The Ride Details

Friday Evening

I departed from Bonn around 3:30 on Friday afternoon. My trip took me West towards Aachen and then through Liege, Belgium to the French border. The trip up to this point was rather bland. Nothing but highway and weekend traffic starting early. Plus, I have driven most of this route before, so it was nothing new. I was delayed by a few accidents, but that was about it.

Once I crossed into France, it was flat farm lands. The road was really nice, 2 - 3 lanes, and not a lot of traffic. What was really cool was that as you looked to the side, you would see villages off in the distance. Each one had a church steeple sticking up above it.

After a few stops for gas and to stretch, I arrived to the hotel just after 9:00. Now, I was trying to do this trip on a small budget (more on that not working later), so I found what looked like a half decent hotel for 40 Euros on the internet. I learned what budget is. The room was clean but there was no phone or soap or anything! It did have bunk beds though.

Saturday

I started Saturday relatively early. I wanted to get into Paris to take some pictures before it got too busy. I have been to Paris many times in the last 18 months, so the only purpose of the visit was to take some photos. The plan worked, I was able to get a photo in front of the Louvre, riding down the Champs Elysee, and in front of the Eiffel Tower. I was then out by 8 and on the road to Lyon.

The first 45 minutes out of Paris was mainly highway working through the city and suburbs. After that, it was mainly farms - wheat, corn and other plants for the next 1.5 hours. Then some of the real scenery started to pop up. The flat lands gave way to rolling hills and several Chateaus were visible right along the road. The really cool thing was that when something like that was visible, there was a huge brown road sign with the name and an arrow pointing in the direction you should look. After another hour, there were more rolling hills and the country side gave way to vineyards and cattle farms.

At about 1:00 I rolled into Dardilly, a suburb of Lyon and found the Harley Dealership. They had a group ride for their local Harley Owner's Group (H.O.G.) earlier and many of the bikes were still there. It was the largest group of Harley's I have seen since being here. The dealership itself was great. The inside was laid out and decorated just like a dealership in the States. In addition, the staff was wonderful. After buying a shirt, I pulled the bike around front to take a picture, they immediately ran out to take it for me and then went back in and brought out a locally branded lanyard as a gift for stopping. From there I went to a restaurant, B-52 Cafe. The name and outside looked like it would have American Diner type food. Looks can be deceiving. The menu was very French, but good.



From Lyon, I had about another 30 minutes on the highway before I got to the big payoff for the highway riding when the Alps came into view. I exited off of the highway in Grenoble and then worked my way to the bottom of Alpe D'Huez. Once I started the climb, it was about a 15 km ride with 180 degree switchbacks and 10 - 15% upgrade. It was amazing. Then at the top the navigation lead me over the other side. The ride down was even more amazing, the road was very narrow and there was not a sign of civilization around at all. For a moment I wondered if it was actually a road, but the view was great and, it was a road.



The side of Alpe D'Huez le Tour does not ride on!

Once down, I had a great ride along a nice winding road, until I got to a roadblock. Not an official one, but one caused by an oversized vehicle getting stuck in a tunnel. No officials were on scene yet, so who knew how long it would take. According to TomTom it was another 2.5 hours to Torino, so I decided to see if there was an option. The navi said 3 hours if I turned around and worked around another way, it seemed like a safe bet.

What ended up happening was going through another mountain pass, except the sun was going down and it was the middle of nowhere. The only light I had to see the narrow winding road was that of the bike. It was here I learned another benefit of the navi, it showed the layout of the road, so even though I could not see the sharp turns until I was on top of them, I saw them on the screen - really cool! Because of the technical ride, I stayed between 10 - 20 km/h for almost 15 km. It was actually rather exciting to be challenged like that and the time just flew by.

With all of the delays, I ended up arriving in Torino at about 10:00. I ended the night by going to a little restaurant and having a nice bowl of Linguine.

One last note on Saturday's ride, the French really put New Jersey to shame with Toll Roads. In total, I spent about 50 Euros on tolls. This included a 21.40 euro toll for going through the 12 km tunnel "Tunnel du Frejus". In the middle is where the sign was for crossing into Italy.

Sunday

After a long day on Saturday, I decided to skip some sightseeing and get a little extra rest. I headed out from the hotel (this one had a phone and shampoo) just before 10 and went into the historic district to take a few photos and mainly just ride around to see it. I was then on the road by 11 after gassing up.

It was only about an hour north of Torino when the Swiss Alps came into view. I would then spend most of the next 3 hours in them. The hardest part of this ride as well as the day before was not stopping every kilometer to take a photo. The scenery was breathtaking.

One of the great things about this ride was that the way into Switzerland was not a highway but good secondary roads that climbed about half way up the mountain before a tunnel (again, border crossing in the tunnel). This tunnel was awesome though, it was Tunnel du Grand St. Bernard. It was just as long as the other, but almost half the price.



Switzerland

Once exiting the tunnel the ground was very lush and the air was so fresh it was great. I worked my way down and found a place to have lunch. While here, I saw something I never expected to see, people wind surfing on a little lake in the middle of the Alps. For about another hour I worked my way out of the mountains. Along the way I passed a huge lake by Lausanne, Switzerland before heading north towards Basel. After this, there wasn't anything too exciting to see along the way. There were more farms and then city riding approaching Basel.

At about 4:00, I crossed into France again for about 10 km before crossing back into Germany for the final 400 km, arriving home at about 9:30.

Summary

After not doing a lot of riding since being here (work and back mainly), it was really great to get out on the road for so many kilometers. By the end of the day on Saturday, I was feeling more comfortable on the motorcycle than I think I have ever felt. Especially after tackling the mountain passes.

In the last few weeks I had debated not going on the ride, knowing that it was going to be a lot of time in the saddle and would take up an entire weekend. I am so glad I decided not to skip it. It was really amazing and very, very relaxing. The only bad part of the ride was the second half of the day on Sunday. Once I crossed into Germany, for a moment it felt good to be heading home. Then I realized there wasn't much there waiting for me, but they will be home soon enough.



Something I never thought I would see in the Swiss Alps!

The second half of the world

Ah! I know, I haven't posted in almost a month. It has been rather crazy since the last post. We picked up our daughter in Taipei and then traveled to the US with her. The days were a lot busier than expected and not much of anything got done that did not include feeding, chasing or cleaning a kid. If it wasn't one of those it was catching some rest.

Then, after the US, I completed my around the world trip and arrived in Frankfurt after a 5 hour delay in Philadelphia. I had about 4 hours to get home, unpack, repack and get back to Frankfurt for a 3 day meeting in Prague. I was then home for Saturday and most of Sunday and then back out again for 3 days in Paris, from where I just returned.

So, here are the stories you only get here...

After being in Taipei for a little less than a week, we learned we could leave 6 days early. Unfortunately all of the flights from Taipei to anywhere in the US were sold out until 4 days early. Even then, the flights that we could get had a 9 hour layover in Seattle before flying to Spokane. We thought about it a little bit and figured it was only a 5 hour drive with stops. So, when we checked in we convinced the ticket agent to only check our luggage to Seattle. She objected saying it would be a hassle to have to check it back in and get tickets again. I said, "I have two kids to take care of and 9 hours to kill. I am sure I can work it in. (he he he...)"

So we arrived in Seattle and hopped in a minivan. The first 2 hours of the ride were beautiful. The mountains and the lakes were just spectacular. The last 3 hours, flat baren, open and boring. It reminded me of driving across Indiana and Illinois on I-70.

Now, fast forward to this week. Most of you probably know I am a Jeckyll & Hyde when it comes to Paris. The tourism committee didn't decide to play off of the stereotype of the rude Parisien for no reason... For me, if I can avoid a lot of locals, I usually like it, but if I have to deal with a lot of them, well, my wife can fill you in on thosse phone calls.

The part I love is the food and the architecture. The buildings are just amazing! Well, this week I discovered a new way to see a lot of the city and quick. They have installed Velib', a network of a few thousand bicycles that you can rent really cheap and ride through the city. What you do is subscribe for a day 1 Euro($1.37) and then you take a bike from it's electronic lock with your pin code. Your ride it to another (or the same) station and put it in the electronic lock. The first half hour is free and then each half hour is another Euro.

So, at about 8:00 last night, a colleague and I picked up two bikes at Gare du Nord and then rode through the Opera, to the Louvre, along the Champs Elysee and then to the Eifell Tower to the 7th district. It was a great fall evening. A little cool, the smell of falling leaves, just nice. And some of the side streets that we rode through were just great. Buildings from when Napoleon was ruling.

Finally we locked them up and found a really good Japanese Resturant that had a great Sushi menu. I topped the night off with a taxi ride along the Sienne to get back to my hotel. The way the buildings were lit up and reflected off the river was great.