September 1, 2019
Time to crack on
Yverdon-les-Bains to Basel, with final train ride
It's been a slowish start to our cycle tour of Switzerland and France. Taking un petit détour to Divonne-les-Bains in order to complete my century of parkruns has meant compromises in terms of distances achieved versus train travel to make up time.
We dabbled in living the good life in our spa hotel last night. Yverdon-les-Bains has attracted people to its thermal waters for centuries. And it was to the grand old Grand Hotel and Thermal Centre that we pedalled our weary way late yesterday afternoon. Not because we planned to take the waters, like those weary travellers in an alliterative Jane Austen novel. More prosaically, we had left finding accommodation too late, given it was a Saturday night, and had to pay what we hope will be our most expensive accommodation of the trip. It was, however, an interesting experience to explore a building that started life in the late 1700s and has been added to and fiddled with ever since. Faded glory probably best sums it up.
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Today will finish with an expensive train ride, again, but we make decent pedal progress from last night's luxury stopover, powering up the western sides of both Lake Neuchatel and the Bielersee. My little Garmin unit, not generally known to be demonstrative, exuberantly announces that I have achieved my longest distance yet when I press the 'end ride' button this afternoon.
Actually, that's the second digital display of emotion in two days. Yesterday, I came to a sharp, twisting stop on a gravel track when my chain suddenly locked up. There was a squeak of alarm from the handlebars and a flashing message that Garmin would be calling my emergency contact in 15, 14, 13 . . . seconds. It was quite a scramble to pick myself up and find the correct button to press in order to stop Swiss paramedics in their tracks. But I digress.
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Today's destination is Biel/Bienne - again. We caught the train from Zurich to this double-moniker of a town on our first day. Today, we take an InterCity train from here to Basel. As tempting as it is for at least one of us to cycle 50 undulating kilometers through the foothills of the Jura this afternoon to get to Basel, I use my executive power of veto and buy train tickets instead. For us, and for the bikes. Because that's how Swiss Rail rolls. The bikes hang up on their reserved hooks, and we doze in our reserved-for-cyclists seats.
Well, it's been great, Switzerland. We love you to bits (those church bells! those cow bells!) but it's time to cross the border again and begin our journey on Eurovelo 6 through France. And, to be brutally honest, time to seek out real coffee.
Today's ride: 76 km (47 miles)
Total: 238 km (148 miles)
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