| Re: Road Cycling Routes (route discussions are on another thread)
Name: A Tale of Two Mountains - Cyclo Tour Lac Leman (Mountain Version) A challenging but amazing day of climbing in the Jura mountains. Note of importance: Though strictly this is a description of the route I did as part of the official Lac Leman tour for anyone who would like to do this event in the future, I will do my best to describe the route for someone else daring enough to do it as a unsupported personal ride but I am sure my directions will be far from perfect. as I had the privilege of orange signs and officials pointing me in the right direction and some of the roads especially the climb up Mollendruz may be hard to find except for the best map readers Area: Jura Mountains (near Lausanne) Date: Sunday, June 1 Length: 122 km Time: 4 to 6 hours ( the winner came in under 4 and the last place was much longer than 6 but I think it was on a mountain bike) Total Altitude climbed: 2,100 meters Difficulty: Medium-Hard Ascents: Col de Marchairuz (1450 meters) : Above Col de Mollendruz (1320 meters) Traffic: Non existent on some of the backroads, light on other roads, heavy in and out of Lausanne Transportation: Train to Lausanne Highlights: For me was the great hosts, and meeting some of the Lausanne EF crowd, but the race is well organized and the Jura mountains are beautiful Lowlights: If I was only 20 pounds lighter..... Description in Detail: Physically, it was the best of rides and it was the worst of rides. The day started out with the daunting threat of rain hanging over the Jura mountains. We watched as the flatlanders (definitely not flatliners) started on their speedy 180 kilometer rides around Lac Leman. About 150 hearty souls lined up at the start and we are off in 4 groups. The ride out of Lausanne was quite awe inspiring a pack of orange clad jerseys taking over the road with a lead motorcycle shooing early traffic out of the way. A lead peleton took off ahead but the rest of the pack seemed content to stay together (seems like all the 4 groups had come together) as a pack of more than 50 cyclists roared up the lake from Lausanne. The peloton flew along this stretch at about 35 kmph, along the lake, through some nice little lake side towns of Morges, St. Prex, Buchilion. Not much here but flatness, a few small hills, but mostly just pushing along and making sure I stayed in the peleton. After 28k, we went up the biggest hill of the ride so far, and turn at the sign for Bursinell and took a hard right and the climbing starts. We head into a small village of Bursinell and turn right and are slowly climbing through the beautiful vineyards, at this point the slower climbers (me, me, me) are shot out the back of the peloton very quickly and any sense of togetherness ends (as well as my illusions of being a kick ass cyclist ). We keep climbing, nothing to steep, but at steady 6 to 7% gradients through the vineyards. After about 200 meters of elevation, the road levels off and we are traveling along a road with cows on both sides, there are several kilometers of almost flat and a descent. This is the point where I am thinking I don’t want a descent because it just means I need to climb back up again. The climbs on this cyclotour are on the backroads not the major pass roads that most people from the area are familiar with. This makes the route description somewhat hard. At this stage, the official flagged us along a road (which to a cyclotourist would not be obvious) and the climbing starts again. Over the next about seven kilometers, we climb about 500 meters until the elevation is at 1230 meters. We now continue on a relatively flat road, a very small but well paved road with many many cows on all sides and beautiful scenery even for a cloudy day. I can’t imagine how beautiful it must be up here on a clear day (though the locals tell me this is a rare event). There is no traffic at all on this road, one or two local cow herders are traveling through checking out there flock but they stop to let you pass. The interesting thing for me was the cattle grates, at first it was a somewhat intimidating as I was afraid my tire might get stuck in the cracks but after awhile I took the mountain biker mentality that speed helps you over anything. This is relatively flat section that last for about 10km with maybe 100 meters of uphill, at this point I was starting to get a little cold as it was it was a little windy in this plains and my legs started to ache a little and mentally I just wanted to get the first climb over with, but this section seems to last forevetr. Finally, I saw the rest stop ahead, I was somewhat disappointed as there was no water left but I refilled my water bottles with the energy drink and which I was very sick of by the end of the day, no water to be found in Switzerland? Now, we had about 100 meters of climbing left to the summit, once again nothing to steep, maybe 6% and there it is, the descent down is on a much larger well traveled road, I cruise down the descent at a mild pace, as I am not a keen descender, the road has a few twists, but I did not want to push my luck as it was a little wet. We head down the descent and turn left , the descent has ended and we are on flat roads through the town of Berolle, through Mollens, a few small climbs through town and through Montricher, right after the town of Montricher the official is waving us to go left up a steep climb (not sure how one finds this road on their own). The cyclist who I had been slowly dragging in over the last 5k immediately stops and is telling me he has cramp in French, the road starts becoming staggeringly steep as we climb through the forest, rain drops are slowly dropping through the forest and it feels like I would imagine one would feel like cycling through the rain forest. The road feels super super steep, overall the average for the next 5 kilometers is at about 10% but there are definitely some steeper sections in the 15% and above range, funny thing is that after a 15% stretch, an 8% stretch feels almost flat I am spinning along at a slow pace but keeping the bike moving forward which is all I can ask for, this continues on and one, there is a lone cyclist ahead of me which I am slowly dragging in at my breath taking single digit pace, we climb on after about 400 meters of elevation over about 4 kilometers I finally catch up to the cyclist in front of me, in the meanwhile another cyclists sprints past us at about 10kmph. This section of the road is total hell but in a strange way I am enjoying it, maybe my sick side that enjoys the pain of uphill cycling at 84 kg's, I am just hoping that I won’t cramp. We reach a flatter section, I am discussing with my fellow cyclist I have now caught ( it doesn;t happen very often on a climb for me so I have to repeatedly mention it here out of pride) athat the worst is probably over and we should be out of the forest soon and suddenly another super steep section hits us, this must be almost 20% as I am fighting to keep my bike moving forward, every moment is a struggle to keep the legs turning, keep the legs turning, turn, turn, don;t stop , please don;t stop, legs listen, this goes on for 5 minutes, maybe 1 kilometer, if that. finally the road flattens out relatively to about 6% and then we go around a bend and we are out of the forest. I suddenly feel a sense of elation as I know the suffering will stop and that I have made it up this hell of a mountain pass (probably one of the hardest/steepest I have done in my life to date, especially with more than 1200 meters in my legs). We now drop down for a few kilometers and come to the second rest stop. We start down the descent of Mollendruz, this is a beautiful descent as the road has no technical turns, but is not that steep, I am flying (relatively down the descent). I am now pushing hard all the way to Lausanne, off the descent it is relatively flat all the way back to Lausanne, a few small hills but nothing that really hurts the legs. We drop down through Morges and head back towards Lausanne, I am now passing some of the riders from the around the Lac Leman round the lake tour. It is about 5 kilometers stretch along the lake, and there it is the finish line. I skid to a stop after almost ploughing over the official wating to cut off my timing chip. The end. The end. It was the end of another beautiful day on the bike. ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done, it is a far far better rest that I go to than I have ever known’ . Dickens words seem to have a different meaning to me as I kick back in the finish area and enjoy the rest of the day as cyclists stream in from their incredible tour of the Lakes and Mountains of Switzerland.
Last edited by dakman; 03.06.2008 at 09:42.
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