Le Tour de France

We took the train to Grenoble from Colmar on Wednesday in order to get back to the Alps in time to watch the Tour de France come through on Friday. With the advice of some friends who went in the past they recommended we arrive a few days early and stack out a camping spot.We rode from the Grenoble train station into the quiet hills around the city where we met up with Nicholas, our host from couchsurfing. He welcomed us into the large home that he shares with several roommates, and we talked about our tour and he shared advice and his experiences from his two year bike tour before sitting down to dinner with the rest of the house mates.

The next morning, we got back on the bikes and set off for Alpe d’Huez, the legendary mountain stage where we wanted to watch the race. The bottom of the mountain was a 50km ride from Grenoble, which we were able to complete by mid afternoon. Once in Bourg d’Oisans at the base of the mountain, we stocked up on food for the weekend not knowing what we would be able to find higher up.

Once ready to climb, we made our way to the mountain and began our ride, counting down the 21 switchbacks to the top. Even though the race was still a day away, the area was already electric with excitement and plenty of partying going on. Almost all available space on the side of the road was filled with RVs, some with televisions watching the race and others with their own DJ’s playing music. We continued to ride up hoping to find a spot for our tent along the way until we reached the Dutch Corner, the section of the mountain that is traditionaly filled with Holland’s biggest fans whenever the Tour comes up Alpe d’Huez.

A Dutch fan getting a ride from Matt

We stopped to snap some photos of the area when a couple of young Dutch guys started encouraging us to keep going. We talked with them a bit and they said that they were camping in the grass above Dutch Corner, and invited us to do the same. Seeing how great of a party they were having, we knew that we would be stopping for the night there, but not until we finished climbing the last 5.5 km to the top. We kept riding and eventually hit the summit, where we found another grocery store to buy more food for the weekend and descended back down to Dutch Corner.

While looking for a spot to pitch the tent, we met a fellow American who had come to watch the race as a part of a guide business that her boyfriend owned. She was staking out a spot for their clients to watch the race the next day, so we invited her to come down to the party with us. After going back down to the street, we found the guys that we spoke with earlier and chatted with them, while watching the Dutch fans encourage riders still climbing the mountains and stopping traffic by dancing in the streets to their favorite songs. We also met another group of fans that were prepared and brought pallets to build a fire, which was great to stand around during the cool night hours.

The next morning, we awoke to an even more energized race day atmosphere. Surprisingly, cars and RVs still continued to march up the mountain throughout the day while even more cyclists came to tackle the famous climb. We spent the day hanging out around Dutch Corner and socializing with all of the people we had met the night before.

The guys who had the fire also had a tv and were able to turn on the race to watch the portion of the stage preceding Alpe d’Huez. We watched the race unfold and turned to the streets before the lead riders came through.

The street was completely filled with fans with just enough room for the riders and official vehicles to get through. We saw Alberto Contador come through in the lead with a good gap over the other riders that would eventually catch him. The Dutch fans surrounding us cheered loudly for all of the riders, but were especially supportive of the Rabobank riders, who were basically pushed up the mountains by the fans.

After the riders had gone by, we returned to the television to see how the last 5km had unfolded. The rest of the day was spent saying goodbye to our new friends that were leaving and watching the nonstop line of vehicles leave the mountain that continued all through the night and morning.

The next morning, we descended off of the mountain and grabbed a quick bite to eat in Bourg d’Oisans. We then left to return to Grenoble where the next Tour de France stage was taking place. Since there is only one road connecting the two towns, there was an immense amount of traffic that was slowly moving along the 50 km highway. Fortunately, we were able to ride past the traffic at our own pace thanks to bike lanes and wide shoulders on the road. Since we had a consistent gradual downhill, we were able to keep our speed up and outpace the cars on the road, even the official cars from the pro teams were driving like maniacs in a hurry to get to the race.

Once back in Grenoble, we stopped back by Nicholas’ house to clean up before going back down to the race. We left in time to arrive at the race and watch the last few riders start their race. Since this stage was a time trial, each rider was riding individually and one would come through every few minutes. We were lucky enough to find an open spot to watch from the barriers on the final straight away as we saw Cadel Evans ride his way to his first Tour de France win. After the race, we tried to see the podium presentations, but were too far away to see much of the action.

With the race over, we headed back to the house to spend one more evening with our hosts, and to prepare our plans to ride to Paris.

To the Tour de France

Zurch was surprisingly easy to make our way out, we used the tram lines to follow most of the way and were able to find bike paths here and there. As we got close to the German border on the bike path we saw a large bike shop which we of course had to swing by. We saw several Niner bikes outside, the same brand of 29er bike Andrew is riding. After talking to the store manager he explained that they carry so many Niner’s because they are the distributor for the entire country of Switzerland.

Shortly after we crossed the Rhine river and stopped for some food and enjoy the view. We followed the river all the way to Waldshut, a famous small city recommended to us.

We rode through the city and tried to find a campground on the other side, but we had to turn around to one we saw near the river on the way into town. While riding there, we met a Swiss family on their own bike tour. They have been living in Central America for the past few years and wanted to return to Europe for a visit so their children could experience their roots. We shared dinner together and provided sauerkraut, which the youngest child had for the first time since it is hard to find in Central America.

The next morning the rain started as we climbed into Germany’s Black Forest. After several stops to warm up and dry out a little we rode to a small town past Tittisee which is a tourist spot known for their Cookoo clocks. We found a hostel that was 26 euro, a bit expensive but after finding out that the price included a buffet dinner and breakfast we were pleased with the price even though we had no other option to warm up and dry out.

The next morning it was cool but with only a few light showers we made our way to Frieburg pretty quickly and followed the canal and bike paths over the Rhein river again to cross into France.

We finished the day riding to Colmar France, another small city with a great old fashion city center. We stopped occasionally to think about the history that took place in this region not too long ago, strange large banks in the flat farmland where gardens now inhabit once could have been a wall to slow down enemies entering France. We also noticed an old bunker beside the road from WWII.

The next morning we left the campground to tour around Colmar where older typical French buildings still remained from the wars.

We spent a few hours site seeing then made our way to the train station to buy tickets to Grenoble to watch the Tour de France.

Switzerland

Our train arrived in Como, Italy on Monday afternoon with enough time for us to make our way over the border into Switzerland. We rode around 30 km from the train station until we were near Lugano, where we found a campground for the night. As we crossed the border we were surprised by the ease it was, there was border patrol but traffic moved right through like a thru way speed pass. This is all part of the new European Schengen visa open boarders. When we checked in, we quickly realized that Switzerland is much more expensive than Italy (or most any other country) and that we may have to limit our stay in order to keep from breaking our budget.

While setting up our tent for the evening we met a British ex-pat, Adam who rode by on his bike and struck up a conversation while one of his kids was on his shoulder and the other behind on her own bike with training wheels. We chatted with him for a few minutes about taking a lift to a mountain near by and riding single track, it didn’t take much for us to give in and we agreed to go mountain biking with him the next morning.

We finished getting settled in for the night, and eventually met back up with Adam and his family for drinks and conversation. The next morning, we went riding with Adam on some of Lugano’s finest trails, which we have detailed in our latest Singletracks.com article (coming soon!). We would have loved to stay in the area longer, but we were running out of time and didn’t want to spend another 55 Francs on camping, so we packed up and rode to the train station to catch the next train to Zurich that evening.

We arrived in Zurich after dark which didn’t allow for much sight seeing, so we headed directly to home of our friends in the city. Suzanne and John are two Americans who have lived in Switzerland for just a few months, and invited us to stay with them while we were visiting. We were fortunate that their house was near one of the tram routes that a local at the station pointed out which made navigating the city pretty easy as long as we followed the tracks. We spent the remainder of the evening getting to know Suzanne and telling stories from our trip before heading to bed.

The next day we awoke to rainy weather but decided to go out anyway and explore the city. The morning was spent wandering around downtown, and when the rain picked up we would duck into one of the churches to stay dry while still playing the tourist gig.

We were also able to make our way to Zurich’s toy museum, which was filled with dolls, electric trains, and other toys some of which date back over two hundred years. While interesting, the museum was small and lacked any modern toys from our childhood, so we left and headed a couple of blocks away to an actual toy store, where we could marvel at the Lego sets and other toys that we grew up with. It was difficult to leave without buying anything, but managed to get out of the store and head back to the apartment. We arrived home shortly before John arrived from a business trip in the States. Once he made it home from long flight from California, we all set out for a restaurant to try out some traditional Swiss cuisine and get to know John and Sue better. They recommended some good hikes for us to do in the area, but the weather was not clearing up, so they recommended we visit one of Switzerland’s other cities. We decided on Lucern and the next morning headed to the train station.

We stopped by the tourist information office at the Lucern train station where we found a map that had a walking route that would lead us to all of the popular tourist sights. We followed the route, which took us by the river to see one of the oldest wooden bridges Spreuerbrucke which features a series of paintings from the Dark Ages, most show graphic paintings describing the Black Plague.

 

We also found our way to the Kapellbruckle, the oldest bridge of its kind in Europe and the Dying Lion sculpture.

While walking around noticed a mini football (soccer) stadium made of beer cans was near the bus station square. After checking it out we found out that it was a promotion for a Swiss beer company (which is not known for being a great beer in the opinion of most non Swiss). We got our picture taken and had a free beer sample.

We stumbled upon this locked up bike with an interesting note, John had mentioned that the Swiss are known for leaving notes for various reasons, especially if you are a loud neighbor, but in this case a bike purchase inquiry. John and Sue also pointed out that the Swiss don’t wait in a single file line and will often cut in front of you while walking and they always follow rules like the crosswalks and hours of operation for a recycling bin (not open on Sunday)

Near the water we saw the bikes parked of a family touring, Matt no longer could complain about the heavy trailer after seeing this family. A bike pulling gear in panniers with a trailer for toddler and mini bike.

We finished the tourist walk along the old city wall including a quick trip up a couple of the lookout towers before heading back to the train station to return to Zurich for the night.

After arriving back to Zurich we went downtown to meet up with Matt’s former roommate and his wife, who have moved to Zurich just a few weeks prior to work on his Ph.D. We met at a bar near the river where we had drinks and chatted while some of the older patrons of the bar danced to the live band, and occasional asked us to join in. We danced some and finished our drinks before heading back to rest up for our hike that we planned for the following day.

We had saved our hike for Friday since that is when the weather was the most promising which it was. We didn’t want to spend the money to travel on another long distance Swiss train, so we stayed in Zurich and hiked up one of the local mountains, the Eutliburg, to get a great view of the city from a perspective that many tourists miss out on.

Although there were some clouds that hindered the visibility from the top of the mountains there was still some impressive views of the City. After summiting the Eutliburg, we followed the ridgeline for a couple of hours before arriving at the Fellsnegg cable car station, which took us back down the mountain to the train station where we could ride back into Zurich. The excellent public transport system really showed during this hike, with a tram to bring us right to the trailhead and a cable car down the mountain all part of the public transit network, it was remarkably easy to get out of the city for some outdoor recreation.

The next morning, we left our friends in Zurich and headed north towards Germany in a hurry to get out of Switzerland and back to “normal" prices. We would have loved to stay longer and explore the country more, but with the prices being as high as they are it just was not sensible for us to stay longer.

Lake Garda

The greenway we were following to the Northern end of Lake Garda showed signs of the tourism hotspot this area had to offer. We saw more bike shops and campsites along the way and a few signs to some bike trails. We were tempted to stop and do some riding but decided to hold out for some riding once we found a place to sleep for the night.

Aggressive downhill on a greenway

We stopped at a bike shop along the way to find a map and some potential trail options. We saw that there were lots of mountain bike “trails” with some single track sections scattered throughout. The shop owner mentioned that the better free ride areas were farther West and the other mountain bike trails were on the North side of the lake.

We rode on until we reached Torbole where we set ourselves up at the first campground we came across with beach access.

Despite being in the busy season in a very touristy area, we were able to camp there fairly cheaply since we only rented a half size site. For most of the RV campers this would be an issue, but for us it was not a problem since we only have a tent and 2 bikes.

For the rest of the day we decided to find a trail to ride. We checked out our trail map and chose a shorter 20 km ride which started 12 km away. The east side of the lake was filled with smaller beach towns similar to the one we were staying at and had some great views of the protruding mountains along the lake side.

The trail was very difficult to find, since it began by climbing up one of the mountain roads, and our trail map lacked road names. We eventually found our way and saw some faded bike markers that assured us we were on the right path. We somehow always seem to find the steepest climbs during our adventure and this trail was no exception. At times, it seemed like walking would be faster but we continued up. The descent was very steep and rocky, much like the Dolomites. The trail was loose and unmaintained making the descent another white knuckle ride.

Half way down, the trail opened up to the lake to show off its beauty. The downhill after this point was more like what we enjoy riding, but was mostly double track trails back to a paved road to town. We finished with a quick ride back to our campsite for a total of around 40 km in addition to our morning of touring.

The next day we hung by the beach a bit. The very north side of the lake was filled with windsurfers. In the morning when the winds are low, all of the beginners are out on the water taking lessons. By the afternoon, the wind picks up enough to make waves that could pass as an ocean front, and the expert wind surfers come out to take advantage.In the early afternoon, w headed south to a friend’s house in Desanzano. What we thought would be a short ride ended up turning into a half days journey since Lake Garda is Italy’s largest lake. Since we had already ridden a third of the way down on the east side of the lake the previous day to get to our trail ride, we rode down on the west side for a change of scenery. The terrain on this side is very different, so much that it requires over a half dozen tunnels for the road to get through the mountains, one of which being 3 km long. We found our way to our friend Valeria’s home where we relaxed until dinner and shortly after a group of her friends came over for a dessert party.

The next morning we walked into town for a drink and to sightsee. We saw the local castle and some ruins from an ancient Roman town.  Later on after some pool time, we took a tour of Lake Garda on the family boat. We saw a beautiful private residence on the water which used to be a castle, an ancient Roman spa, a beautiful rock formation where we went swimming, and stopped at another castle that was larger and accommodating for tourists.

The next day two other friends of Valeria’s were flying into Milan so we all took a day trip together along with one of Valeria’s other friends who is an Engineer Architect. We saw the Duomo, walked the famous and expensive shopping district of Milan (and tried on the most hideous cloths we could find), saw the first theater in Italy and the first Roman Catholic church, and walked through the cities castle. Valeria’s friend was able to give us our own private tour since he knew lots of Milan’s history.

The following day we each went off on our own to find some entertainment. We both had plans to take the ferry back to the northern side of the lake, but ran into difficulties since only a few of the ferries will take bikes. Matt found several unique beaches along the South part of Lake Garda. The best beach was one that beautiful clear shallow water with flat rock for 100 meters from shore. Andrew decided to take a short ride around the lake, before heading back to the house and joining our host family for lunch and another boat ride on the lake. We regrouped that evening for a dinner party that Valeria was hosting with more of her friends coming over.

We spent a few hours the next morning walking around a nearby city, Verona. This popular tourist town had an ancient Roman amphitheater which is still used today for shows.

We visited Juliet’s house of the Capulet family from the fictional story “Romeo and Juliet.” It is tradition to grab the statue of Juliet’s breast, and you can see the right side is shiny and clean compared to the rest of her. There was a line of people waiting to partake in this tradition. In Milan there is a large tile of a Blue Bull where it is tradition to spin on your heal 7 times on the Bull’s testis when you come to Milan. This was evident since there was a large divot in the tile. Another tradition we heard of was to touch the foot of St. Peter at St. Peters Basilica in Vatican city.

The last landmark we saw in Verona was to go up to the bell tower. From the top, there was an amazing view of the city and parts of the cities surrounding wall.

We rested and researched the rest of the day to figure out our plan to Zurich. Since we were running out of time, the next morning we took a train to Lake Como, another beautiful lake city on the border of Switzerland.

Out of the Dolomites

Even though we left Cortina heading in the same direction that we came in, we decided that it would be nice to try a different road rather than simply backtrack. We picked a road off of our map (which again lacks topographical information) and headed out of town. The signs as we left town said that there was a mountain pass in about 20km, and we soon found out that we would be climbing for the entire distance to the pass. About half way there, we came to an intersection that looked like it would hopefully bypass our climb and keep us headed in the right direction so we made the turn. It wasn’t long before we started climbing again on our way towards Passo Gaiu.

We got lots of encouragement on the way to the top from various people including a supporter of a guided cycling tour that passed by, an older couple picking pine cones on the side of the road (we found out later that the seed inside is one of the ingredients for home made pesto), and a couple of friendly honks from our Slovenian friends that we met at the Cortina campground and happened to drive past. Towards the top of the climb, we began seeing paint on the roads and realized that there were messages left over from the Giro d’Italia where some of the worlds best cyclists road the same climb just a couple of months ago.

We could tell we were approaching the summit as the paint on the roads became more common, and before long we arrived at Passo Gaiu. We stood at 2236 meters of elevation, having left Cortina a couple of hours earlier at just over 1200 meters.

We didn’t stay long at the top since it was pretty chilly and getting late. The ride down was fast and fun, with a series of signs to countdown each of the 28 hairpin turns during our descent. We rode into a town called Alleghe which was another typical Dolomite small ski town.

We asked some locals at an outdoor store if there was a campground or anywhere else that we could camp for free. There was a campground up the road but also a place by the park that was free. We were confused since we only saw a children's playground which we were not comfortable staking up a tent at a children’s park, but decided to check it out anyway. Just before the playground was a parking lot that RVs could stay for free but lacked the amenities of a campground. We weren’t staying there long so we thought this might work to save some money.  We met an older couple parked there who didn’t speak any English but with some hand jestured comunication they offered to move their RV forward so that our tent was hidden from the road and had some extra cover from the wind.

We cooked pasta for dinner but since we only had a jar of store bought sauce, they brought out some of their homemade sauce that was more appropriate with our pasta. The couple also brought us red wine, salami, and cookies for us to make our meal more complete. Later that night we had some Italian whiskey (Grappa) to help us sleep and warm our stomachs. Even though we were only 1000 meters in elevation the town was pretty cold with the high peaks surrounding the lake and town.

This town surprisingly seemed like a great place to mountain bike since we saw more “Welcome Mountain Bikers” signs and bikes everywhere. A quick search online sent us to Hotel Alleghe where we might receive some help finding the trails. Speaking to a few people Matt was led to the bike shop connected to the hotel where an older cyclist known for being a great rider and someone who knows all the local trails pointed out several routes, but recommended the “Superbike” trail which was 41 km with lots of climbing, but also fast and fun descents.

With some hesitance we started off on the Superbike route.The route starts on the pavement with lots of climbing up to the top of the first ski lift. Once the pavement ended we began climbing up a steep gravel road up the ski mountain where we met lots of hikers. After looking at the elevation profile some more and the type of trail marked on the map we decided to turn around since the downhill would be similar to what we found in Cortina. We would be grabbing the brakes the whole way down which would make the climb not worth the effort.

Instead we went to a few shops in town, ate, and cleaned up at the campsite down the road. The more trails we rode in the Dolomites, the more we realized that Europeans have a different understanding of mountain biking than we do back in the States.

Early the next morning we said goodbye to our campsite (RV Parking lot) neighbors who appreciated the company as much as we did. We rode off, set to get to the Trento area and on our way to Lake Garda. We rode until the early afternoon and took a break for some well deserved gelato. Only a few minutes after sitting down we drew a small crowd of folks who were interested in our trip and were excited to find out that we were Americans that came all this way to ride through part of the country. Shortly after our stop, Andrew ran over some glass in one of the tunnels and came out with a flat rear tire. We tried to insert a tube, but found that the spare tube had a tear in it and would not hold air. We also tried to patch the tube, but were unable to get it to work due to the size of the tear in the tube. Unfortunately, it was Sunday and all of the bike shops were closed, se we were forced to walk the last couple of kilometers to a nearby campground on Lago di Corlo.

The campground employee informed us that the nearest bike shop was several towns away and would be difficult for us to reach since Andrew couldn’t ride there. We decided to instead walk to the train station in the morning and take a train to Trento, where we could find a bike shop with tubes to fix the flat tire. We began making our way to the town with the train station, which turned out to be much further away than it appeared on the map.

Matt rode ahead to check things out at the station, while Andrew continued to walk his bike. As he walked, another cyclists rode by and wanted to help, despite not speaking any English. Andrew “explained" the situation that a new tube was needed. The cyclist understood and said he would be back in 10 minutes before riding away. After the 10 minutes had passed, the cyclists returned in his car with a couple of different tubes to choose from. He said that the tubes all had patches in them and may not be the best, so he insisted that we remove the wheel and hop in his car to go get a new tube. He drove us to a bike rental stand a few kilometers down the road that operated out of a gas station, where we were able to buy new tubes and get the rear tire inflated and ready to ride again. He then drove Andrew back to the spot where we had left Andrew’s bike and where Matt was waiting.

Andrew and the cycling good Samaritan.

Since we both had fully functioning bikes again and we had missed the train that we were hoping to catch, we decided to just ride for the rest of the day and get close to Trento by bike. We found a nice bike path that would take us almost the entire way, and even stopped at a restaurant on the side of the path that catered to the cyclists riding by.

After riding for most of the afternoon, we came across a lake with several different campgrounds. We checked with one of them and found the prices to be significantly higher than other areas, so we continued down the road hoping to find something better.

After riding for another hour and a half we were running out of time to find a camping spot and our options were not looking good. It appeared as if we would need to either backtrack to the campgrounds near the lake that we had passed by or keep riding into Trento and find somewhere in the city.

After asking a few locals for a good place to stay, one family offered to let us pitch our tent in their garden, They were on the way to dinner when we saw them, but said we should wait until they came back to head to their house. We set up our stove on the side of the road and made ourselves some food while waiting for the family to return. Not long after finishing our dinner, the father of the family came by and showed us the way to their house where he let us shower and offered us clean shirts to wear for the evening. Once the rest of the family returned, we sat outside enjoying gelato and a couple of drinks while telling stories of our trip and getting to know our new friends. By the time were ready for bed, they even offered to let us come in and sleep in the spare room downstairs to make sure we didn’t get rained on.

We awoke bright and early in the morning to have breakfast with the family before setting out towards Lake Garda. We passed through Trento as well a couple of long uphill tunnels on the way over the mountains before descending down through a series of small towns. Thanks to our early start, we were able to get to the northern shore of Lake Garda by lunchtime.