Hello blog readers,
Sorry we have not posted for a few days. We have not had internet connections. All three of us are safe and sound in Lutry, Switzerland! We are staying at my (McKayla) grandparent's new home in Lutry, which is right outside of Lausanne. It is amazingly beautiful, and we are all so happy to be here! Here are our posts from the last few days. Stay tuned for pictures...enjoy.
Saturday October 2nd
Besancon to Pontalier (70km)
Quote du jour: "To be a cyclist is to be a student of pain....at cycling's core lies pain, hard and bitter as the pit inside a juicy peach. It doesn't matter if you're sprinting for an Olympic medal, a town sign, a trailhead, or the rest stop with the homemade brownies. If you never confront pain, you're missing the essence of the sport. Without pain, there's no adversity. Without adversity, no challenge. Without challenge, no improvement. No improvement, no sense of accomplishment and no deep-down joy. Might as well be playing Tiddly-Winks."
-Scott Martin
(this quote is very fitting for me (McK) and Erin because we both like pushing ourselves through pain, but more importantly we LOVE to compare everything to food)
Today was our first real mountain climbing day. We started at 1000ft. in Besancon and ended at 2700ft in Pontalier. Shortly after leaving the city, we had to immediately ascend up steep, winding, narrow backroads. Some sections were so steep it was hard to keep balance. At the top, we were very cautious to make sure we had the correct route because we didn't want to backtrack up the mountain if not necessary. Despite having three different maps of the area, none of them showed how to get from the road we were on to the road we wanted to go toward. One kind woman stopped to help us and pointed us in one direction, but a few minutes later three men pulled up on a tractor and gave us a more convincing argument to go the other way. We followed their advice and quickly found ourselves on roads we could once again identify on our map. We rode along D67 towards Ornans at a comfortable conversational pace until we reached the Ravine du Puits Noir. We then cruised down an amazing 3k descent which ended with spectacular views of Ornans and the surrounding valley of the Loue River. We were both in awe. It's impossible to capture the natural beauty in words.
We stopped for lunch at a picnic table aside the river, and then proceeded to ride along the Loue for several kilometers. Cliffs surrounded us on both sides, and many elite-looking cyclists passed us (which we found comforting knowing others were riding on the same road as us). I was pleasantly surprised that they smiled and said, "bonjour," as they practically flew by. One of Erin's favorite parts of the day was looking up at the cliffs, and then rising up into them and looking back down at the river. Our quads burned, but we kept a nice steady pace up the gradual switchbacks. At one panoramic view point along the way, we stopped and met a French couple traveling by RV. They were so friendly to us, despite our choppy French, and they even gave us coconut merangues for "bon courage!" We continued for a few more descents and ascents, through many cow fields where the ringing of the cow bells remined us of ski racing back home, and which gave us energy and spirit to continue riding all the way to Pontalier.
We were SO happy when we easily found the tourism office, and learned that the hostel and supermaket were right down the road. Pontalier is located in the foothills of medium-sized mountains. It's in close proximity to mountain biking routes, nordic/alpine skiing operations, and endless hiking trails. It's a very sporty town to say the least. I (McKayla) loved seeing people ride around town on their bikes with baguettes bungeed to their back racks. Pontalier is only 10k from the Swiss border, and it certainly has a bit of a Swiss feel with it's chalet style architecture. This evening we met a French guy, named Francis, who was staying at the hostel while searching for an appartment. He told us all about his travels in Canada and the US, and gave us advice for our route to Switzerland. He was very friendly, and we both enjoyed his company for the evening.
While we were climbing, Erin composed a short poem...enjoy!
The day started out with a doozy,
a big uphill climb that left me feeling a bit woozy.
My heart rate soared oh so high,
as we climbed and climbed into the sky.
At the top of the hill there appeared a gap,
as the roads we were on were not on our map.
So we asked three men upon a tractor,
for directions toward the route we sought after.
Soon enough we were back on track,
our legs refreshed from a granola bar snack.
Now this climbing is using the blood from my brain,
I'll have to end this rhyming game.
Sunday, October 3rd
Switzerland! We made it!
Pontalier, France to Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland 45km
The weather today was absolutely perfect; a crisp fall breeze, clear blue skies, and warm sunshine. I (Erin) hurt my wrist yesterday and I was concerned to ride today, but the beautiful weather made riding irresistible. We were smart enough to hit up the grocery store before we left Pontalier (because it's Sunday, and as we learned last weekend, Sundays suck for travelers like us because everything is closed). We began with a constant, uphill, winding climb out of Pontalier on Route D6 towards the nordic ski town of Les Fourgs. McKayla was getting quite excited about all the "Ski du Fond" signs and wished she could go cross country skiing. We cruised into Switzerland, climbed one final hill, and peaked for the day at 3600 ft of altitude, a total of 900 ft of altitude gain. As we were crossing into Switzerland, McKayla noticed that we were following one of the roads from the Tour de France in 2009!
Once we reached St. Criox we caught a beautiful view of the Alps in the distance and began the greatest descent of our lives. The descent was 10km long, full of switchbacks, and lots of motorcycles and cars. The first five minutes were glorious, the last 15 minutes were painful as my arms were fatiguing from braking the entire time. I remember watching the men on the Tour de France go down descents as frightening as this one, flying around 180 degree switchback turns going 100 km/hr. It's crazy that we were actually doing the same thing. We, however, did not scream down the mountain that fast (don't worry mom). The experience was surreal, it's hard to capture the awesomeness of our ride today. It's one of the coolest things I've ever done. There could be no better way to enter Switzerland than by crossing over the mountains using our own two legs and our bicycles.
After the steep descent we travelled another 10km downhill to Yverdon-les-Bains (alititude 1290 ft), which is on the southern tip of a big lake, 98 km around (Lac de Neuchalet). The area is beautiful, surrounded by moutains; McKayla exclaimed, "so far I love Switzerland!" To which I responded, "what's not to love?!" We cruised around town, went to a bizare antique/flee market/fair and sat on the lake watching all the sailboats.
Tonight we staying at a rather expensive, yet low quality hotel, next to a McDonald's (yet, we can't get on the free wifi here because we need a cell phone to get texted the password, we are not big fans of Swiss McDonalds now). Tomorrow we will cruise to Lausanne to meet up with Amie!! Looks like there is a bike path from here to Lausanne which we will test out. I'm looking forward to reuniting with Amie tomorrow and then heading to McKayla's Grandma and Granddad's house on Tuesday!
Sunday, October 4
Mountains in the Clouds
Yverdon-les-Bains to Lausanne (57k)
The mountains we could see from our hotel window were almost completely hidden by fog this morning. We could tell the sun was trying to come out, so we were optimistic that the fog would quickly burn off and give way to clear blue skies (which it did!). We had a leisurly, but quite small breakfast in bed (apple and "la vache qui rit"cheese) as we conjured up enough motivation to do a 10-minute abs workout before we started biking for the day.
We checked out of our hotel around 9:30am and made our way into the center of Yverdon to find the bike route signs. The first sign we saw was located right next to the Information Office so we stopped in and asked if they had a map of the bike route to Lausanne. They provided us with a highligted bike route map for getting out of Yverdon and told us to follow the number 5 signs all the way to Lausanne.
The route took us on narrow paved roads, alongside corn and cabbage fields, through small Swiss towns, and over rolling hills. The paths occasionally turned into dirt roads, so we eventually decided to take a more direct, less bumpy route on real roads. We stayed in the bike lanes of larger roads for the last 5k into Lausanne. We easily found our hostel, located a few kilometers from the city center, showered, napped, and waited for Amie to meet back up with us!
(this quote is very fitting for me (McK) and Erin because we both like pushing ourselves through pain, but more importantly we LOVE to compare everything to food)
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