Seyssel to St Genix-sur-Guier

October 1, 2023

yeah, I can't say it either

And now comes our best day so far. Gorgeous scenery, bike paths (or almost unused roads) for 95% of the day, and did I mention the perfect weather? I should also mention that Eurovelo 17 is well marked now - in some past blogs there were comments about it needing better markings, I guess they heard you!

We got going just after 0930 and were not in a hurry today. Cool sunny weather and not too stressful uphills that we see ahead.

We began by rising over that bridge and then quickly we are in the countryside.

But first a water stop in town. Cute place, but still mostly asleep.

Marjory waits while I buy water right here.

One terrific advantage to staying in small places is that you don't have to bike far to get to the "country". You are already in the country. There might be a few alleyways and twisty turns through town, but in less than 10 min, this is what you get below. Contrast that with the 10 stress filled km out of Geneva.

We did notice there were quite a few forests with trees in rows - clearly they had been planted. Well done to the French.

At one point, close to the river the paved path just stops. Komoot takes us on this "mountain biking" path for about 100 m, we though the app had "lost the plot". Then low and behold, the paved path starts up once again as you can just make out in the bottom left of the pic below. Our faith restored.

Although we never saw any animals which needed to be kept out of areas, we did cross an awful lot of animal barriers - the kind we have always called Texas gates. Apparently here they are Barriere Canadienne. Or are they trying to keep us Canadians out? A mystery.

The fantastic trails along the river continued in spectacular fashion. At a few river crossings, after the bridge you take an exit like a car ramp, swirl around and down and enter the path again. Here I am standing on the bridge with other bikers ahead of us already having done the swirl and entry. Awesome!

It is Sunday today, and we come to a park-like setting with zillions of cars parked along the roadway. Many of them have bikes attached and the trail along the river quickly becomes full of bikers, walkers, strollers. Clearly its a Sunday thing to do here; full of families and serious bikers. And us.

I stopped along here (off the main trail below) to check out the Rhone we had just bridged across.

This is what I was looking at. The Rhone has become enormous!

The crowds finally dwindle, and we are back with only the occasional bikers along the river, but the bike trail remains excellent. We probably had 20km of this.

A long (200m?) bridge built just for bikers shows the efforts they are going to in order to improve this route.

We finally veer away from the river as we start to head towards our town for the night. There are fewer options in the next few days before Lyon, so we cannot really stay on the river. Now if we were camping, there were amazing campsites along the river.

It looks like all the fields are done for the season. Today is Oct 1, so its just pumpkins from here on out!

And our B&B - called Fleur de Frangipanier - looks wonderful. With an apero at 18:30, and dinner at 1900, I will see you tomorrow.

Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 438 km (272 miles)

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