Vive Le France!

What do you do when you wife goes on a 3-day bike ride with her friend?  Here in Lausanne you jump on a boat across Lake Leman (ie Lake Geneva) and ride your bike in the French Alps!  Just me and about 10 other cyclists on the ferry at 7AM (and after 30 minutes and the required café au lait from the talkative woman manning the concession bar) you arrive in Evian les Bains.  

Absolutely beautiful - flowers everywhere.  The Alps are right there and the route is straight up from Evian heading toward Abondance (note to self: serious cow and cheese country, bring Laurie here**).  Small roads but very conscientious French drivers who wait behind until the coast is clear then pass with a wide birth.  Seems much safer than Skyline.  First assent was unplanned detour up Col de la Taillet (1035 meters).

Being in France, I found a bakery and fortified myself with pain au chocolate mid morning and rode on to Bellevaux to find some lunch.   A local that I asked seemed to think the best bet was a place called "Bar," which turned out to be perfect despite the name.

After some pathetic attempts to joke with the owner in French, he brought me the biggest sandwich I have ever seen, basically a baguette cut lengthwise and piled high with ham and Tomme de Savoy. Thankfully the route was flat until I hit the climb up Col de la Ramas.  

I had forgotten that I had done this climb 5-6 years ago while visiting Geneva, but when I saw where I had to go it all came screaming back.  Check out the road carved out of the rock cliff on the left.  Don't look down...

Tops out at 1619 meters but are some pretty good stretches of 12-14% grade before you are done.

The downhill to Morzine was spectacular but I was pretty well wiped out at that point.  Thankfully a bit past Morzine the route back to Evian via Thonon is mostly downhill.  

Caught the 6PM boat back to Lausanne and was too pooped to ride back up the hill, so both my bike and I took the metro home.  Final stats: 93 miles and 10,100 feet of climbing.  What a day! 

**Editor's note:  Not sure why cows and cheese remind Doug of Laurie, but will let this slide.