May 7, 2023 to May 9, 2023
Geneva - Rochejean (Les Rousses)
Stage 14
After Culoz I continued to follow the Via Rhona to Geneva. Another beautiful ride, mostly on small roads and cycleways, and highly recommended. As I approached Geneva a gentle rain started, but it didn't get heavy enough to require a coat. I guess on the current (winter 2023) NZ rain scale, it didn't rain at all!
My hostel for 2 nights was the Meininger Hotel, on Rue de Lyon, nice and central and not crazy expensive by Geneva standards.
They call it a hotel, but you get to share a normal size hotel room with 3 complete strangers. One of my strangers was already in residence and kindly encouraged me to request a change in bed allocation, as I'd been given the only top bunk in the room. I agreed that something less elevated would be age - appropriate. My roomy laughed at that, suggesting that having cycled there from Portugal, I wasn't really a strong argument for "age appropriate".
I then met 2 surprises: the currency is Swiss Francs, not the Euro, and their power sockets are different from the rest of the EU. I can see the logic of retaining their currency, but how about aligning with the EU on power sockets? Would that be so hard?
I spent my birthday organising a service for Wally (new brake pads, some clean grease in the bottom bracket) and being a tourist by hitting the lake front for the waterjet and the floral clock, and then walking up to the UN. As much as that does not sound exciting it was fun being in an iconic city for my birthday, rather than just another section of (beautiful) EDT.
I had been concerned about riding in the Jura, because of its apparent isolation, but some local knowledge from the bike shop guys and excited messages from Dorian about the Mtb trails put my mind at ease. l even got advice on the road to take to get up there - through Gex and along to Gingins and up to Saint Cerque.
It only took 20 minutes to leave the city streets and be back into farm land, following a G maps route directly under the Lear jets arriving for the business day.
There was very little climbing before Gingins, and the roads were very quiet. The 6km up the zigzag to Saint Cergue was a little busier, but still a very pretty ride through forest. There had been several (invisible) border crossings on the way, but the old border station at La Cure marked my return to France more formally.
I arrived in Les Rousses just as the forecast rain started, and moved into my chambre d' hote for a cozy night. My host fed me cheese and crackers and we talked about life is Les Rousses.
You can see that although Les Rousses is on the EDT, I took a different road.
Today's ride: 131 km (81 miles)
Total: 3,044 km (1,890 miles)
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