Day 5 -Lyon to Annecy

The Pedalling Begins

Don’t be fooled by the title. We took the train from Lyon to Annecy …. And then we had a lovely pedal around the Lake. As it was a Saturday we had lots of company, but what a wonderful place to start biking.

We arrived in Annecy just after noon, did a quick change into our cycling gear, and then rode the 10 minutes or so to our Warm Showers hosts where we dropped off our bags.

We then set off for our first ride of the tour.

And our first ride in 6 months.

Thankfully it was an unloaded ride that circumnavigated a beautiful mountain lake with minimal elevation gain or loss involved with ideal weather for cycling. In other words, the perfect training ride that should set us up for the next 10 weeks 😬. You gotta start somewhere!

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Training complete, we made it back to our WS hosts, Thierry and Letitia, made a few adjustments to the bikes, and then retired for the evening.

We had a delightful family dinner with Letitia, Thierry, their two children and another family (friends of L&T) so it was full house. We slept through the night, jet lag may be behind us now and are looking forward to ‘touring-for-real’ tomorrow.

SOTD - Alone Together - Mellow tune by (tragic) jazz legend Chet Baker. Listened to this on the train trip and it fits the feel of the day. Relaxed.

There’s a few new poor souls that are reading our blog (at least so far) for the first time. SOTD is a regular feature, and it really serves as a cue for K and I to fix these moments in time in our little brains (just investigate / research the power of music to entrench memories). Anyway, if you’re so inclined I’d suggest finding the SOTD video right when you open the page, start the video, and then read along. It adds another dimension to the griping prose and National Geographic quality photo’s and captions, at least it does that for me.

First French Cyclist meet up! Matthieu from Lyon who was setting off an a 2 day MTB adventure. We spent about 20 minutes of our train trip with him swapping tales of adventure.

Within 5 minutes we come across this. We love the cycle focused infrastructure and businesses in Western Europe!

The long view, paragliding above the east shore of Lac Annecy. I took these pic’s a few minutes before we got your e-mail Gilles. Spooky!

So this is where gargoyles grow. Within a few weeks they will be covered in leaves. Wonderful time to be here in early spring to watch the transition

I think that mountain is La Tournette on the east shore of Lac d’Annecy

Approaching the south end of lac d’Annecy

Looking north back to the city of Annecy

Now on the west side of the lake looking north back to Annecy

Everyone loves getting their picture taken!

However , this was the intended subject. Riding north on the west shore of Lac d’Annecy

Burning calories so we had to stop for a late lunch at what seemed like a cyclists-only trail side cafe.

Riding north into Annecy along an old rail trail, looking at what I believe is Mount Veyrier

Pretty blasé about all the cycle traffic passing by

FBOT - First bovines of the Tour. There will be more.

Unbelievable! Another camel! We came across one of these beast when we were riding into the Zombie Apocalypse village of Chanaz (just a few km’s west of here on our 2018 Rhone mini tour)

Back to mountains and flora. It is great to be here in early spring to see all the trees in blossom. In a few weeks, all will be green

… from this place. Nice lakeside abode! I wonder if the catamaran in the previous pic belongs to these folks?

Our first views of the canals in old town Annecy

… and us, bringing us back to the modern day reality!

Today's ride: 39 km (24 miles)
Total: 39 km (24 miles)

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Jacquie GaudetWe started our tour in Italy last year with our first ride in 5 months. The first couple of days were challenging and day 3 became an unplanned rest day.
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11 months ago