the bird life.

Tone it down mate. I can still hear you and it’s disgusting.

That only left a flying downhill into Morbier although I’m a bit spooked by my tyre blow-out so I kept the brakes on most of the way and watched John disappear quickly into the distance. By now it’s well after 6pm and freezing so we decide to cook another meal in rather than eat out. I’m well and truly sick of pizza by now so it’s not going to be that. The supermarket on the outskirts of Morbier tempts us to buy way too much stuff and also gives us an opportunity to check where our air BnB is. As it turns out it’s 1500 metres back up the hill I just crawled down so with an extra 5 kilos on board we head back slowly to our ‘Industrial’ apartment. It’s nice and warm inside this cheaply furnished new ski apartment with a shitty sponge mattress on the bed and a pillow that probably wasn’t even comfortable when it was bought at the 2 euro shop 15 years ago. Does it sound like I didn’t sleep so well?

Tomorrow it’s more climbing before reaching Switzerland and a 3 day break for me with Gabor and his family. John is heading up to Lausanne for a break before I meet up with him in Zurich on Friday.

Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 346 km (215 miles)

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Urs EgliWelcome to Switzerland make sure you are having Raclette with a fine white wine and then finish of with a proper Schnapps. Enjoy.
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11 months ago

Dennis LangleyIt’s the first thing on my list. I’ll send you a photo of my first raclette.
We cross into Switzerland in a few hours.
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11 months ago