All I can say is that this was a great day! It started out cool, and we needed to bike down a busy road to recover our route, but after that, it was smooth sailing, even with a detour that was made necessary by a closed road. I have to say, though, that I was disappointed by the lack of any signage for this well-publicized bike route!
While passing through Montbovon, the traffic coming the opposite way was . . . a train! Apparently the right-of-way is so narrow that traffic going northbound must wait for the train to pass through town first!
We were only to be on the main roadway for a relatively short distance before turning onto the older original road that crossed the mountain pass. Unfortunately, it was closed, and the bridge you see here is undergoing serious repairs. So we stayed on the main road and continued south.
But there was good news, a silver lining in the detour! The main roadway was under construction as well, with one lane closed for a moderate length and controlled by a traffic signal. Traffic was forced to alternate on the remaining lane. This was perfect for us. After we passed through, following the last car headed in our direction, we had a relatively long stretch of roadway with no traffic in our lane. The opposite-bound traffic queued at the red signal, waiting for the cars ahead of us to pass. When we heard (or saw) the cars finally coming toward us, we merely pulled over at a convenient spot, snapped some pictures, and then resumed our ride after the last car passed, in complete solitude until the next "peloton" of cars arrived (from either direction). This turned out not to be such a bad trade-off.
Looking back down the valley, our road is on the right.
It was a long climb, but the steepest part was at the beginning. Then it leveled somewhat before climbing again, but at a slower grade. Still, it was a long climb, and the top was not where we thought it was! So after taking these pics, we still had some climbing to do.
Our second lake sighting. And what you see is a reflection of the clouds above, not snow (as some of my friends have observed)!
The lake above had a dam on the downstream side. But from this view, you can see the road we would have been on but for the construction activity. If you look closely, you can see six cyclists, possibly a family, out for a ride.
As you might surmise, we are much higher than we would have been if we had taken the old road. The pass basically follows a stream upriver, so maybe this is more appropriately called a gorge. Regardless, we peaked at Rossinière, where we stopped for snacks at a boulangerie.
After the peak, it was all downhill until we recovered the route on the far side of the river. There probably were at least two earlier opportunities to do this, and we discussed that possibility, but the main road was not so bad and, being higher up, gave us great views of the gorge. After crossing the river, we turned onto local roads, which were not much wider than a car and were carrying more cyclists than automobiles.
So after reaching the real peak on the main roadway, we turned off again onto local roads. We thought this would be all downhill, which, in the net, it was, but we still had some serious ups and downs.
