With rides to Annecy, Mont Revard and a few fast, flat rides to Chambéry, I’m starting to find some riding form. Just in time!
Now, I just need to keep riding and maybe start to add some mileage to my rides. I have some ideas!
First, I really needed to get to Lac d”Annecy (Annecy Lake). I’ve basically been to Annecy twice now this trip, but have yet to actually see the lake. I finally can ride there and not take any wrong turns, so that will help. It is a little tricky it turns out to get to the lake. Annecy is such a tourist city that there is always a lot of pedestrian traffic and market vendors between the Rue de Trois Fontaines and the lake. Had to do some walking through the heavier traffic areas, but finally got to the lake.
Most of the lake has a nice bike and pedestrian path that is well used. Today was no exception. It was crowded enough that I did not want to weave through the people walking around the area. I just wanted to find a bench to sit down and drink some water and eat some food before heading back. Plus, the day was starting to heat up. We were still in the middle of the heatwave it turns out. And I made it back to the hotel and did not even get off route. Practice makes perfect!
I wanted to take another day off, so the next day, I decided to go to Chambéry and do some errands. And by errands, I mean going to the bookstore and buy some new books to read. It turns out that since most of the television is in french, I tend to read a lot of books when I am not riding. The Decitre bookstore in town has an English Books section!
In order to get to Chambéry and not be all sweaty from riding, I wanted to figure out some form of public transportation in order to get there. I think there is a bus system that could get me there, but I decided to figure out the regional train system instead.
The Regional Trains. A simple, Convenient Way to Travel
The train station in Grésy-sur-Aix is only an 8 minute walk from the hotel . While it does not have much to offer in the way of customer service, it has a self serve ticketing system that was pretty easy to operate. A good thing too since when I say it did not have much for customer service, I actually mean none. The station is just a stopping point with no people who work there at all. But it was super convenient so this was going to be my public transpiration system of choice.
The train station in Chambéry did have customer service which was good. I would soon have to visit the ticketing office to make some reservations to get to Paris. This was how I was going to get to the Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris when I go to meet up with Steve. Also, the Chambéry train station had a pretty decent sandwich shop for lunch too. With a few new english language books in my backpack, I reversed the whole process and returned to the hotel. It turned out to be pretty easy.
Time to get another ride in. With todays ride, I would try to start trying to connect some of my previous rides into longer routes. I would attempt to link a ride out towards to Parc Regional Naturel des Bauges and then take a new route over to Annecy. The ride out to the parc was simple enough since I had ridden it often. I thought I would have to ride almost to Le Pont to take the road over to Lac d’Annecy, and then follow the bike path back to the Village of Annecy, and then back to the hotel. About 4 hours I estimated.
The road cutting over to Annecy was closer than I had remembered. It was a very beautiful road that was very pleasant to ride, and was very popular with other riders. But then, It popped out onto a very busy highway that did not go to the lake, but rather directly into town. This turned out to be a BAD decision to take that route, but I was able to get off the highway soon enough and then made my way back to Grésy-sur-Aix without any drama. But I would not be fooled by taking that route again. Nope!
The next ride would be another attempt to link previous rides into longer routes. Today, I would ride up to Trevignin, but instead of continuing on to Mont Revard, I would cut over toward Saint Félix via a road that first went through Le Montcel. I had never ridden this route, but I had previously seen a sign that I would follow. This is how I always manage to find trouble (and often get lost as well). The steep ride up to Trevignin went just fine, and actually, the ride over to Le Montcel was a nice ride as well. A very nice rural road with virtually no vehicle traffic. There was a nice sweeping descent down toward a village called Bassa and then the road over to Saint Félix. The road over to Saint Félix went through a very small village called Saint Ours. There was a VERY steep road leading to Saint Ours, but it wasn’t long.
I did come across a new sign on the way. EXTINCTION! I was hoping the something was lost in translation. And there was. It turns out that the sign was indicating the the local street lights would be turned off 11:00 PM until 6:00 AM. Whew. The was close.
After not getting “Extinct”, I followed the road down to Saint Félix and found a very beautiful, narrow, deserted road that looked closer to a pathway than a road. But nice for cycling, for sure. The rest of the ride was simple since I had ridded so often with my previous rides to Annecy.
Now, it was time to head to Paris. Some serious riding is just around the corner!