French Alps 2005

Tuesday - The long road South.

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We all met up for breakfast and agreed the riding order, I would lead off the ferry till the first fuel stop 100 miles away, Dave S would take up position at the rear as sweeper. After that Dave and I would swap front to back every 100m. Both Dave and I were using GPS navigation, Dave with a Garmin 2610 I was using a Garmin 276c.

Dave's 650cc Suzuki Bergman with a very neatly fitted Garmin 2610 booting up. The lump on the brake reservoir is the heated grips controller.

Tonight we were booked in to the Hotel à l'Ombre des Marronniers located on the banks of lake Geneva and right at the start of the Route Grand Alps. It looked a nice place, pool, dinning room and English spoken, what could go wrong?

Our route from Zeebrugge to Thonon les Bains, just 500 miles! Fuel and breaks were planned for every 100 miles.

We got a away from the ferry at 08.50 and straight on to the E403, but despite the GPS I managed to take us on to the wrong road before the first fuel stop! the GPS said 'off route recalculate?' I pressed OK and it was done in a few seconds.

Our trail is in yellow, we managed 3 loops of the clover leaf before we were right again, please don't ask why  ;-)

10:50 and our first refuel and rest at Aire de Baralle on the A26, 2 hrs to do the first 100 miles.

Kid, John & Dave J

12.50 Second refuel and break, 200 miles done, Patto at the Aire Reims Champagne Sud

14:57 Refuel and ice cream break at Aire Langres-Perrogn with 300 miles completed.

John, Dave S & Ebbo

Dave S and I had talked about taking a more direct off motorway route via Geneva to look at the famous fountain in the bay, as it was only three in the afternoon there seemed plenty of time and from here it would only be another 175 miles to Thonon! So we re-routed via Geneva.

17.17 400 miles done. By the time we got to Champagnole for fuel and a break it was very hot and we were all flagging. the Super U Supermarket was raided for water, orange juice and buns to keep us going, thanks Kid.

Dave J & Dave S

We made Geneva by 19:15, it was completely grid locked around the bay where the fountain was, It was time for drastic action, much to the annoyance of the Swiss coming the other way! Actually it looked quite the place to be on a summers evening, very cosmopolitan and chic, if you're on foot!

Geneva Jet d’Eau fountain.

Leaving Geneva and its traffic behind us we had Just 17 miles to go now - it was a slow 17 miles.

20.18 Arrived! Our host told us to park around the back in a car park secured by an electric gate. Then we were shown our accommodation, would you believe it, it was a log cabin!

Our host told us "last orders for dinner at 21.30" so after a quick shower and change we headed for for the dinning room, and that's when things started to get just a little tricky.

There was no menu, and our hosts could speak virtually no English (despite what the website said) said... Meat or Fish she said? errr... soup? we said, ok she said, vegetable soup, great!

When soup came it was green salad with anchovies on top, after that came meat or fish with vegetables, what it was we still don't know, John enjoyed it, but I'm not so sure anyone else did :-(

Not a very good end to the day, still we had all made it OK and tomorrow we would be straight in to the mountains! Ye-ha!!!

Garmin Mapsource on the PC can produce a vertical profile from the GPS's stored trail points. This one starts in Zeebrugge at 0 miles and ends at Thonon les Bains, 512 miles later, you can certainly see where we started to enter the Alps!

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