My route will follow the Rhone River in Switzerland and France. Of the five major rivers in Western Europe – Rhine, Elbe, Danube, Loire and Rhone – the Rhone is the only one which flows south. Like the Rhine, it rises in the Swiss Alps, near Andermatt, then flows west to Geneva, Lyons and then south between the Jura and the French Alps to Avignon, Arles and to a small village, Port Saint-Louis, where the Rhone empties into the Mediterranean. The distance, including side rides, will be 1000 – 1200 kms which, at my pace, will take 15 – 18 cycling days.

Packing for the trip is almost done & anyone who has made a trip like this one knows that efficient packing for this kind of trip is almost an art form – 87 separate items of gear or clothing, all of them necessary and none of them that isn’t necessary – since everything has to be carried on the back of the bike. I thought I was going light but my two pannier bags of essentials together weigh around 20 pounds, 4 pounds of that due to my heavy duty bike lock! The south of France apparently does a thriving trade in stolen bikes.

I’ve ditched my bright new cycling clothes for the tried and true four-layer standard for pretty much any outdoor activity in these kinds of conditions – Smartwool base layer, fleece layer, puffy jacket for insulation, Gortex outer shell. Four layers for the Swiss Alps at the start of the ride (snow is possible at this time of year) – not so much, of course, for the Mediterranean weather further south.

I heard today from Walti at his bike shop in Basel that my Surly bike box arrived & that the bike is now ready to go!

And so am I!

Lastly, just had an interesting chat with a Swiss couple on my flight to Zurich. They agreed that a 1200km cycle ride is not that unusual in Europe. Not so in the US. where cycling in much of the country is an oddity. We need a reset!

Day 0 – Almost there

Two trains from Zurich to Basel, a long weekend in Basel recovering from jet lag (c/o Ian & Fanny) & to pick up the bike. The Surly made it safe and sound, delivered via BikeFlights to Walti Schoch’s shop in Basel. This first day ‘belongs’ in part to Walti… not only did he reconstruct the bike, he graciously did the work at no cost! (‘My contribution to the bike ride – use the money instead for some decent food on the ride’, he said). Many thanks, Walti, for the very kind gesture!

Well…I made it here to the start of the ride some kilometers short of the source of the Rhone at the Rhone glacier which is at around 3600 meters above sea level. The Rhone ‘becomes a river’ a lot lower, at around 2,200 meters. The original plan was to use the village here as ‘base camp’ then to cycle up to the Furka Pass without bike bags – up and back in one day. That plan foundered since I’ve come down with a nasty cold. Instead I plan to cycle just part way up to ‘savour the moment’ from the furthest point I can get to. Alternatively I may take a sick day tomorrow. It was always going to be a stretch – snow on the road last night and the Furka Pass may always have too ambitious at this time of year on a bike (an impossible pursuit?).

So… I didn’t make it to the pass ☹️, but at least I’m spending 2 nights on the road to the pass – my hotel is on Furkastrasse with 3500 and 4000 meter peaks all around.

To get the picture, here’s a clip of the road leading to the pass (source: Adventures no limits)… which was famous long before James Bond and Goldfinger arrived on the scene – Roman legionnaires marched over it on their way north! A third of the way through the video you can see the first waters of the Rhone…

Instead I’m recuperating & doing some planning for the next 15 days cycling with iconic views of snow covered mountains from the hotel balcony.

More later…

Day 1

The elevation chart of the ride from start to finish looks something like a hockey stick on the ground with its blade in the air…for the next 2 or 3 days I’m sliding down the blade.

Today, a short ride – still recovering – to Brig, where Chris and I – on a winter hiking trip – spent a night (many years ago) at a hunting lodge.

Whew, it’s been a tough day. Fever gone, sort of, but energy level still low. A short day is around 35km but though the river goes steeply downhill, you can see from the map that the river is cut through at right angles with a number of streams which come down the mountain, so track was up and down, up and down with a rough surface of small & large gravel. Low level despair I would say. Compounded with nagging concern that this virus could get worse before it gets better.

But then I ran into a couple of cyclists getting coffee – they tell me ‘a long down-stretch then only one long up-stretch before a flat piece all the way to Brig.’ Mood lifts considerably!!

Distance covered really depends on factors like track surface and weather. On a fine day with a level tarmac track (& no illness), 80 – 90 kilometers seems about average. Today I have struggled on gravel to do 35!!

Relief to see Hotel du Pont for tonight, subconsciously in part, perhaps, since DuPont was where I worked for almost 10 years in the 80’s…a lifetime ago.

Hopes high for better health tomorrow!

Day 2

On the upside, cold symptoms much improved. On the downside, cycling today has been uneventful and scenery less than inspiring (“Mama said there’ll be days like these”). In Switzerland I generally expect the best. All the time. So it’s surprising when it’s just a little ordinary.

I think I’ve cycled through the Swiss underbelly so to speak, today…heavy industry – gas and oil refineries, mountainside quarrying, mineral processing plants, lots of gas stations and rotaries, grey industrio-suburbia. All the way along the valley of the Rhone west of Brig today. High Alps – Bernese Oberland – are in the distance to the north (I’m cycling west) and the mountains on either side of the river are steep-sided dark brown bare rock (sandstone?). Forbidding.

I’m cycling mostly on roads with traffic, sometimes heavy traffic. Trucks etc. on my left, barrier on my right. Grueling…I need to find more bike lanes!

Not so much of this…

But mostly this…

So this will be a short post. Better days ahead hopefully.

ADDENDUM

Snap decision yesterday in Sierre, a gloomy town. I know it’s only the third day but I’m skipping the next Swiss part of the trip – the French countryside is calling. I’m taking the train to Geneva! Can’t beat the Swiss SBB train system!

Days 3 and 4

Yesterday, to Geneva by train; today to a small town west of Geneva by bike.

I won’t say much about yesterday since this blog is really about the bike ride. Suffice it to say that Geneva was the choice because the Rhone re-emerges at Geneva (after entering the lake on the east side near Montreux). But I did have a short boat ride!

Well, I was hoping for a better cycling day and today was it! Leaving the city was a breeze, it being Saturday so no rush hour traffic. It took a good half hour on mostly well-kept, paved bike paths to get out of the city. There was no escaping it…between Geneva and Lyon are the Northern French Alps (or is it the southern Jura?) to get over (or through). There doesn’t appear to be a continuous path along the banks of the Rhone so I had two steep rises to climb today, a total elevation of about 1200 feet!

The day was split into two parts. First a relaxing ride (though with a headwind) through flat countryside, fields of cut corn alfalfa and sunflowers…

…on bike lanes separated from highway with guard rails (not like in Switzerland with the Swiss who, I sometimes think, regard cycling almost as some kind of contact sport!?😬)

The first part ended with coffee at a delightful village restaurant complete with patio & friendly French walkers with Australian Shepherd.

Then came the hard stuff! The 1200 feet! Coming down the other side it rained. Goretex overpants on. I have some trouble with the derailleur gears, the cable, I think, is loose. Nearest bike shop is closed, decide to soldier on tomorrow & hope for the best, find a bike shop on Monday morning.

I am exhausted. Oh, in my ‘peak experience’ or rather ‘sense of exhaustion’ on the climb I apparently hallucinate and see…a camel then three.

The circus is in town!!🐫🐫🎪.

So….the key to next two days is all about getting through the French Alps between here and Lyon. The river takes a circuitous route, cutting through gorges and mountains.

(Feel free to skip the following part if it’s getting tedious…) I had some thoughts about the trip in general – the planning and execution of it. I’ve written in a previous post about the biking part being the ‘easy’ part, it’s the logistics that gets you in the end. Every day is its own ‘expedition’ (well, let’s not elevate this too much, how about ‘expedition-lite’)? Each evening I plan the route for the following day – how far, where to stop, where to stay. The route is pretty critical, particularly if it’s hilly. My criterion for where to stay is simple – a small hotel, near the river, best with breakfast & on site restaurant, good rating. I get in touch with Chris / Ian / Derek, I write this blog. I set everything up for the next day – most of those 87 items of clothes / gear I usually unpack & then repack the next morning. Also take care of securing the bike somewhere safe…etc etc. And then there’s dinner…Next day, do it all over.

I’ll stop there…getting tired just thinking about it, ha! 🥱😴🫩

Days 5 and 6

‘I’ve been to the mountain. There are more suburbs…’- NH bumper sticker.

Actually, no. There are just more mountains. I’d imagined the Rhone to slip lazily out of Lake Geneva, meandering its way slowly down to the Med. Instead, west of the Geneva, it cuts a circuitous route through gorges, mountain ranges, with backwaters of caves and tunnels, hills and overhangs. It’s a land of extinct volcanoes – the Rhone seemingly twisting this way and that to get through.

Not easy cycling country at all in what’s known as the Auvergne Rhone-Alpes region. My pace has slowed and I’m thinking this is how it will be until I reach Lyon where the river turns south. This is very tough going.

While I wait for the bike repair shop to open tomorrow I’ve found I’m staying overnight on one of the mountain border towns where once Vichy France sat on one side of the river (my side) with the German Occupied Zone on the other. The Rhone is beautiful here, deep turquoise, town on one side, dense woods on the other. It’s actually possible, just, to imagine the intense battles that took place exactly here in 1940 when the French successfully defended their town (futile in the end, of course, since Vichy first conceded then collaborated).

There’s no historical museum here that I could find, just a few plaques along a wonderful, manicured riverwalk park. But there is a small memorial garden dedicated to the forty-six named Jewish residents who were taken.

The town itself is a rather gloomy hillside town, it’s a drizzly Sunday afternoon, my hotel reminiscent of a hotel I may have stumbled across in Turkey sometime in the 70s. Clean, adequate, but only just. And for dinner, no restaurants open on a Sunday. I make do with 2 tangerines and half a bar of Lindt chocolate.

Monday morning and I find the bike shop is closed! (I’ll manage.) I have an interesting cycling day ahead… first, about a 2000-foot climb – after that, downhill all the way. Mountains – I can handle in the mornings, no problem. It’s later in the day it gets to me. So I can do this one.

Up the mountain in heavy fast traffic with no guardrail (I do my Dustin Hoffman impression – “Hey, I’m cycling here, I’m cycling here!!) but finally it levels off on top…a bike track turns off and I’m suddenly in mountain top agriculture, wow!

The Surly is doing well (aside from the derailleur problem), a steady workhorse if ever there was one. I sometimes imagine it’s the bike doing this journey, I’m just along for the ride, all I have to do is pedal a bit. It’s the same way that a sailor personifies his boat, he just trims the sail every now and then. As an aside, I remember my father telling me how, when he was young, he would go ‘up the mountain’ in Wales to the pub on his horse. At the end of the night’s drinking it was just the horse who knew the way home in the pitch black.

I run into Two Swiss cyclists- twice! The second time we greet like old friends. They actually know someone that I know, believe it or not, the curator of the Hohner Harmonica museum in Germany. Wow! Onion Soup and tea.

I think – I hope – I’ve left the mountains behind. It’s been like I’ve had Sauron’s Black Riders following me, they’re called sickness, rain, mechanical problems, mountains, difficult track. As an antidote, almost accidentally, I find myself in a ritzy rural Wellness Center complex. Whew, as everyone knows, the French know how to enjoy life. (Am I in Provence already, will I ever want to leave?).

More later…

Days 7 and 8

As expected, tempted to hang out at the country resort (did I mention the exquisite food?) in the French countryside for another day. However, Clement here has done a fantastic repair job on the bike (thanks so much, Clement!), it’s time, reluctantly, to leave.

I’d been told at breakfast that there’s ‘nothing’ for 125kms from here to Lyon. This is how the conversation goes… “What do mean ‘nothing’?” “No, really, nothing, there’s nothing!”.

In a sense they were right…it’s been five hours of cycling and it’s been fields and hamlets and villages with just one campground restaurant for coffee the whole way! No little corner town cafe, not even a magasin to buy a bar of Lindt! Villages look prosperous but emptied out of people – are they now mostly for second homes and ‘weekend farmers’? Reminiscent of the many ‘emptied’ villages Chris & I saw in northern Spain all along the 500 miles of Camino we walked.

Tranquil, yes. Bucolic, yes. Quintessential French agricultural landscapes, yes. Endless views of trees in mist over deep blue river, yes. But, as Robert De Niro once said to Roger Federer (comparing the Alps at Davos to NYC), “Where’s the drama, man?”. Maybe it’s me, maybe I’m just coming down from all that pedaling!😬

Seriously, it’s fantastic here. The cycling conditions – cycleway track mostly – and then on minor country backroads. Climbed 1200 feet or so, but not too arduous since the climb was spread over the whole distance. Sauron’s horses of Nazgûl nowhere to be seen!

Did I mention that I continually meet people along the way who are just so unexpectedly sweet – more than helpful, just plain sweet. Really, it has been so incredibly touching, & the deeper you get into the countryside the more you see it. There’s a thing going around now about the whole notion of trust (The Economist has a piece on it – the universe of finance runs on it but it extends beyond finance). It surrounds us, we don’t even think about it but our everyday world runs on it, we miss it in amongst day-to-day life – life amongst gas stations, highways, supermarkets, malls, airports, etc. Turbulent times and we almost choose not see it. I must say, a trip like this brings it home to me. Not to belabor…the basic goodness of people, I see it.

I run into the Swiss cyclists from the hotel. Why are almost all the cyclists I see from Switzerland?? Quite remarkable! We are, long distance travelers, I realize, latter day descendants of all the wanderers that came before us – the itinerant day workers looking for a job and a place to sleep, themselves descendants of nomadic tribal people. What is it that drives so many to do long distance travel by foot or by bike (latest count of walkers to Santiago de Compostela is almost half a million a year!)? Not an accident that Switzerland, one of the richest countries on the planet, fields so many. It’s about ‘affirming life’, pure and simple. If you want to do the thought experiment, then consider, just for a moment, that this kind of travel is the norm (we were all once nomads) and that for most of us, modern life just got in the way of it.

ADDENDUM

I realize that we’ve sadly just lost not one but two giants in the world of environmental activism, Robert Redford and Jane Goodall…I see in this week’s Economist that the EU, the UK as well as the US, are now officially actively increasing, rather than decreasing, their carbon footprints. It’s clear that we can’t rely on political leaders to do the job. It’s up to figurehead activists like these two trailblazers to continue to speak out loudly, to influence the masses, to bring about grass roots change. We miss you RR and JG, RIP both.

Days 9 and 10

Thought for the day: “When I went to school they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment. I told them they didn’t understand life”. John Lennon

Today was a day of mist, mist on the river, mist through gorges, mist on hilltops…the temperature didn’t rise enough to burn it off. There was no rain but it was a clammy day all around.

Hard pedaling uphill on mostly quiet roads for half the morning then cruised down to stop for the night at mid afternoon.

Lyon is an easy day’s pedal now. Current plan is to hop on a train from Lyon to Valence which gives me four cycling days from Valance to Arles.

You need a Plan B on these kinds of trips… you can estimate ahead of time but then things get in the way – I take a relaxed attitude to it all now, not like before, so taking the train to make up time is a good idea and putting the bike on a train is my backup plan. It was the same on the 500-mile Camino de Santiago hike…twice during the month-long trek, we took a bus. Similarly, during the 10 summers of guiding kayaking trips I was often stuck in thick fog, sometimes a mile or two offshore…my Plan B (which I never used) was simply to paddle north where I knew we would safely reach the mainland. In general, you need a Plan B.

“I wouldn’t even tie up my shoelaces without a backup plan”. – Gene Hackman as Joe in ‘Heist’.

Today, the 10th cycling day, I reached Lyon – the last half an hour through the city which is amazingly well marked for bikes. Earlier this morning I followed meandering country lanes over hilly Hardyesque countryside, then down to a canal which feeds into the Rhone.

For three hours I was on cinder/gravel track, first through woods then along water all the way to the city. For company there’s Mark Knopfler keeping pace with me and the occasional couple out for a walk – with or without dogs – babies in carriages, intent fishermen on riverbanks…scenes for Guy de Maupassant short stories.

I passed an unusually designed bridge with a single angled support for suspension cables.

…then, finally, a Deux Chevaux!

Millions of these amazing vehicles were built in the middle of the last century. Cheap, reliable, built to last. I once sat in the back of one for three days from Bordeaux to Marrakech back when ‘kech was an outpost city. It’s a long story…

Tomorrow, on to Valence! French cuisine, as everybody French will tell you, is the best cuisine in the world. And Lyon is the gastronomical center of France. I guess it’s almost dinner time now…

Days 11 and 12

Valence. Considered the gateway to southern France, due in part to the fact it’s the northernmost limit for olive growing in France. 3-Star Michelin restaurants abound…the town is very ‘Provençal ’.

I would have expected to be wanting to wind down by now. But…the prospect of cycling the last four days through Provence…flat, fine weather, along the river …is a dream after those earlier days.

Mostly dedicated cycleway today along the Rhone or between the river and canals which run alongside, I’ve seen this along the Rhine where the river is diverted into canal systems, probably built originally for transport and now only used as feeders for crop irrigation and separated from the river by polders.

The route of the Via Rhona is mostly straightforward, though had me flummoxed once in a while, once sent me down ninety steps!!! and then later on a narrow path through a low tunnel. What are they thinking?

Under a bridge, came across some cool graffiti…

…but mostly I cycled through bucolic Provençale scenes of autumn crops, livestock…the light is changing, which of course is one reason why artists came here long before Provence was chic, before it became its own brand. Originally so named by the Romans as the first Roman province outside of Italy.

Feels like autumn but warm, not so many flowers, just these…

But lots of berries…

& fields of lavender…

I think I mentioned, buildings now are colored like the soil, various shades of ochre, terracotta tiled roofs and light tan walls. Desert sand is carried here on the wind but there are iron deposits here too, hence the color. It feels like a sub tropical environment even though it’s autumn. I can imagine in the summer it’s really hot, like N. Morocco.

For the first hour’s cycling I’ve got into the habit of listening to music on the bike, cycling along. I ditched Mark Knopfler for French & Spanish singers from 60’s & 70’s, more appropriate for sure. Easy pedaling now and cycleways vary from light gravel on paths through woods along canals to very smooth tarmac on country backroads. This makes a huge difference to my speed…on new tarmac I cruise at 12, 15mph, & on gravelly paths 6, 8mph. But who’s counting? Energy levels vary through the day, slower at first in the morning then pick up just before midday, a burst of energy mid afternoon. I’ve learned to respond to biological clocks that have their own rhythm.

I pass through villages that seem truly ‘lost in time’. Some side streets are old and narrow, streets between houses sloping to what was once a median drain – you see these traditional streets in Spanish villages, for example and we’ve seen them in many other countries. If I’m lucky I find a cafe/bar for coffee. Friendly.

I cross the river many times – the flow of the Rhone is controlled & it’s dammed for power in places.

Tomorrow.. on to Avignon!

Days 13 and 14

Today, the penultimate day!

And what a day it’s been – in terms of cycling conditions, ‘it was the best of days and the worst of days’. Dedicated cycleway path for the first three hours, good surface, wooden barriers on either side of the track, flat…my speed is an easy 12mph or more and (with the old heart rate well below my Zone 2 ‘sweet spot) I can pedal all day under these conditions, theoretically 100 miles a day. In practice, quite a bit less with stops for coffee, chatting with other cyclists, and track surface not always being ideal.

For much of the rest of day, alternating between good track and gravel, stones of various sizes…extreme, from broken tarmac and fine grit all the way to cobble stones…sometimes I thought I was cycling on a stream bed! Well, let’s say at least it was character building (hey, I’m past that age).

The Surly handled this kind of surface wonderfully. The Kevlar-lined tires did their job and held up well. It struck me early on that this part of the Via Rhona is definitely not built for road bikes with skinny tires and light frames. You need a steel-framed Surly or similar. Sure enough, I came across Amir A. from Texas who I’d stopped and chatted with a couple of days ago. He was with his wife on a 3-day ride to Avignon. Amir on his skinny tire road bike had popped a tube and was pushing the bike to the next village, hoping for a ride to Avignon. I felt very badly for them to have their cycle trip stalled.

Three times today the software I’m using sent me either to a dead end or the wrong way.

This part of Provence, it seems, is given over to energy production – hydro, solar thermal as well as photovoltaic. The river is extensively dammed and channeled into multiple canals and moving streams of water. I’ve seen all kinds of heavy construction going on all along the river for most of the day today. I think construction has interfered with the Via Rhona track, that’s what it seems to me. They’re ramping up green power production here, that’s for sure.

I’ve mentioned before, it feels sub-tropical almost, now. Leaving the hotel this morning I felt I was cycling through some Argentinian village in late winter…same styles and colors of buildings, same kind of light (same N-S latitude?), same kind of vegetation…

Coming over the bridge into Avignon at the end of the day was like cycling into a Woody Allen movie set. All day I’d been pedaling hard in relatively harsh ‘alien’ countryside, seeing only the occasional cyclist. Then, bang, right into their movie-set city.

Tomorrow, it’s Arles. 0r bust!

And tomorrow it’ll be over, I’ll deliver the bike to Philippe for shipping back to the US and I’ll be on my way to Zurich for the flight back to Boston.

Postscript

“The hardest thing is to look for a black cat in a darkened room. Especially when there’s no cat.’ – Confucius

I think the take-home memories I’ll have will be, firstly, of the so many individuals I met, who not only gave me a helping hand but were just plain kind – sweet, really – I felt that deeply the whole way. Secondly, this was a harder trip physically than I thought it would have been. More training would have helped, but those French Alps, wow, they almost got me. That said, the best part of every day was the loading of the panniers on the bike and the setting off in the mornings, those very first minutes. A bike is a wonderful machine, at those times you think you can cycle endlessly.

On my last night in Arles, I really did imagine that somehow I’d been given van Gogh’s old room! A small room on the top floor of an old hotel, reached by way of a winding staircase, it had a view over the rooftops of the old city. Yep (I’d convinced myself), he was here for sure!

It was the next morning, after I’d dropped off the bike with Philippe at Veloc’arles, that I found later that I’d walked past van Gogh’s actual four-roomed garret, though I didn’t know it at the time. It must have been a village back then, today a 30-minute walk from the center of the old town. So I never did stand where he’d stood.

Other things I didn’t do…I didn’t cycle the Furka Pass in the beginning. And I didn’t quite get to the Med at the end – there were still 40kms to go. But that was perfectly OK. This trip was never about a goal.

An aged restauranteur somewhere back a week or so ago asked me about my ride and it went something like this…”So what’s the goal?” “There is no goal.” “So you mean one day you just decide to get on your bike and you go?” “Huh-huh.” I wasn’t ever looking for something tangible.

Two Swiss women cyclists I ran into a few days ago said they were doing the ride “for the colors of autumn” and “for the fresh air”. Well said, both! That just about sums it up.

I’d followed the Rhone for most of its length. That was enough.

For now…