A Loop Around Lake Geneva

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Today we rode the longest ever distance on our tandem.

Eric has already done the tour of the lake by bike many times and therefore this trip was not new to him. I had never done it all in one go. I was curious about the experience of seeing the entire Lake Geneva (Lac Leman in French) in one day and thought it would be nice to do that by bike. Because I know the only way I would survive such a long stage is on our tandem, I was really happy that Eric agreed to the plan.

My goal for the day was to finish. We have only the bicycle to get us home.

The ride along the south side of the lake was beautiful for the most part (ex a few busy stretches). Our road took us through the villages of Yvoire, Thonon-les-Bains (starting point of La Route des Grandes Alpes) and Evian-les-Bains (yes, the same Evian as the bottled water). We moved on to the town of St-Gingolph (one side is France and the other, Switzerland) where we stopped for pastry.

The loop to the other side of the lake was a bit strenuous as we had to fight headwind riding through that part of Valais to the canton of Vaud. Once we arrived at the town of Villeneuve, the wind subsided.

The rest of the lake loop was smooth and flat. We rode through a few cities (Montreaux, Vevey and Lausanne) where traffic lights forced us stop more often than we would have liked. As I suspected, the last 90 km was more difficult than the first 90 km. It was late in the afternoon and I was starting to tire. Fortunately, as we're two on the tandem, whatever I lacked in power, Eric more than made up for it. We made it home before dark.

Total trip distance: 180 km at average speed of 27.8 kmh

- Katy, 8/11/2008