To the beach and back

Everyone else going had kids and were going for the weekend by the beach–we used it as a convenient first night away on a three day trip.

Day 1

Given that we were meeting friends, there was no need to carry _all_ our kit, and no need to hang about the beach and restaurant down there in our cycling gear, so we dropped a bag with friends on our way. The first part of the ride was mostly roads up to Col de Feu. From there we headed off the tarmac and onto 4x4 before desending down a top quality singletrack that the Strava route planner had chosen for us. In fact it chose the rest of the route to the beach, pretty much all on trails and gravel roads. Quite impressive. We got to the beach around 5pm - just in time to enjoy a beer or two before dinner and another few drinks.

Day 2

After the birthday celebrations, we weren't in too much of a rush to get out - but the wheels were rolling by 11. We had the Strava route planner to thank for this morning's somewhat awkward route out and away from the lake. After a bit of pushing and shoving, we decided to pick an easier route over to Bons en Chablais.
Our late start and meandering route also meant that we were also up against it in terms of finding some lunch. When we rolled into Bons en C, the first bakers we came to was pretty bare. Luckily the supermarket next door was open for another 5 minutes or so. We just about squashed the lump of cheese, pot of humus and bread into our bags and headed of up to the Col Saxel. We were pretty hungry by then, but could not find a place to stop for our middle classed lunch - we were too hung up on finding a nice spot, with good views, and a decent place to sit and so ended up riding a bit too long before stopping.

With lunch done, we carried on up past the monastery to the Signal des Voirons. At 1,400m this was a full 1,000m up from our start point of the day. This was done 90% on tarmac, but it felt a lot harder. Possibly the mid July heat, possibly the night before - either way, we were feeling pretty cooked.

Once up on the Signal there's a great ridge-line trail that rises and falls gently all along the spine with amazing views of Lac Leman and Geneva to the right, the Alps to the left.

At the end of the ridge is a short sharp shove up to a statue before an equally short sharp downhill push that starts the decent proper. At just under 800m, the decent is definitely worth a re-visit with unladen bikes - but as it was, we loved it - just deserts for the hot tarmac toil of the climb.

As we were back down into civilization, and it was around 4pm or so, we still had a bit of work to find a camp spot for the night. I should say that we only had a rough plan of where to sleep: somewhere on the 75km route home. We wanted to find a spot that had the sunset, views, away from homes, livestock, and people. And on the route. We've found that around this part of the Haute Savoie, there are farms and people everywhere! In the end though, we found a spot - it was around 9pm by the time we stopped. Sara had never ridden so far along and up on a mountain bike in a single day before (2,000m). Let alone a bike that weighs near on 20kg. But we made it. And the sun was still up just long enough to make dinner.

Day 3

It started very surreally: A pickup headed towards us (half on / half off the singletrack we'd ridden the night before) and parked about 10m away from our tent. We weren't sure if it was someone coming to tell us to move on or what.. but then they got out and pulled a huge great wooden crucifix out of the tuck bed and lugged it off up the trail (after saying 'Bonjour' as they walked past). It was like a scene from Monty Python.

It turns out that they were replacing an old worn out cross at a viewpoint nearby, but still, it's not every day you get to see something like that.

We had another 1,500m to climb but less than 40k to cover. Having slept up at 1,300m we had a much less arduous start to the day; a cracking singletrack down to Megevette. Then followed a pretty steady gravel climb before another great decent to Le Chevrerie. A proper Strava enduro segment. From there we were practically home: The ski area of Chevrerie is part of the Roc d'Enfer domain with la Grand Turche. A stiff climb followed by a savage push straight up a ski piste (I'm guessing a red run in the winter..) and we could smell home. A rattling run down to St Jean d'Aulps and just the river trail up to Morzine to finish. This bikepacking lark is proving to be addictive.